Race and the American Novel Part 2 Blog 4

            One issue brought up in Beloved is the dehumanization of African Americans. I think this happens in most novels about slavery including Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe writes, “It’s commonly supposed that the property interest is a sufficient guard in these cases. If people decide to ruin their own possessions, I don’t know what’s to be done. It seems the poor creature was a thief” (201, Stowe). Here St. Clare refers to slaves as property and creatures. He thinks since they are property you can treat them however you wish.

               Also, in The Lynching Claude McKay portrays acts of dehumanization. McKay says, “The woman thronged to look, but never a one/ Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue” (927, McKay). This woman felt no compassion towards the innocent man being lynched. She instead took interest in the cruelty and saw it as entertainment. It makes me wonder what it would take for this woman to feel sympathy. How different would she feel if it was a white person being lynched? The act of lynching dehumanizes the victim into a display for others’ enjoyment.

               An interesting aspect of Beloved is that it is not only whites dehumanizing African Americans, but also African Americans dehumanizing one another. I usually think of dehumanization in the case of white slave owners dehumanizing their slaves so they can mentally accept slaves as property and justify their actions, which is what St. Clare does in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Yet, in Beloved Paul D. says, “You got two feet, Sethe, not four” (194, Morrison). Paul D. is implying that Sethe’s actions in killing her baby was animal like. I think Paul D. is completely wrong, Sethe did not want her children to go through what she has endured as a slave so she killed her baby out of love. It was awful that she killed her baby, but at the same time it shows her “Too-thick love” (194, Morrison) as Paul D. describes it and I don’t think Paul D. can fully understand Sethe’s feelings towards her children.

               It’s interesting how many ways dehumanization is brought about and in so many different texts that we have discussed in class. In the article How Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’ is Taught in Schools Anna Clark says, “Teaching Beloved provokes a reckoning with literary complexity and the deranged American relationship with race” (3, Clark). Beloved is so different compared to Uncle Tom’s Cabin because it shows, as Clark says, “Deranged American relationships with race”. Beloved includes dysfunctional relationships with and without race being included. Where, Uncle Tom’s Cabin has unrealistically perfect characters. So, when Paul D. makes dehumanizing remarks to Sethe it adds to these mixed up relationships and ideas about race, which is much more realistic.

Works Cited:

Clark, Anna. "How Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' Is Taught in Schools." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 4 Oct. 2012. Web. 14 May 2015.

McKay, Claude. "The Lynching" 1919. 1865-present. Ed. Nina, Baym. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2013, 1463-1473. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 2 vols. 

Morrison, Toni. Beloved: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1987. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Ed. Elizabeth Ammons. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. Print.