Responding and Reflecting On Beloved #2

In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison I noticed multiple themes while analyzing the text through the Feminist Lens but one of the ones that most stood out to me was the topic of Masculinity. Since equality for genders is still an issue around the world today, I found it quite interesting how Morrison portrays this topic.

Men are usually suppose to be the one’s to claim a women. Morrison shows this idea that the men in the time Beloved takes place, needed to be claimed by someone else. The male role is swapped with the female role numerous times in the book, allowing all readers to see that the capability of a women is just as meaningful and powerful as a males.

The character of Sethe exposes this new way to view women’s capabilities when she slits her own daughter, Beloved’s, throat. The novel questions if there is such thing as masculinity, and men empowerment.

It says, “I looked at the back of her neck. She had a really small neck. I decided to break it. You know, like a twig- just snap it” (274). This short phrase shows how Sethe is the male character in this book. She is a character willing to do what it takes to voice her beliefs. SInce she was always a slave who was told what to do, she never had the chance to do what she wanted. Killing her own daughter because she thought she would be safer dead was a taste of her own freedom. As a free person, she was able to do whatever she felt like doing.

The male figure in the book of Beloved is switched with the female figure when it comes to Sethe. Toni Morrison does not follow traditional stereotype beliefs.

When analyzing this book through the feminist lens, I realized Toni Morrison herself was a feminist writer. She expressed her feminist views through the character of Sethe, where she showed that a women is just as capable of anything.