Analysis of race and identity in Toni Morrison's Beloved

Slavery as Removing Humanity: Toni Morrison's Beloved

Set in the time of slavery, Toni Morrison's Beloved explores how the institution was not only physically abusive, but also emotionally and mentally damaging to those forced to endure a life of servitude. Slaves were treated as property and thus had their humanity ripped out of them under extreme circumstances. Slavery does not just lock up the body; it also locks up the mind so that even the individual cannot control their most inner thoughts and behaviors. In this sense, Morrison shows how slavery can be so damaging on a mental level as well as a physical one.

As an institution, slavery robs the individual of control over their own bodies and behaviors. Essentially, it removes their humanity and reduces them to the state of animals, rather than of rational human beings. They are treated as less than human and therefore internalize this treatment so that many come to believe it. The slaves cannot voice their own emotions because they have been removed from control over their own minds. The slaveholders do not care for the well being of their slaves and instead dehumanize them so that their voices do not matter. Baby Suggs expresses the sorrow of how horrible this feeling is when she states that "what you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leaveins instead. No, they don't love your mouth," (Morrison 104). In such an extreme situation, individuals loose their humanity and sense of self. It takes away the chance at living a normal life. Individuals cannot enjoy the simple joys of being human. Baby Suggs cannot be a true wife or mother, she is someone else's property and thus she has not part of herself to give to others.

Slavery takes away one's ability to control one's self. In this process, the inner sense of self is taken away as well. For example, Paul D. is so affected by his years of being controlled by others that he looses his grip on his own actions and behaviors. There is a point within the novel where he does not even know his own voice or when he is screaming. He hears the sound but is so far removed from controlling his actions that he is unsure if the screams he hears come from within him or outside from another individual. Sethe is another character who is so dehumanized that she internalizes this sense of self, reducing herself to something less than human because that is the only way she has ever been treated. Sethe cannot find her humanity and thus lives a lost and empty life. Her only hope is to see her children and their humanity restored by the fact they never had to endure slavery.