Entry #3: The Twisted Love of a Mother

I read an essay by Terry Paul Caesar who read Beloved through a feminist lens just as I did. Caesar explored the relationship between mother and daughters and how it plays out between Sethe and Beloved. He as well explored what a mother is and what a daughter is and what they can do for each other. Caesar talks about how Sethe killed her baby to save both herself and her child. Sethe saved herself from the responsibility and the attachment of her baby because it felt like "slave work". Sethe saved her baby from having to go into slavery. At the time, black women eventually had their children taken away from them or sold and they usually didn't get to determine their child's future. Sethe wanted to control what happened to her children so she went to the extreme and ended the life of one of her kids.

After reading this essay I have found that reading through a certain lens results in multiple interpretations. I never thought of Sethe killing her baby as a way for her to save herself. The duty of a mother felt like slavery to her all over again. She had to clean, feed, and raise the child, and in some way that child was her owner. She belonged to that child and it was her responsibility to care for it. Reading this essay also allowed me to the relationship between Sethe and Beloved in a new way. Beloved has come back because she wants to kill Sethe. Beloved wants to get back at Sethe for everything she has put her through and hopes to show her misery in return. I can now see how a daughter can control her mother's life and affect the outcome of her future just as the mother can do to the daughter.