Slow, lingering death lies in the daily carnage of body and spirit- not only of her own, but more so with Tom's. And so on that night, before Steven came and start his abusing spree of the mother and child, Julie prepared a special dinner for her and Tom. She and her son then devoured a delicious bowl of meatball soup, mixed with insecticide. In a matter of hours, the two were then lying on the floor and frothing on the mouth. Incidentally, a neighbor came in to give them a warning that Steven is in a very, very bad mood having been fired in his job, and that they should probably escape now to avoid being Steven's madness outlet. Yet when the neighbor saw the two bodies of Julie and Tom, she realized that they've found another means to escape Steven. Three years have passed since that incident. Julie was able to survive that night while Tom, her child didn't. Steven, after witnessing the two bodies of Julie and Tom, could not have cared less. He ran away and was never seen again. Julie ended in the mental asylum. Tom, as Julie would have wanted, finally bade goodbye to the bitter life he lived. A comparison of Beloved's themes and this essay on Julie, Tom, and Steven depicts slavery, love, and death. As shown in both stories, slavery is not a matter of being imprisoned or held in chains. Slavery is not only about a slave serving his or her master. It is more than that. "Slavery is not just an institution; it is a philosophy and mindset which is far-reaching in its consequences." (Homework Online, 2006) Slavery then transcends the act of abusing another person or a group of people. It attaches itself too much on a person that even if they might actually have been freed, they are actually still slaves of their painful pasts and memories. In the Beloved for instance, Sethe and Paul D's memories of being slaves continue...
The characters of Sethe and Julie also point out the fear that slavery instills. This fear then led to their killing of their own children in order to free them the cruelties of slavery. Love was also a theme on both stories that was depicted in an uncanny, seemingly twisted way. To kill someone is definitely not something normally shown as an act of Love. To end someone's life as an act of Love is really hard to comprehend. But uncommon it may seem, it also real. Julie and Sethe's love for their children actually show that to Love is to set someone free. If the life that they live here on earth is what keeps them under bondage and in an unyielding state of being used and controlled by someone else, then to love means to help them escape from all that. Lastly, Death is also present in both stories. Death is commonly depicted as an unfortunate undertaking. To die means to leave this world into something uncertain. To die means to leave your family, friends, career, and everything you've established here on earth. But as shown in the realizations of Julie and Sethe, death is actually both an ending and beginning. In their case, to kill their children meant ending their bitter lives here on earth, protecting them from future atrocities, and shielding them from the same torture and agony they have endured for years.
The narrative becomes key eyewitness testimony in the suffering of others. Memories of a more personal nature, such as of Offred's ex-husband and child, also permeate the present and affect identity construction. Although neither Morrison nor Atwood create novels of nostalgia, memory and nostalgia do go hand-in-hand. "Nostalgia," notes Greene, "is a powerful impulse that is by no means gender specific," (295). Nostalgia provides the emotionally uplifting links between past
"The best thing [Sethe] was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing -- the part of her that was clean" (250). She had been made to endure a lot which most slave women experienced during enslavement. They were brutally raped, used and beaten and often had to work as prostitutes. "I got close. I got close. To
Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood.... But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread....The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own. (Morrison, 198-199) The strong bond between Sethe and her children reflects
234). Her house was haunted by the angry spirit of Beloved, who resented being separated from her mother and buried in the ground (88-89). The other members of the community knew about her past and were terrified of her haunted home, and no one would associate with her. However, Paul D. reminded Sethe of her humanity. First, he exorcised the house of its baby ghost (22) and then he took
Sethe does not see death as such an opposing alternative compared to the life she remembers. Beloved, seen as the ghost-daughter, is returning back to her mother but she is doing so angry. She is angry for the same reasons as Sethe -- she missed out on the opportunity to be a daughter. Sethe can now take care of Beloved like she was supposed to before. Sethe sees her
Toni Morrison's Beloved Through the exquisitely penned prose and evocative storytelling weaved within her novel Beloved, author Toni Morrison manages to depict the spiritual damage inflicted on African-Americans throughout the darkest period in our nation's history. Rather than confine her penetrating perceptive abilities as a writer to the external conditions of slavery, Morrison delves deeply into personal experience and cultural heritage to expose the insidious internal consequences of human bondage
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