Beloved Toni Morrison’s, Beloved, is a complex narrative about the love between mothers and daughters, and the agony of guilt. “ It is the ultimate gesture of a loving mother. It is the outrageous claim of a slave.” These are the words, of Toni Morrison, used to describe the actions of Sethe, the central character in the novel. She, a former slave, chooses to kill her baby girl rather then let her live a life …showed first 75 words of 2355 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2355 total…and another 133 years of political abuse. When presented the notion that Sethe, not her children, is her own “best thing”, her reply takes form of a question, “Me? Me?”(273) Sethe has realized that she has loved her children too much, and herself not enough. WORKS CITED Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Maine: Thorndike, 1987. Louisiana Black Code of 1865 Hart, Albert Bushnell. Slavery and Abolition. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1906. Clinton, Catherine. Half Sisters of History. Duke University Press, 1994.