Jenna Podgorny

March 24, 2019

AP Literature
Ms. O’Keefe

Perspectives on Beloved

Beloved, ​by Toni Morrison, is based off of the case a Margaret Garner. Garner was a

runaway slave who decided to take the life of her child instead of letting them live a life of being

enslaved. Morrison was able to take this case and make it into an engaging story that had to deal

with issues, one of them being the cruelty of slavery. The story of ​Beloved​ explores the past of

Sethe’s, the main character, past, as well as the decisions she had to make and the struggles her

and her community had to face and how her past is now catching up to her when her dead

daughter, Beloved, has returned from the dead supposedly. All this being said, ​Beloved​ can be

connected to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 once Sethe’s crime of killing her child is revealed to

the audience.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, passed on September 18, 1850, was when masters were

able to capture slaves who had escaped to the free states and were able to use legal weapons as

well. This was a compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern

Free-Soilers. Sethe, who is based off of Margaret Garner, had escaped and safely made it to Ohio

where she then made the choice to choose death over slavery. In the Margaret Garner case it

states, “the resolve to die rather than submit to a life of degradation and bondage” which

emphasizes the cruelty of slavery. When Sethe was caught after running away with her family,

she made the choice to slit her baby daughter’s throat with a saw and tries to kill Denver, her
oldest daughter, as well, however she was stopped. After this dreadful event, School Teacher

decided he did not want Sethe anymore and she is sent to prison as Margaret Garner was.

Although the women had made it to free states, they were sent back to slavery once they were

released from jail according to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which states in section 1, “...in

respect to offenders for any crimes or offences against the United States, by arresting,

imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by the virtue of the thirty-third section of the act…”

This is important because it shows how the system of unjust to slaves whether they were in free

states or not. However, the Fugitive Slave Act can also connect to Frederick Douglas.

Frederick Douglas was a slave and became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which

sought to end the practice of slavery. In his narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick

Douglass, an American Slave, Douglas states, “Slavery has no rightful existence anywhere… I

never should have seen such a hell born enactment as the Fugitive Slave Law.” This is important

because it shows how Douglas saw slavery as something that was unjust/unlawful and believes

that it was not meant to exist in the world because it was not what God had intended. Douglas

connects with both Sethe and Margaret that way because he shares the same beliefs of the cruelty

of slavery as they do. Douglass also reflects and focuses on his past as a slave and how cruel his

life had become as did Sethe.

Was Sethe’s and Garner’s choice of taking the life of their baby ethical? In chapter 18 of

Beloved,​ Sethe claims that killing her child was an act of love and protection which is why her

child came back to her. When the topic of the Garner case began to spread, people both agreed
and disagreed with her choices. Taking it from a mother’s perspective, when you have a child

that is only a couple of months old, they cannot make their own decisions because their brain has

not developed and they do not have a conscious, the mother has the right to make the decision in

order to protect her child. Garner makes the same claim and both women have now made it clear

that they would much rather choose death than to have to suffer through slavery. This is

important because it emphasizes the dehumanizing factors of being enslaved and what it does to

someone.

Overall, Toni Morrison’s ​Beloved​ is an engaging story that connects to Margaret Garner,

the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as well as Frederick Douglass. The cruelty of slavery is very

important in each story and shows why slavery and this time period as a whole was unjust and

dehumanizing to those who did have to suffer and were enslaved. Lastly, issues like slavery,

such as human trafficking, still exist in the world today, yet, they are not talked about. We, the

people, have the power to start speaking up and are able to make a change for the better in

situations like these, and it should not be dragged out like slavery was.