Violence, home, and community in Toni Morrison's 'Beloved.'

African American Review, Summer, 1999 by Nancy Jesser

For Mr. Garner the farm is a model of good "ownership." His policy of containment allows the slaves to exercise some selfhood, but by allowing this contained humanity, Garner's model farm places his slaves in a false position of community. He presents himself to the other white Kentuckians and to the white abolitionist Bodwins as an enlightened slaver - one who is not threatened by the manhood of his slaves and who patronizes them with his outstanding care. In fact, he flaunts this manhood: They are" 'men every one.' "He" 'bought em thataway, raised em thataway'" (10-11). The manhood of his slaves sets him apart from the other owners and makes Sweet Home a most valuable farm - "Mr. Garner acted like the world was a toy he was supposed to have fun with" (139). Yet not only does Garner pay the price for his fun - a small hole in his head (that is hinted to come from jealous and disgruntled neighbors) - but his toys pay the price for him. His vision is enterprising, and his property is worth more because of it; he gains more and better work from his slaves. By not allowing them off his property without his company, he guarantees that his manhood is reinforced by theirs and not rivaled: "Mr. Garner's order for them not to leave Sweet Home except in his company, was not so much because of the law, but the danger of men-bred slaves on the loose" (140-41), and "deferring to his slaves' opinions . . . [did] . . . not deprive him of authority or power" (125). In the end, this allowed manhood does not change the basic relationship of owned and owner.

Though the men of Sweet Home are allowed to "invent" and "defy," act without permission, "buy a mother, choose a horse or a wife, handle guns, even learn reading if they wanted to," they are allowed to do so only as Garner's property and within the bounds of his property: "One step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race" (125). The lesson is one bitterly learned by the slaves of Sweet Home. Paul D and Sethe learn that, despite the particular method of ownership that Garner employs, this kind of personhood lay in the hands of the "definers." Garner named them men because it served his purpose. Sixo, while he takes full advantage of whatever space and flexibility Garner offers, never mourns for him as anything other than a master. Halle learns to work within the Garner system and buys his mother out, and though he does what is necessary and possible within the context, he also understands that, in the final analysis, Garner, though "soft," speaks the same language as Schoolteacher. As they discuss their new master, Halle tells Sethe, "'It don't matter Sethe. What they say is the same. Loud or Soft'" (195).

The shift between masters is, however, fundamental in an understanding of how Sweet Home functions within the larger discourse of slavery. The transition between management styles, and from a logic of property to a logic of properties, is marked by Sixo's justification for stealing the shoat. Sixo has stolen and eaten a pig when Schoolteacher begins to restrict the diets of the slaves. He argues with Schoolteacher that, because he is Schoolteacher's property, eating the pig is improving that property, making it work the fields and the farm better. This answer is acknowledged as "clever," but its authority is denied: ". . . Schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined" (190). Not long after this scene, Sethe comes across the Schoolteacher instilling the lessons of properties in his pupils. He has the students divide and line up Sethe's human and animal characteristics. When Sethe learns from Mrs. Garner(2) the "definition" of the word characteristic, her unsettling interpretation is confirmed. According to Mrs. Gamer and Schoolteacher's lexicography, a characteristic is" 'a thing that's natural to a thing'" (195). Schoolteacher's questions are asked in order to naturalize his definitions. Schoolteacher describes a set of properties as "natural" and ascribes them to the disturbingly human bodies he has before him. The "experiment" the pupils/nephews perform on Sethe (which Schoolteacher condones) shows them playing out these contradictory descriptions on her body. She is the udder they drink from and the sexual body they work their pleasures on - adjusting her characteristics to whatever shape their fantasies demand. That is, the white schoolboys'/nephews' fantasies of "animal characteristics" are played out on Sethe's too-human body. Under Schoolteacher's tutelage, the pupils learn to turn people into animals. Property is property because of its assigned properties. Once the definitions are founded on what is" 'natural to a thing,' "they are not alienable, transformable, or escapable. There is no possibility of being bought out of slavery - there is no out, anymore. The only choice of escape left is to leave the boundaries of Sweet Home and pursue the "Magical North."