Emotional scars and traumas are chains that will always stay with an individual even though these may no longer be visible. These scars can be represented through real physical scars, or on a more psychological and emotional nature. This is the thematic background tackled within the film Beloved, as the main character suffers through her past experiences with slavery. Mother-child relationships are also tackled along with the issues of freedom and love. Love blurs the line between life and death wherein love is used as an excuse to free someone of misery through death.
Slavery is the biggest issue tackled within the film, as the main characters struggle with the adverse effects of escaping the predicament of being slaves. Racism and white supremacy has always been historically significant due to its treatment of colored people as savage and barbaric akin to animals. The business of slavery has only served to further this supremacy, leading to the people on the other spectrum with visible scars and emotional trauma with some even being put down for the most banal reasons. Although Sethe was able to escape slavery by running to a free state, the psychological scars and trauma from her past still haunts her even after 18 years. For her who was able to finally become free, she no longer wants to experience and have her children experience slavery, no matter what actions she may take to protect that freedom.
Love then, blurs the line of doing what an individual thinks best for someone else’s sake. Sethe, who was hunted down and found by her owner, was only able to escape through an act of absurdity: killing her own children to ensure their safety from slavery through death. Through disgust after having seen such an event conspire, the slave owner lets them go after stating that Sethe is an animal because of what she has done. Ironically, the white people demonstrate human compassion about the death of the children, but show no remorse over the very act of slavery which treats other people as animals. Throughout the film, this event will continue to haunt Sethe as the news of her killing her daughter becomes publicized. Despite not being killed or arrested for doing so, the people ostracize and treat Sethe with disdain. Various allusions are made of the trauma and the chains that bind Sethe’s psyche. These can be seen through her scars in the back, in the poltergeist and in Beloved’s return. Sethe, however shows no remorse and believes that she has done the right thing, for slavery is something that she will not let her children experience.
The film is a powerful presentation of the trauma and psychological effects brought about by slavery and the subsequent freedom from it. Due to slaves being treated poorly and as something lower than human beings, when they achieve freedom, some are unable to regain their self of being human. Beloved and Denver personifies the trauma of children who were “too young to have been put to work, but not too young to have suffered the atrocities of slavery (Cox 6). Although Denver was never a slave, the loss of self can be seen through her wherein she breaks down from being housebound all of the time. The house becomes a prison that chains her in the same way the emotional scars and trauma of a past slave does. Only through courage and confidence can one achieve and realize that what one wants and needs is actually within reach.
Works Cited
Cox, Aubrey. Two Decades of Terrible Twos: A Psychoanalytical Analysis of Beloved. English Department. Millikin University, 2007. Web. 27 May 2016.
