Slaverys Destruction and the Scars That Create New...

Slaverys Destruction and the Scars that Create New Identities On a cold January night in 1856, eight Northern Kentucky slaves, including 22-year-old Margaret Garner and her four children, crossed the frozen Ohio River en route to Canada and freedom. The next morning, an armed posse of 11 white men, led by Garners master, Archibald Gaines, surrounded the Cincinnati house where the runaways were hiding. In the melee that followed, Garner murdered her two-year-old daughter and attempted to kill her remaining children. (Goodman) This is the true story behind the classic novel Beloved; a story that is filled with symbols, pain, and sorrow. Each character has their own particular baggage that they carry with them whether it is in the†¦show more content†¦When Sixo outsmarts schoolteacher he is physically beaten, to show him that definitions belong to the definers, not to the defined (Morrison, 190). This prompts the idea that communication is more than words in this instance; it is also the physical markings a person bears. He along with hi s two nephews serve to ruin the lives of the people they deem to be inferior. Whites in this novel choose to show their superiority through the scars they give the slaves. Never to be outdone, any act of intelligence shown by a slave other than his or her job will be followed by a beating of some sort, whether it be whipped, punched, or raped. One such instance that impacted three individuals was the rape and taking of Sethes milk. For Sethe it broke her momentarily, she felt as though she was an animal and that her self respect and dignity was stripped from her. In an instant she went from a woman who had some sense of self to a woman who felt worthless, like a puppet for whites to control and abuse as they pleased. This is the ultimate form of dehumanization in that all morals and feelings