I don’t know about you, but I was totally
expecting for this scene to go as the rest of the book up to that point;
narrated in third person, told primarily from Sethe’s viewpoint. But this
chapter starts to sound different after a few paragraphs. We don’t hear any
names of familiar characters, instead, they’ve been replaced with the title
“crazy old n” and “and old n-woman with a flower in her hat. Crazy, too.”
As we transition to the shed scene, we realize
that these “crazy old n’s” are none other than Stamp Paid, the surrounding
black community’s pariah, and Baby Suggs, the ultimate maternal figure. It
angered me to realize that these men who stormed into Baby Suggs’ yard aren’t
going to give any of the residents there even a touch of decency. Since when is
Stamp Paid ‘crazy’? And Baby Suggs is the ultimate caretaker of all, not just
some crazy woman who wears flowers in her hat. She grows flowers just as she
grows children and mothers and life. As we came to realize, this section was
narrated from the viewpoints of the slave catcher and schoolteacher.
Given the context of the time, this isn’t the
most terrible shock, but it’s quite disturbing nonetheless. As kids we learned
about slavery and how bad it was and how Abraham Lincoln was a great man for
freeing the slaves but in our young age we never delved into the deep
psychological aspects of slavery. We didn’t comprehend that these white
semi-elite men truly believed that doing what they did was what was best and
religiously justified, nor did we comprehend the traumatic effects of being treated and viewed as nothing more than property.
What’s more disturbing is schoolteacher’s view
on the bigger situation at hand, as he realizes he won’t be taking Sethe and
her children back with him. He’s expecting to retrieve his property. Upon
seeing Sethe’s trauma-stricken “insane” state and Beloved’s dead body, he doesn’t
ponder over or sympathize with the horrific loss of life, he just sees it as a
teaching moment for his nephew. As if Sethe was some sort of tool that nephew
handled a bit too rough or too wrong and now doesn’t work properly. While Stamp
Paid is wrapping his head around the fact that he just saved Denver’s life and
Baby Suggs is retreating to her room to contemplate color, schoolteacher is
thinking, “snap, would’ve been a great catch. Oh well. Just gotta tell nephew
to do better next time.”
We didn’t expect it to be, but this was our
introduction to the pinnacle scene of the book, which is all the more
harrowing. The deeper and deeper we analyze the language and the context, the
more chilling it becomes how these psychological factors of race and inferiority
have become second nature to some characters. Truly, no one can write and yank
at your heartstrings like Toni Morrison.
In a strange way, schoolteacher's perspective made me sympathize even more with Sethe because his mindset was so disgusting and really highlighted just how awful slavery was. For that reason, Sethe's decision to attempt to save her children from the greater evil, slavery, made sense in such insane circumstances. Furthermore, my reaction was akin to "What the Hell?" The idea that schoolteacher was doing such sick and monstrous things is really awful to think about but it's something that's necessary in the discussion of slavery and the confrontation of the past.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think that without having this section being in schoolteacher's POV, I might have not understood as well why Sethe decided to do the actions she did. By seeing into schoolteacher's emotionless thought process, we can see why Sethe would have totally freaked out at the appearance of schoolteacher. By constructing this chapter this way, Morrison allows us to have the disgusted response that has us side with Sethe.
DeleteI also was shocked and horrified at the telling of this scene, but I'd also point out how terrifyingly chilling it is to read it in the four horsemen's point of views. We as readers can empathize, but in an odd way reading it from the perspective of character who absolutely do not, it takes the humanity out of the scene and leaves it stone cold. It almost made me as a reader stop empathizing as much. It seemed much less serious an action that it actually is. I guess that's the point though, to really get across how much the four horsemen see their slaves not as people but as livestock.
ReplyDeleteThe way Schoolteacher treats this entire situation feels like Morrison is designing a horror scene. First of all, the four horsemen are clearly a reference to pestilence, war famine, and death, obviously meant to be an ominous sign at the very least. The worst part of the scene is probably how Schoolteacher treats everything so analytically. To him everyone at 124 is just a resource, when he sees that the resource is no longer in good condition he just leaves it behind. What's even scarier is Sethe's deep understanding of Schoolteacher's perspective to the point where she instantly, almost subconsciously knows what to do when she sees that hat.
ReplyDeleteyeah morrison's amazing. Don't know how she manages to get inside so many heads and write believably from their views. I guess we'll never really know if she was accurate with some of her portrayals, but it's really good nonetheless. Not sure I want to know exactly how someone like schoolteacher would think. It was a very memorable chapter.
ReplyDeleteIt’s really interested to see how horrible Schoolteacher’s point of view is. He doesn’t even seem to view Sethe as an animal, only as an object. If she was even seen as an animal, he would’ve been at least slightly disturbed by the fact that a mother was still killing her child. But there’s no horror. The only emotion is slight disappointment, showing us that all he thinks of is Sethe’s monetary value. She means as much to him as a hammer or scythe. His complete lack of care or emotion is part of what makes this scene so horrible to me, as the reader is both forced to contemplate the horror of Sethe’s actions as well as Schoolteacher’s lack of reaction to them.
ReplyDeleteIdk about y'all but I found schoolteacher's view to be a fairly interesting addition to the novel. In school we've always learned that slavery and racism was bad and people who 'did slavery' were bad, so I never thought about how the slavemasters viewed their positions or their slaves; we were simply never taught about that stuff.
ReplyDeleteSchoolteacher's racist matter-of-fact perspective was something I can't really describe. He was so confident in waving off Suggs ans Stamp Paid as 'crazy' and didn't even think twice about it. He described everything as simply something that happened, he had no sympathy for the children or the mangled baby.
That was... something. ew.
I think that Schoolteacher's perspective is horrifying and disturbing, but necessary to give the reader enough emotional distance to handle such a graphic scene. As disgusting as it is to read his callous thoughts, it would be even more upsetting to see the scene from the perspective of someone who was emotionally invested in it.
ReplyDeleteSchoolteacher's view does a good job explicating the racially charged history of the N word. It is built up in the novel so much, that this critical moment in the novel through school teachers view truly drives home the horror of that word
ReplyDelete