Toni Morrisons Beloved explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation wrought

by slavery and racial discrimination, a devastation that continues to haunt those characters
who are former slaves even in freedom. The most dangerous of slaverys effects is its
negative impact on the former slaves senses of self, and the novel contains multiple
examples of self-alienation. Human beings were treated as sub humans and were also traded
as commodities whose worth could be expressed in dollars. Therefore, through the memories
and experiences of a wide variety of characters, Beloved presents the unthinkable cruelty of
slavery. This and more shall be seen as the essay unfolds.
First and foremost, Henderson, (2002) has it that the novel explores how slavery
dehumanizes slaves, treating them alternately as property and as animals. To a slave-owner
like Schoolteacher, African-American slaves are less than human, he thinks of them only in
terms of how much money they are worth, and talks of mating them as if they are animals.
Paul Ds experience of having an iron bit in his mouth quite literally reduces him to the status
of an animal. And Schoolteachers nephews at one point hold Sethe down and steal her breast
milk, treating her like a cow. This was a total disgrace to a human being who has wrights that
are supposed to be strictly followed and respected. However, this issue of human rights was
completely forgone since the African-American to whites were not human beings but rather a
group of animals whose worth could be decided by the slave owner just like what a farmer
does when selling a beast. Having stated this, one can note that slave victims suffered severe
traumatic experiences.
Slave-owners like Mr and Mrs Garner abuse their slaves and treat them as lesser beings.
According to Spargo, (2002), Slavery also breaks up family units, Sethe can hardly remember
her own mother and for slaves, this is the norm rather than an exception, as children are
routinely sold off to work far away from their families. Another important aspect of slavery in
the novel is the fact that its effects are felt even after individuals find freedom. After Sethe
and her family flee Sweet Home, slavery haunts them in numerous ways, whether through
painful memories, literal scars, or their former owner himself, who finds Sethe and attempts
to bring her and her children back to Sweet Home. Slavery is an institution so awful that
Sethe kills her own baby, and attempts to kill all her children, to save them from being
dragged back into it. Kubitschek, (1998) has it that Morrison made it appear that it was better
for a mother to kill her children rather than for her to let her children go through such
traumatic inhuman activities.

This also takes one back to the slave boat that brought the slaves to America when Sethes
mother killed all her children and is left with Sethe only emphasizing the extent to which this
slavery had on slaves. Hence, Sethe is now adopting that same technique. Nun also tells Sethe
that her mother was raped a number of times. Therefore, slave victims suffered severe
traumatic experiences.
Sethe is also treated as a subhuman. She once walked in on schoolteacher giving his pupils a
lesson on her animal characteristics. She, too, seems to be alienated from her and filled
with self-loathing. Thus, she sees the best part of herself as her children. Yet her children also
have volatile, unstable identities. Denver merges her identity with Beloveds, and Beloved
feels herself actually beginning to physically disintegrate. Keizer,(1999) puts it that Slavery
has also limited Baby Suggss self-conception by shattering her family and denying her the
opportunity to be a true wife, sister, daughter, or loving mother, thus slave victims suffered
severe traumatic experiences even after they find liberty.

Furthermore, Sethe regrets on her life and the lives of other slaves back at Sweet Home. She
explains here that those lives have generally been lived at the expense of other people that are
white slave owners. Phrases like, people were moved around like checkers shows how in
slavery, humans were treated like pieces on a chess board game, objects to be manipulated
rather than given real care or dignity. In this same vein, the following series of verbs are
presented in passive constructions: been hanged, got rented out, presents their lives as
subject to external forces rather than constituted by personal agency. When Sethe links this
passivity to the paternity of Baby Suggs children, she implies that the men Baby Suggs loved
were all taken away from her as part of that checkers game called the nastiness of life.
Hence, one can note the severe traumatic experiences that slave victims went through.
Furthermore, Bonnet,(2004) has it that Morrison also made use of metaphors like,
How come everybody run off from Sweet Home cant stop talking about it? Look like if it
was so sweet you would have stayed, entails that the home was not sweet as its name
suggests. The blacks had gained freedom but they are still succumbing even in the aftermath
at their own homes. Hence, this shows the extent of these traumatic experiences.

More so, some forms of slavery are elucidated on page (27-28 part 1, chapter 2),
Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadnt run off or been hanged, got rented
out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen or seized. So
Babys eight children had six fathers.
Human beings were loaned, bought, brought back, and mortgaged, just like loaves of bread.
Baby Suggs is given eight children with eight different men against her will. Hence, this
shows the extent of these traumatic experiences.
In a nutshell, Morrisons Beloved is a very sad Novel that is heavily equipped with slavery
caused by racial discrimination. Human beings are being treated as sub humans whose value
can be expressed in a few bank notes, stored up like maize in a granary and mortgaged like
loans.

Reference
Bonnet, M (2004). The law of the tree in beloved. New York. Vintage international.

Keixer, A (1999), Beloved: Ideologies in conflict. Green Word press.

Spargo, , M (1998), Ideologies in conflict. African American reviews.
Handerson, c, (2002), Scaring the black body. Colombian University.
SPARGO, R (2002), Scaring and the spectators of enslavement in Morrisons Beloved.