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Motherhood And Family Life In Toni Morrison's Child

1385 Words6 Pages

Toni Morrison revealed that, motherhood and family life were nothing that could be taken for granted for the slave families were often divided when family members were sold and the female slaves were systematically abused both by other slaves and the white owners. Here, Sethe’s mother was never allowed to be a real mother as her owner did not allow her to stay with her daughter to love and nurse her, and she was hanged when Sethe was just a few years old.
Sethe wanted to claim her children as her own although she knew that a female slave did not have any legal rights over her children. Sethe’s motherly love became an overly possessive love towards her children. The killing of her daughter was the way to express this possessive love. So Sethe was possessed by the past and she did not even think of escaping from it. Sethe was trapped in a house with the ghost of her dead baby. She lived in her past and she never moved forward. Nothing can be changed because Sethe did not want anything to change. Paul D was trying to keep Sethe in the present and make a plan for the future but for Sethe, her past was her private possession. Even Paul D had no idea whether or not Sethe killed her daughter. It was a secret she held from Paul D.
“Schoolteacher found you?”
“Took a while, but he did. Finally.”
“And he didn’t take you back?”
“Oh, no. I wasn’t going back there. I don’t care who found who. Any life but not that one. I went to jail instead. Denver was just a baby so she went

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