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April 09, 2007
Freedom in Death
This idea of obtaining freedom through death has been mentioned in Kindred and in class. We discussed whether killing oneself is a final act of control or is an action controlled by others. For me, I believe that committing suicide is your own choice, thus your own ultimate decision/control. How is this concept of having control relate to freedom? Plenty. Your sense of freedom, I believe, comes from your sense of control. If you believe that you have control of your own life, you seem to be in control. Thus, you are exerting your right to freedom when you decide to commit suicide.
This twisted idea of freedom is more complicated in Beloved than any other novels because in Beloved, Sethe does not kill herself to obtain freedom; she kills her daughter in the fear of losing freedom. Of course, she does it for her daughter, understanding that she, Sethe herself, cannot tolerate her children to live a life of bondage when they have tasted such richness in freedom. So, she kills Beloved, but what about Beloved? Isn't Sethe selfish when she decides to kill her without her consent? As young as Beloved was, Beloved may have wanted to live, even if she lived as a slave. In Sethe's sense of love, a love "too rich", Sethe took away Beloved's own sense of control. Now, does Beloved really free then? If her life is determined by someone else, isn't she under bondage again? Granted that she is too young to make rational decision, but this is a matter of life. Young as she was, I believe that she had the right to decide to live or die.
So, in her action to free her children, to protect them from bondage, Sethe may have thwarted her children's sense of freedom. That may be why her sons, Buglar and Howard, left the house. Living under Sethe was terrifying, not knowing when their freedom may be taken away by a mother who cared too much.
Posted by kimkyoun at April 9, 2007 08:18 PM