ESSAY

I WOULD GIVE MY LIFE FOR MY CHILDREN BUT I WOULDN'T GIVE MYSELF

Essay

Introduction

The concept of feminism has been prevailing in the novels and stories of eighteenth and nineteenth century. The same aspect has been focused on in the novels "Awakening" by Kate Chopin and in “Beloved” composed by Toni Morrison. The situations presented in each of the novels included the behaviors and attitudes of feminine towards their kids and family in different context and a total opposite way.

Discussion

Themes involving emotions abound in Beloved: the rage and fear of slavery, the pain of disintegrated families, and the despair of murdering one's children rather than allowing them to endure slavery. Most of the emotions are tied to social and political issues of slavery or to male-female relations. (Lynda, 2000) Moreover, the novel is important for its demonstration of the concern that slave mothers had for the welfare of their children. Sethe, one of the major characters, determines to kill all of her children rather than allow them to be returned to a life of slavery. Thus, Sethe struggles to reach Ohio, and her children, at any costs. The novel is an attempt to understand the forces, historical and personal, that have caused Sethe to murder her daughter rather than allow her to experience the horrors of slavery. The horror of the slave past is shown as a haunting, evidenced by the appearance of the baby ghost and the manifestation of the fully grown Beloved. (Valentine, 2007)

Beloved is based on an actual incident that occurred in 1856 when a fugitive slave woman killed her child when they were caught. Reconstructing this incident, Morrison tries to understand the intention of the mother's action. The novel focuses on a protagonist who kills her child and alienates herself from her world, and it shows ...