What picture of racial violence do you get in Beloved ?

Before the civil war in America, the black African people were treated as personal property and were subjected to all kind of injustice and discrimination. Slavery and discrimination, for instance, have brought severe miseries to Afro-Americans such as being treated as animals, losing their human rights, and subjecting to violence. But the real victims were the black African women, as these women had no position in society and were living the most pathetic and humiliating life. 

Being a survivor of slavery, Baby Suggs has eight children but “four taken, four chased”. She spends her life working in the plantation and, when she is free from slavery, she decides to “lay it all down”. She preaches at “the Clearing” to other blacks but after seeing Sethe kill Beloved, she gives up. Her faith, her love, her imagination and her great big old heart began to collapse twenty-eight days after her daughter-in-law arrived. Other slaves have the same miserable experiences. Paul D has been put an iron bit in his mouth, chained together with forty-five slaves in Alfred, Georgia, and almost drowned in muddy water. 

Stamp Paid is forced to share his wife Vashti with the slave owner. Halle goes insane at Sweet Home because he witnesses Sethe, being abused by schoolteacher and his two nephews. Sethe, the protagonist at Beloved, is whipped at Sweet Home, leaving the tree-form scars on ner back. However, these miserable experiences, given their traumatic characteristics, cannot be assimilated into the character’s personal history. Being unable to be discharged, the traumatic experiences fix on the characters’ psychic lives and disturb them thereafter. 

In Beloved, at first, blacks are at the hands of white people and they are slave. They have not only “...been abused by white men...”, but also they begin to lose their humanity. Even, the black people aren’t given permission to learn writing and reading. It is clear that if blacks could write they should not be treated as animals”. The female characters in the novel, especially Baby Suggs is brave to mention the inhuman acts of white race in her community. “Those white things have taken all I had or dreamt,” she said, “and broke my heartstrings, too. There is no bad luck in the world but white folks”. Baby Suggs utterances help one to visualize the hardness of the black life in a racist surrounding. 

In most parts of the novel, the racist thoughts and attitudes are displayed vividly. Knowing the truth that Sethe has killed her own baby daughter, Paul D insists to look over the newspaper pages. “Stamp Paid reluctantly shows Paul D the clipping from the newspaper concerning Sethe’s crime. Even so, the very fact that he has kept the clipping is significant”. Both of these characters know that if a black’s face is seen on papers, there should be an unusual event, since black race is ignored even in newspapers. To white people, Sethe’s act is seen as a “...private story”. In addition to this, there is a mystery meaning under this news. “The newspaper is the product of white society”. There is also an implication that the reason of Sethe’s behaviour is white race.