Andres Vazquez

5 March 2019

Ms. O’Keefe

AP Literature

Perspective Essay

“To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at Bay. The ‘better life’ she

believed she and Denver were living was simply not that other one” (Morrison 51). There is a

certain goal in everyone's life and the way you achieve that goal or desire depends on one's work

ethic. However, what would you do if you were stripped of that opportunity to live your life?

How about if you were seen as only property and not even a human being? If your morality and

way of thinking was not considered? Would you change or would your mind be overtaken with

pain? In ​Beloved​ by Toni Morrison, a woman named Sethe life was changed by the acts of

slavery. The future of her life was a matter of keeping her at Bay. Hope was changed from her

and she had to live every single day with the lingering pain of slavery and to the white man, she

did not matter. Baby Suggs even expressed that, “There is no bad luck in the world but

whitefolks.” The amount of hate that was expressed from blacks at the time was understandable

and more than reasonable. Slavery caused the victims to have new mindset and sometimes a lack

of hope. As Sethe expressed that the future is past the bay, that means that there is just something

they cannot reach at the moment.

Slavery was an issue to the people and the concept of slavery has been misinterpret for

many years to come. The issue of slavery has not been easy to teach in schools and discuss in
conversation. Despite that, Morrison contributes a bigger meaning to slavery. A dictionary

definition of a slave is a a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.

Morrison explains that conversation between a slave and owner was toxic and would hurt the

soul of a human: “ ‘Breakfast? Want some breakfast, nigger?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Hungry, nigger?’ ’Yes,

sir.’ ’Here you go.’ Occasionally, a kneeling man chose gunshot in his head as the price, maybe,

of taking a bit of foreskin with him to Jesus.” This demonstrates that Morrison uses dialogue to

show how much it affect the slave at the time. Religion was a hope for many slaves and she

makes the comparison that people would rather take a bullet then and bringing it to Jesus. Slaves

did not want to experience the pain so they would rather lose their life. Slavery made slaves

question their life and corrupted the mind of morality to them. They thought living with Jesus

would be a better solution then staying on the earth. Even Fredrick Douglas, a writing and slave

that experience hardship, explained that the things of the mind had change during the time of

slavery: “​Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound and

seen in every thing. It was very present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I

saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling

it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every

storm.” This demonstrates that slavery changed every part of a person including the mind, soul,

and even physical parts of a human.

How did slavery affect the decisions of these slaves? Would these slaves be justified in

their actions? Sethe killed her child because she did not want her child to experience slavery.

Slavery affected Sethe so much that it made her make the toughest decision of her life. When

Sethe explains to Paul D why she had done what she had done it was justifiable: “It ain't my job
to know what's worse. It's my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is

terrible. I did that" This demonstrates that the actions of killing her child was a force thing to do

in her mind. All in all, she was justified to do what she had done. For instance, Margaret Garner,

a slave, had done the same to her daughter. She did not get convicted of murder but convicted of

damage to property. Slavery was so corrupted that they did not even commit to murder but a

human being was considered a property. Property is like a house and slaves were compared to

those such things. This would corrupt ones soul and make less of themselves. Slavery made

every part of a human thing low of themselves and as a society they did the most corrupt thing in

American History.

Therefore, Morrison explained the effects of slavery and how it affect the mind, soul, and

decision making. Slavery had to be one of the most heartbreaking things to witness or be apart of

during that time. My heart goes out for all of that community and I hope that it never happens

again. Feeling pain is something that everyone goes through and to the point where you do not

have hope is crucial. Losing my best friend was the most dramatic event that happened in my

life. I went through pain where I did not have hope. Morrison showed me that through pain and

tribulation there can still be hope in the long run. Morrison explains that slavery affected the

wholeness of someone but at the end, there is hope in the future. However, morrison also showed

that the world is corrupted and can be heartless. Change is slow and always has been, but we can

keep pushing for a better future through pain.