The Distortion of Right and Wrong

The Distortion of Right and Wrong

“Your love is too thick,” he said, thinking, That bitch is looking at me; she is right over my head looking down through the floor at me. “Too thick?” she said, thinking of the Clearing where Baby Suggs’ commands knocked the pods off horse chestnuts.  “Love is or it ain’t.  Think love ain’t love at all.”

“Yeah.  It didn’t work, did it? Did it work?” he asked.

“It worked,” she said.

“How? Your boys gone you don’t know where.  One girl dead, the other won’t leave the yard.  How did it work?”

“They ain’t at Sweet Home.  Schoolteacher ain’t got em.”

“Maybe there’s worse.”

“It ain’t my job to know what’s worse.  It’s my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible.  I did that.”

“What you did was wrong, Sethe.”

“I should have gone on back there? Taken my babies back there?”

“There could have been a way.  Some other way.”

“What way?”

“You got two feet, Sethe, not four,” he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet.  (194)

This passage embodies two people with similar experiences and influences, but different perspectives.  On one hand Paul D. is condemning Sethe for her act when Schoolteacher came to 124.  While on the other hand there is Sethe who is trying to justify her acts when Schoolteacher came to 124.  Both Paul D. and Sethe lived a big part of their life in Sweet Home, a part of their life that has undoubtedly shaped the people that they are.  Interesting enough, with both characters living in Sweet Home and having similar experiences, the outcomes of those experiences on them as people are very different in the situation.  This is evident in this argument between the two characters.  In this argument, although the debate is centered around Sethe’s actions the day Schoolteacher came, the true debate here is the debate of right and wrong, and through this we are able to see how each character’s decision has a basis in each other's scars from the past.

“They ain’t at Sweet Home.  Schoolteacher ain’t got em,” and in Sethe’s mind that is the worst scenario she knows.  With this in mind, Sethe tries to protect her kids from ever experiencing that way of life she experienced: even if that means going to the extreme of killing them.  It is in one sense ironic, but is in another sense a testament to all Sethe knows.  Sethe grew up in Sweet Home, and when she escaped she not only struggled to keep herself alive but the life of the baby inside of her.  The struggle of keeping herself alive and her baby, taught her to do everything she could to accomplish two things: escape Sweet Home and live.  Those two things became the purpose of her living.  It is evident in this passage when she says, “It’s my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible”.  So, in terms of the debate between right and wrong of hurting her children to prevent them from being taken to Sweet home, her perspective is clear in that the right thing was to keep her children away from the worst thing she knew.  

Paul D. had a much different experience after leaving Sweet Home.  Unlike Sethe, Paul D was sold to another slave master where then he was arrested for trying to murder the man.  Paul D was then able to escape jail with other Black prisoners.  This experience in its own explains why Paul D pictures what Sethe did as “wrong”.  Paul D, believes that, “there could have been a way.  Some other way”.  We can attribute this to Paul D’s past and the scars that came as a result of it.  Paul D has once experienced what it was like to try and kill someone and by using his belief of what Sethe did was wrong, it shows that Paul D’s past has taught him that murdering in any form is not the right course of action.  In addition, what this did was cement a right and wrong in the mind of Paul D.  

What this passage, in all, displays is the influence of both characters past and their impact on not only their actions but their beliefs and morals.