For those of you that have (and even for those of you that have not yet) read Toni Morrison’s exquisite masterpiece Beloved, todays blog is about one of the more obscure themes that is touched on in the novel, that elusive understanding of self. Enjoy!

“I am that I am”. (Exodus 3:14) Short, concise and seemingly to
the point. Yet somehow it still remains frustratingly complex. This is
the response that the shepherd Moses received when he questioned
a burning bush as to its identity.

It seems that even the powers that be have a hard time defining the concept of self. Yet one can look at this brief phrase in one of two ways, the first being that the Lord is, simply because he is. In that his very existence is proof enough of a self. The second way that one can choose to view this statement is that God exist simply because He chose to do so.

These seemingly simple observations raise a couple of interesting questions. Do we need to choose in order to be? Or do we exist as a ‘self’ regardless of whether we choose or are given the chance to choose? And if our freedom to choose is taken away, can we still be considered a ‘self’? By implication then, is freedom necessary in order for us to be considered a ‘self’?

Now imagine being raised in a world where one was totally bereft of choice, unable to make decisions not because you are unable to but because another imposes their will on you. De-humanized through repeated humiliation and often-brutal beatings, slaves were more often that not devoid of the ‘self’. This inability to claim or develop a sense of self in the throes of slavery lends itself to the argument that freedom is essential to being a ‘self’.

“Anything bigger wouldn’t do. A woman, a child, a brother-a big
love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. He
knew exactly what she meant: to get a place where you could love
anything you chose-not to need permission for desire-well now, that
was freedom.”(Beloved 191)

In this extract from Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Paul D empathizes with Sethe’s battle to reclaim a shred of ‘self’ after years of considering herself another’s property devoid of freedom of choice. Now, granted Paul D is talking about choosing who and what to love, reading between the lines though one understands that he believes that true freedom lies in being able to choose. Choice being unattainable without freedom while freedom is necessary in order for one to choose. Intertwined it seems both concepts are.

This ties in to the following excerpt;
“I did it. I got us all out. Without Halle too. Up till then it was the
only thing that I ever did on my own. Decided.” (Beloved 190) In
this excerpt, the message I believe that Toni Morrison seeks to
bring across is the importance of freedom to choose. In the sense
that Sethe is explaining or trying to explain the depth of pride that
she felt at being free but more importantly the role she played in
attaining that freedom.

What ties it to our argument is that what comes through from Sethe is that one of the most important things that freedom granted her was choice.
“And it came off right, like it was supposed to. We was here. Each
and every one of my babies and me too. I birthed them and I got
em out and it wasn’ no accident. I did that. I had help, of course,
lots of that, but it was me doing it; me saying Go On and Now.
Me having to look out. Me using my own head.” (Beloved 190)
“I did it, I got us all out”.

Short sentences like this are used throughout the excerpt and give one the basis or background with which to understand the fierce pride that Sethe took in her ability to have saved her children from the horrors of Sweet Home. The fact that Sethe, of her own accord, made the decision to get her and hers out from under the yoke of slavery to a place where they had freedom of choice speaks to the depth of personal strength that she had. Now, this raises a question, if Sethe could find these depths of personal strength in the face of serious adversity, surely she had a self despite having grown up a slave?

She follows on to add though that:
“But it was more than that. It was a kind of selfishness I never
knew nothing about before. It felt good. Good and right. I was big,
Paul D, and deep and wide and when I stretched out my arms all
my children could get in between. I was that wide. Look like I loved
them more after I got here. Or maybe I couldn’t love em proper
in Kentucky because they wasn’t mine to love. But when I got
here, when I jumped down off that wagon – there wasn’t nobody
in the world I couldn’t love if I wanted to. You know what I mean?”
(Beloved 191)

In this part Sethe tries to bring across, to Paul D, the strength and empowerment that freedom to choose who to love and who not to granted her.

It also gives an insight into the motivation behind making the decision to kill her children rather than let them be taken back into slavery. In that, having tasted freedom and been given choice, she couldn’t stand by and let her children return to a place where this freedom of choice would be take away from them and thus destroying any chance they would have to develop a ‘self’. Her battle to escape the bounds of slavery had won her ownership over her own fate and that of her offspring, a concept that she is trying
to explain to a former slave in Paul D who like her experienced life on Sweet Home.

What ties this all in with our debate about what is necessary for one to develop a sense of “self” is that from the accounts of both Paul D and Sethe we find that even without freedom, Sethe was able to decide that she needed to make a break for freedom. This decision points to the existence of a self. But one can argue though that given the horrible circumstances that Sethe found herself in, maybe opting for freedom wasn’t really a choice.

So where does this leave us with the questions raised at the start of this debate? Well, from the evidence presented one is drawn inexorably to the conclusion that self can exist independent of freedom of choice. But as Paul D and Sethe attest to, freedom to choose strengthens ones feeling of self worth. Much like a teenager suffers through puberty in an angst-ridden attempt to discover who they truly are, the released slaves too had to endure a harrowing journey of self-discovery. But free or not, able to choose or forced
to accept another’s choices, one exists as a ‘self’.