t of love for her children. The selfishness of Sethe's act lies in her refusal to accept personal responsibility for her baby's death. Sethe's motivation is dichotomous in that she displays her love by mercifully sparing her daughter from a horrific life, yet Sethe refuses to acknowledge that her show of mercy is also murder. Throughout Beloved, Sethe's character consistently displays the duplistic nature of her actions. Not long after Sethe's reunion with Paul D. she describes her reaction to School Teacher's arrival: "Oh, no. I wasn't going back there[Sweet Home]. I went to jail instead"(Morrison 42). Sethe's words suggest that she has made a moral stand by her refusal to allow herself and her children to be dragged back into the evil of slavery. From the beginning, it is clear that Sethe believes that her actions were morally justified. The peculiarity of her statement lies in her omission of the horrifying fact that her moral stand was based upon the murder of her child. By not even approaching the subject of her daughter's death, it is also made clear that Sethe has detached herself from the act. Even when Paul D. learns of what Sethe has done and confronts her with it, Sethe still skirts the reality of her past. Sethe describes her reasoning to Paul D., "... So when I got here, even before they let me get out of bed, I stitched her a little something from a piece of cloth Baby Suggs had. Well, all I'm saying is that's a selfish pleasure I never had before. I couldn't let all that go back to where it was, and I couldn't let her or any of em live under School Teacher. That was out"(163). Sethe's love for her children is apparent, yet she still shifts the burden of responsibility away from herself. She acknowledges that it was a "selfish pleasure" to make something for her daughter, yet Sethe refuses to admit any selfishness in her act of murder. She is indignant and frustrated with Paul D. confronting her: Sethe knew that the circle she was making around the room, him, the subject, would remain one. That she could never close in, pin it down for anybody who had to ask. If they didn't get it right off-- she could never explain. Because the truth was simple, not a long-drawn-out record of flowered shifts, tree cages, selfishness, ankle ropes and wells. Simple: she was squatting in the garden and when she saw them coming and recognized schoolteacher's hat, she heard wings. Little hummingbirds stuck their needle beaks right through her headcloth into her hair and beat their wings. And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them thought the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them"(163). Sethe's frustration is a product of her contradictory reasoning. She views her children as an extension of her life that needed to be protected, at any cost. Sethe's concept of loving and protecting her children becomes synonymous with her killing Beloved and attempting to kill the rest. Sethe can see no wrong here. Placing her children outside the horror of slavery, even if it meant taking their lives, was in her mind a justified act of love, nothing more. Ironically, it is Paul D. who reveals the contradictions that Sethe refuses to see in her own logic: "This here Sethe talked about love like any other woman; talked about baby clothes like any other woman, but what she meant could cleave the bone. This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw. This here Sethe didn't know where the world stopped and she began. Suddenly he saw what Stamp Paid wanted him to see: more important than what Sethe had done was what she had claimed. It scared him"(164). Paul D.'s character suggests that although the killing act might have been committed out of a irrational, hysterical, loving mother's need to "protect" her children, Sethe's "claim" that she was and is justifie

Some topics in this essay:
Baby Suggs, Toni Morrison, Paul D's, School Teacher, Hence Paul, Similarly Sethe, School Teacher's, Sweet Home, Beloved Sethe, Nonono Simple, baby suggs, sethe's character, left deal, love children, sethe refuses, home sweet home, sethe's motivation, sweet home, home sweet, sethe paul, suggs sethe, baby suggs sethe, sethe's words suggest, difficulty dealing past, sethe refuses own,