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constantly in a struggle to gain power or liberate themselves from the power of others. Those
who wish to free themselves from the control of others face a daunting challenge. In the novel
Beloved by Toni Morrison, each character has a distinct power struggle. The main character
Sethe is involved in a struggle to free herself from the clutches of Beloved, the ghost of her dead
daughter. Sethe wrestles with the concept of trying to get Beloved to accept her murder and
understand the reasons for Sethe’s actions. Sethe’s struggle to gain Beloved’s approval reveals
that she is arrogant because she wants others to empathize and appreciate her actions without
A major part of Sethe’s arrogance results from her denial of the past. When the reader is
introduced to Sethe in Chapter 1, it becomes evident that she tries to conceal her past by the way
that she only chooses to remember specific parts of Sweet Home. Her memory only allows her to
remember the positive and not the gruesome aspects of life at her former plantation. Sethe tells
how she only recalls certain aspects of her stay as Sweet Home: “It shamed her—remembering
the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys. Try as she might to make it otherwise, the
sycamores beat out the children every time and she could not forgive here memory for that” (7).
She uses this as a coping mechanism to deal with the horrific scars of her past. Sethe also uses
denial when she tries to explain what happened and why it happened to Beloved. In Sethe’s
mind, the murder was righteous, brave, and an act of love. Clearly, she is somewhat doubtful of
herself, because she still feels the need to explain. When Sethe thinks of how she will explain to
Beloved she says, “This is the first time I’m telling it and I’m telling it to you because it might
help explain something to you although I know you don’t need me to do it” (227). Shortly
afterward Sethe says, “I’ll explain to her, even thought I don’t have to” (236). Sethe’s stipulation
Jeremy Keeshin
Beloved: The Path from Arrogance to Destruction
in each of these quotes demonstrates the inconsistency of her character. Sethe’s paradox lies in
the fact that she believes that Beloved already fully understands, but she still feels the need to
explain her actions. Sethe subconsciously knows that Beloved does not understand, and that is
why she is trying to explain to her. However, she does not want to admit to herself the possibility
that there was a misunderstanding and that she could have been wrong, so she adds the condition
Another important aspect of Sethe’s arrogance is that it is brutal and unbending, and this
causes her act somewhat irrationally. Throughout the book Morrison builds up the idea of Sethe’s
iron will, but in contrast she also fosters the idea that her “love is too thick” (193). Sethe is the
“one who never looked away” when a man got stomped to death and the dog got slammed by the
baby ghost (14). She has seen the worst and dealt with the worst, and nothing fazes her anymore.
When she sees schoolteacher coming to take her and her children away, she acts swiftly once
again, and is not fazed. She seizes her children, knocks Howard and Buglar unconscious and
saws off the head of her baby Beloved. She does this all without even taking a second thought,
and she does it out of love. Sethe murders Beloved for her own good, but is too arrogant to
realize that she could have been wrong. In her mind she maintains the image that she was right
so she can continue living, but the idea of wrong flutters there as well, but cannot be admitted
publicly. Morrison tells the reader of Sethe’s brutal arrogance when she states, “This here Sethe
talked about safety with a handsaw” (193). This is the most powerful demonstration of her
arrogance. Depending on the way it is perceived, the murder can be viewed as the most selfish or
selfless action. However, her unremitting certainty seals it as selfish. She comes out of the shed
with her “head a bit too high” and her “back a little too straight” as a open display of her
sureness (179). Paul D labels the idea that was so appalling about the incident. Paul D realizes
Jeremy Keeshin
Beloved: The Path from Arrogance to Destruction
that “more important than what Sethe had done was what she claimed” (193). She claimed that,
no matter what, she thought she was right. Sethe’s arrogance was not in the killing, but in the
reaction to the killing. When Beloved tells Sethe she left her behind, she means that she left
Beloved, as the incarnation of self-doubt, behind. Morrison wants us to see from Sethe’s
Sethe’s motherly arrogance leads her to only want the best for her children. Because
Sethe had twenty-eight days of freedom and tasted its appeal and beauty in comparison to her
years as a slave, she decides that neither she nor her children can ever go back to slavery. Sethe
tells the extent to which she despises slavery when she says, “Oh, no. I wasn’t going back
there…. Any life but not that one” (50). Sethe is arrogant in the sense that she out of all the
slaves has the capability to love fully, while all of the others love a little, but safely. Sethe says to
Paul D, “Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all” (194). Paul D only loved a little, Baby
Suggs only loved a little, but Sethe loved fully and killed her child. Sethe wanted to make it up to
Beloved because she didn’t think she understood. She tried to “persuade Beloved, the one and
only person she felt she had to convince, that what she had done was right because it came from
true love” (296). She gave herself fully to Beloved to do her every chore. Morrison explains the
nature of the relationship: “A complaint from Beloved, an apology from Sethe” (283). However,
as Beloved asked for more, Sethe gave more, and it became a vicious circle that fully consumed
her life. The outcome of the struggle was that Sethe became weak, sick, and frail, while Beloved
enlarged. This reveals that Sethe was unsuccessful in her quest to become absolved of her sin, or
in her mind, her good deed, because she would not admit that she was wrong. Morrison tells the
reader, “Sethe pleaded for forgiveness,” but she never confessed a possibility of wrongdoing
(284). When Sethe fully devotes herself to Beloved, she leaves Denver behind: “The two of them
Jeremy Keeshin
Beloved: The Path from Arrogance to Destruction
cut Denver out of the games” (282). This flaw in Sethe’s motherhood was that in giving all of the
attention to Beloved, she could not properly raise Denver. For years, Sethe had already been
unable to raise Denver capably because they had set themselves in isolation.
Sethe’s arrogance magnified the rift between I24 and the community because her
decisions polarized the rest of the town. She had a bigoted moral code that only accepted those
who thought she was right. She did not have friends and was too stubborn to sacrifice a little of
her image to establish relations with the community. She was too worried about concealing and
ignoring her past to try and barely eke out a present, let alone a future. Baby Suggs had given her
the advice: “Think on it then lay it down,” but Sethe chose not to heed it (215). She set herself
apart from the community when she stole instead of waiting in line with the others: “She
despised herself for the pride that made pilfering better than standing in line at the window of the
general store with all the other Negroes” (225). Her murder of Beloved set her apart from the
community because no single person could relate to a woman who had killed her child and then
been proud of it. Ella demonstrates the communities dislike for Sethe when she says, “I ain’t got
Sethe’s character plays an important role in Morrison’s overall message in Beloved. The
reader learns from Sethe that a person who does not admit the wrongdoings of their past cannot
reconcile the problems of the present. Sethe wanted to be understood, but she created a barrier
between herself and the community by not reaching out to them when she was in need of help.
Morrison tells us to never be too sure of ourselves, even in the most drastic of situations because
overconfidence will lead to destruction. Morrison leaves the reader with the lesson that a person
must not be too arrogant to admit their faults and ask for help, or they will continue to struggle
Works Cited