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.

             The strive for freedom is alive in both Sethe and in Aunt Betty. Sethe, her husband Halle, Paul D, and Sixo all have a plan to escape at one point in the story. When Halle doesn"t show up at the meeting place, Sethe goes back to see if something had happened and is caught by Schoolteacher and his boys.