Sethe's choice: 'Beloved' and the ethics of reading

Style, Summer, 1998 by James Phelan

The retrospective light of this passage illuminates Sethe's choice in the following ways: (1) It explains why the sight of schoolteacher at 124 Bluestone Rd. makes Sethe feel as if hummingbirds are sticking their "needle beaks" in her scalp. (2) In so doing, it provides further motivation for her instinctive response; having tasted freedom for herself and her children, how can she desire anything other than to put them all somewhere safe? (3) It shows how deeply racist schoolteacher's response to Sethe's rough choice is: her horrible actions do not cause him to think of her as a horse or a hound, but those terms provide the only way in which he can process the scene he witnesses. For these reasons, the retrospective light shines most brightly and most favorably on Sethe's telling. I will discuss the significance of this effect after looking at the second connection.

This connection involves Sethe and Paul D. In the very first chapter of the novel, Sethe tells Paul about how she came to get the "tree" on her back.

"Men don't know nothing much," said Paul D, tucking his pouch back into his vest pocket, "but they do know a suckling can't be away from its mother for long."

"Then they know what it's like to send your children off when your breasts are full."

"We was talking 'bout a tree, Sethe."

"After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk. That's what they came in there for. Held me down and took it. I told Mrs. Garner on cm. [. . .] Them boys found out I told on cm. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still."

"They used cowhide on you?"

"And they took my milk."

"They beat you and you was pregnant."

"And they took my milk!" (16-17)

Paul D's failure to understand that Sethe felt more violated by the white men's taking her milk than by their whipping her back shows that he does not understand what motherhood means to Sethe. His judgment that her "love is too thick" can be seen as a similar failure of understanding. Although Paul D knows the evils of slavery, he does not know what it is like to be both parent and slave, let alone both mother and slave. Reading Paul D's judgment of Sethe's choice in light of this earlier scene, we see that Morrison wants us to suspect his quick and sure negative response. Paul D is once again thinking like a man without children rather than like a mother.(7)

Since each connection works in its own way to support Sethe's narrative, we may be inclined to conclude that the weight of evidence now suggests that Morrison is directing us to endorse Sethe's view of her actions. But since neither connection actually addresses the recalcitrance Sethe's narrative encounters - the horror of child murder, the lack of true safety in her life - the better conclusion is that Morrison assumes that her harder task will be to maintain sympathy for Sethe once the events of August 1855 are revealed.

Consequences

In sum, I have been arguing that Morrison clearly designates some positions that we ought not occupy - Sethe deserves Paul D's harsh judgment; Sethe's own account should be endorsed - without positively establishing her own ethical assessment. As we have seen in the epigraph, Morrison incorporates this attitude into the narrative through the character of the wise Baby Suggs, a source of knowledge and wisdom throughout the novel: she is finally unable either to approve or condemn Sethe's choice. Unlike Baby Suggs, however, the responsible audience member can not simply withdraw from the ethical demands of the narrative and give his or her days over to the contemplation of color. Instead, we need to deal with the way Morrison requires us to recognize that Sethe's choice is somehow beyond the reach of standard ethical judgment - an action at once instinctive and unnatural, motivated by love but destructive to life. Consequently, the ethically irresponsible thing to do is to resolve the problem by reaching a clear and fixed judgment of Sethe's action. If other flesh and blood readers are at all like me, they are likely to find their judgments of Sethe fluctuating - sometimes the horror of the murder will dominate our consciousness, while at others Sethe's desperation, motivation, and purpose will make her choice seem, if not fully defensible, at least comprehensible.