Psychological Reading about Motherhood

Reviewing Sandra Mayfield’s “Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Psychological Reading”, her perception of the common themes in Toni Morrison’s Beloved is very interesting. It is made apparent in the very first sentence of Mayfield’s critique of Beloved that Morrison conveys a sense of motherhood and what it takes to be a mother. Mayfield describes Sethe’s mother’s life while she was a slave, as though it was a burden being a slave and having a child on a slave plantation. During that time period, children of slaves were sold off in an auction by the plantation owners, and Sethe ended up at Sweet Home. Sethe’s limited memory of her mother was her unexpected encounter where “her mother showed her a mark under her left breast, a mark that would identify her in the event that her mother were hanged or burned.” She had experienced this interaction during the developmental stage of her childhood. With that, she would be “scarred” with the inevitability of living the life as a slave. Behavioral traits during the developmental stage are unstable, due to the fact that every possible interaction in one’s life can alter a person’s sense of reality and motives.

Peter S. and Justin X. by Chris Louie

Mayfield believes that the “horror of that event was always at the back of Sethe’s mind”, and that it has detrimental effects on Sethe’s psyche. In addition to that, “the psychological theories of the twentieth century would suggest that, for Sethe, the mother was associated with death”. “Death” does not necessarily represent the actual act of dying, but of remorse and melancholy.

Mayfield’s essay has shifted my focus more on the mentality of being a mother, and being haunted with the sour memories of her past at Sweet Home.  Living a life as a dedicated slave on Sweet Home, her aspirations for freedom were not based off of her own personal agenda, but for her children. Mayfield suggests that the role of Sethe’s existence seems to be questioned, as she continues to question her identity. Sethe’s “mysterious” past combined with her inability to remember her origins, suggests that her ambivalent nature was derived from these behavioral traits. While being a slave seems to be undermining her capability to achieve anything in life, Mayfield believes that Sethe seeks “to define herself as an individual, a faithful worker on the Garner plantation, but also as a woman who looked toward a future with her husband and her children.”