Text: Beloved Toni Morrison
Critical Lens: Psychoanalytic Lens
“Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Psychological Reading” by Sandra Mayfield is written by an English professor from the University of Central Oklahoma. As such, this provides a very useful treatment of accuracy of Morrison’s work, including Beloved. Mayfield is very honest about the areas in which Beloved are useful in providing context about about motherhood.
Mayfield describes Morrison at her best as “defin[ing] an Africanist presence in the most unusual way.” This seems highly applicable to Beloved, which particularly explores issues of motherhood. This is, of course, mostly clearly seen through the character of Sethe, who is a black slave. The portrayal of Beloved as the supernatural in the novel is, indeed, very creepy and weird, exploring the ways in which she could have had the life she wanted. It seems almost to present the idea that Beloved is an entity who has come back to life in order to reclaim the life Sethe took away from her.
Mayfield claims that Sethe’s experiences with slavery has altered her viewpoints on motherhood, especially with her treatment towards Beloved. Beloved certainly presents the view that “blood is thicker than water,” and a mother’s unconditional love is stronger than most, if not all, bonds. At times, the story is critical of Sethe’s inability to let go of her children as a mother.
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