Shcapiro vs. Audsley

Critical Lens Analysis: Shcapiro vs. Audsley

In 'The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison's Beloved', Barbara Shcapiro writes about how, in Beloved, slavery leaves a permanent stain on a person's life and surroundings. She writes about Sethe and how, even though she was physically freed, her past of slavery leaves her mentally barred from ever feeling internal freedom. Shcapiro argues that not only is one's social environment imperative in developing self-awareness, but the principal moments of someone's life are irreversible. Therefore, there is more to internal independence than Sethe's present social environment; because she still feels the 'bonds' of various emotional and psychic consequences, she's not free. Shcapiro used a telling quote where Sethe said, "freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another" (chapter 9). She's insecure and in her role as a mother, Sethe feels she has a hole to be filled. Shcapiro says that Sethe's deprivation of a mother's love has led her to have an intense desire for something, to fill that gap, - she just doesn't know what - leading to the easy sex with Paul D on his first night at 124. 

My interpretation of Beloved, so far, is not too far from Shcapiro's. I believe that Sethe is not, and may not ever be, internally free.  She feels she is still searching for something, which is that sense of liberty. Having been through the slave experience as an African American woman, she has been repetitively robbed of an uninterrupted family, life, and security. In my previous post, I talked about Sethe's weakness to Paul D's attraction to her. This may perhaps stem from the subconscious need of appreciation and desire. Like Shcapiro says in her journal, Sethe may have an exaggeration of this need because of her background as a slave child of an ambiguous woman.