Sethe and Me

In the past two days the matter of how a reader viewing Sethe would change their opinion of her character as they learned more about her past became a fairly discussed matter. I think the best answer that I heard anyone give was a statement along the lines of "It's impossible for any of us to imagine what it would have been like for her, and thus any judgement we make won't be entirely fair." I certainly believe that there's no way for me to be able to to truly appreciate fully what it could have felt like for Sethe to want to take the lives of her children. In spite of this realization I do in fact have an opinion on how her history changes my perception of Sethe as a character. In my eyes her total conviction to protecting her children, and even her continued conviction to the belief that she did the right thing make me view her more and more as an incredibly strong human being.

Clearly the decision to kill your own child is an incredibly difficult one, and something that I think is extremely hard for people in our culture to justify or really understand. Disregarding whether or not I believe that Sethe made the right decision I can understand that the choice she made would not be something she could do without total conviction and belief that what she was doing was the best option. In addition to this the actual follow through of bringing yourself to really kill a child of yours would, in a sense, break most people. Not being a father myself, I certainly can't imagine what it would be like to kill my child, but even the thought of killing a loved one makes me uncomfortable, let alone what it might actually do to me to have to really follow through on that. In all honesty I'm not sure that I would be a strong enough willed person to be able to do it, yet Sethe doesn't even hesitate. She flies into action doing exactly what she believes she has to do to protect her children, even if that means doing something that I think most people can scarcely imagine doing. For me this makes me see her almost as an extremely strong and loving individual.

Even just considering the amount of strength I think I would have to take to do what Sethe did, I'm even further impressed with the way that she handles this immense burden over the next 18 years of her life. The most obvious way that her past comes back to haunt her is the way that she is treated by other people who know her only as a baby killer. For instance as Morrison describes their situation at the beginning of the book she says, "Outside a driver whipped his horse into the gallop local people felt necessary when they passed 124"(5). Even after eighteen years of being ostracized she hasn't given up on life, and continues to live and support her and her only child Denver. Even harder than being avoided by random people is what she has to deal with once Paul D discovers what her past has been like. Once he is told by Sethe what really happened he immediately decides that he can no longer be with her and has to leave. Many people are devastated by loved ones leaving them, especially for reasons caused by them, and worst of all when these are incidents in their past. In spite of this Sethe does not cave in to depression or despair, but just keeps on going and caring for her children. As she says "Those twenty-eight days of happiness has been followed by eighteen years of disapproval and solitary life[...] Every eighteen or twenty years her unlivable life would be interrupted by short-lived glory? Well, if that's the way it was-that's the way it was" (204). For me this exemplifies the most impressive aspect of Sethe's strength as a human being. Not only is she able to live with society ostracizing her, but she's able to live with herself.