Friday, April 27, 2018
Post-Traumatic Self Love
I think one of the more interesting themes in Beloved is the idea of self-love. Whenever someone experiences an intense trauma, in this case slavery and rape, it is very common for a victim to blame themselves. I think a lot of times this is because the victims tend to carry with them the scars, such as the tree that Sethe literally carries on her back. Those marks make it easy to resent you body for being unable to let go of these events, which can be a huge factor in hindering recovery. Baby Suggs tries to combat that association, which I think is an important and wonderful thing to do.
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I think that self-love and insecurity over one's own body are interesting themes as well. While Morrison may be suggesting that we should let go of traumatic events in order to recover for the future, I also understand Sethe's inability to forget about her trauma because of its severity and unforgettably horrible nature. Her life as a slave at Sweet Home, especially when schoolteacher's nephews took her milk and when schoolteacher divided her human and animal characteristics, will forever remain with her and taunt her, and I can't blame her for that.
I definitely agree that one of the larger themes in the novel is the notion of self love. Naturally, we see scares to be flaws and marks of indecency but Morison try’s to persuade the reader to possibly see those marks as a sign of perciverance. Morrison wants to stress that rather than feeling as if you’re flawed, you should battle ptsd with intense love.
I agree that self-love is one of Morrison’s most emphatic messages. Today’s society is starting to encourage self-love more, but it was probably quite a radical notion during the time Beloved is set. First of all, self-love is often interpreted as just being conceited, even now. Second of all, I feel like women especially have struggled with self-love due to unrealistic societal expectations. Of course, men have also had to combat such disturbing standards, but historically women have been made to feel inferior…keeping in mind that at the point this novel was written, women didn’t even have the vote nationwide and wouldn’t for several more decades. The fact that Baby Suggs is the one promoting this self-love is therefore all the more impressive. And finally, and most importantly, the people enforcing slavery worked pretty hard to shatter any notion of self-love for black people. Paul D and Sethe both have trouble letting people in. Paul D even notes that it’s dangerous for an “ex-slave woman” to love anything too much, especially her own children. I think that’s one of the reasons Morrison stresses the importance of self-love, because she sees racism continuing to dig its claws into people’s self-confidence and ability to truly love themselves.
Good point, Liz. Self-love is extremely difficult for someone to find in a society that has treated their ancestors as inferior for generations. This point really contributes to one of the greater themes of the novel: the psychological impacts of slavery. Slavery clearly caused severe physical impacts; however, arguably the institution's most profound impact was its emotional trauma. For my independent study essay, I wrote a lot about how this emotional trauma became generational and was almost inherited from parent to child. In my independent study book (The Color Purple), the main character saw her mother constantly abused and depressed and adopted her mother's disposition as a result. Again, how can someone love themselves when their ancestors haven't been able to for centuries? It's a terrible thought, and the emotional trauma caused by slavery continues to impact people even hundreds of years after the abolition of slavery.
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