Entry #5: Respect the Milk

"I'll tend her as no mother ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children. I never had to give it to nobody else--and the one time I did it was took from me--they held me down and took it. Milk that belonged to my baby. Nan had to nurse whitebabies and me too because Ma'am was in the rice. The little white babies got it first and I got what was left" (236).

While reading this passage through a feminist lens we can see the motherly nature of Sethe and how she cares for her children no matter what. At the end of the day her love for her children is strong. Sethe is a protective mother who wants nothing to happen to her babies. She wants them all to herself, allowing nobody to touch them or go near them except her. She wants to be fully dedicated to her children and care for them with everything she has. One thing she wants to make sure she can provide for them is her milk, even though her children are grown now and no longer need to drink the milk of their mother. The milk represents a connection between a mother and her baby and it develops a relationship between the two.

To learn more about the mother-baby bond through breast-feeding please read this TIME article.

Sethe also feels the need to do provide her children with her milk because of the guilt she feels from when she allowed men to drink from her breasts at Sweet Home. She was the only female slave at Sweet Home while there were several other men there. They always fought over who could have Sethe and wanted to use her for pleasure. One day two men drank from her breasts and that was the only time someone other than her children drank from her, "and the one time I did it was took from me." Women are often seen as a sex symbol and men only enjoy women for their body and the sexual pleasure they can get from them. Women can provide a lot more than sexual pleasure but that is often overlooked. This was true centuries ago when men were drinking from women's breasts and it is still true today when men go to clubs to have one night stands and use women simply for sex, never to talk to them again.