Deconstructing Motherhood: Reading the Black Mother, Sethe in Beloved

Abstract

The subjectivities of motherhood are deep secured in the narrative of Beloved. The narrative questions the subjectivity of motherhood, the centrality of motherhood, and the role of motherhood. Sethe is shown to have been questioned her motherhood several times in Beloved, giving way to Morrison to shape and reshape the figure of Sethe, portrayed as contradictory to the role of a traditional mother (one of a nourishment giver). The chapter will justify the question of motherly joys, to put it otherwise, the joys of motherhood. I would like to see the status of a black mother in Morrison’s Beloved. The story behind Morrison writing of memory and history because both plays incredulously in the interwoven narrative of the encounter of a slave, who commits infanticide, to give her child a new birth, that is free from the terrible atrocities and circumstances of a captivated life. Therefore, Morrison’s treatment of motherhood through Sethe is a journey which has been deconstructed by numerous parameters of a sexist and racist society, which is delved in the chapter very carefully.