"Feel how it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how that feels. And if that don't get it, feel how it feels to be a colored woman roaming the roads with anything God made liable to jump on you. Feel that. (Beloved 67-68)" Th

ese are Sethe's words to Paul D that describe her feelings about the torture she received in the barn at the hands of Schoolteacher's boys. Her emotional and physical scars run deep because of the sexual violation and the beatings she took. Life on Sweet Home wasn't always a hell on earth though. Before Schoolteacher, she and the other Sweet Home men had a certain degree or respect. She was allowed to choose Halle out of the men to be her husband and was disheartened to learn there would be no ceremony for them. She had four children by him, one of which is killed. She shows a tremendous love for her children when she chooses to kill them as opposed to let Schoolteacher return them to slavery. After her escape with one daughter, Denver, she has an undying devotion to her and does a tough job of raising her and taking care of their home by herself with no help from a man. Living through all this and carrying the guilt of killing her daughter, when Beloved returns in the flesh, she takes her in and tries very hard to make up for the decision she felt she had to make. Toni Morrison uses Sethe's character to show all the hardships that a black woman in those times would have dealt with. The story of Aunt Betty depicts some of the hardships as well. At one point her master Mr. Kibbler, with a nail rod, beat her for telling her mistress that he hit her with the rod in the first place. But with Betty most slave owners in the area knew that if she was treated well she would work well, and if mistreated she was not a cooperative worker. It is amazing she wasn't killed for her stubbornness, but she wasn't. She was also a devoted wife. When she and Jerry were to be married she said she didn't want a white persons wedding, "forsaking all others, because I knew at any time our masters could compel us to break that promise. (Narrative 18)" She had two children whom she tried to love faithfully. Her daughter was, in contrast to Sethe's first daughter, sold away from her. Her son however, was able to stay with her throughout her time in slavery. In both of these stories the point of view of the story is told through the eyes of a woman, which in the fictional Beloved, Morrison uses all the horrors of a black woman through Sethe, whereas Aunt Betty's real life showed some of the trials of Sethe but not to the same degree.

Both Sethe and Aunt Betty have to come to grips with their past and the choices they made and the ones made for them. Once she and Denver were settled in Baby Suggs' house in Ohio, she decides that the future for her and her daughter was merely keeping the past at bay. But the reality of the past for her is alive in the spirit of her dead baby who haunts the house and won't allow peace for her, her daughter, or anyone who would visit them in the neighborhood. They ostracize her in town because they know of the haunting and of the choice she made in killing her baby girl. The arrival of Paul D not only rid the house of the ghost but also brought the arrival of the spirit of her daughter Beloved in the flesh. This is why Toni Morrison uses the word, "remem

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2091
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)