Sacrifice

I thoroughly enjoyed Toni Morrison's novel Beloved because it allows us to feel what the years after the civil war were like for African-Americans mothers in this country. I read this novel with the goal of trying to gain a broader understanding of the reconstruction period as the storyline is based of an actual event first documented in the 1850s.  Margaret Gardner was an African-American woman who attempted to kill all her children after she was about to be re-enslaved. I was shocked to read that the events taking place in Beloved were happening all across the country during this time. Many black mothers were killing their young children to avoid seeing them go through slavery. Not something I had read or heard about in a history class. The novel gives us a unique perspective as we see how difficult it is for Sethe to cut the throat of her infant daughter who she calls "dearly Beloved". Sethe is forced to live with herself and her actions as the ghost of her daughter is present at 124 Bluestone Road for the next 18 years.

Learning about these sorts of things in history can only give someone a surface level understanding of what slave women faced. In a novel with real characters, it becomes more powerful and we see the lasting impact certain decisions have. The novel asks pressing questions about a mother's love and her boundaries and limitations. Many black mothers in this country with children around this time probably had to contemplate these things. However, these questions are not bounded by time and place. On a much smaller scale, parents make sacrifices for their children all the time so that their children don't have to suffer or live a harder life. On page 163, Sethe says "I couldn't let all that go back to where it was, and I couldn't let her nor any of them live under schoolteacher". She wants what is best for her child and is willing to do something that may make it tough for her to live with herself. On page 165, she says "I stopped him...I took my babies and put them where they would be safe. It is my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible. I did that". 

Source: The Women's Review of Books, Vol. 5, No. 6 (Mar., 1988), pp. 4-5