Motherhood and slavery Essay Example for Free

Motherhood and slavery Essay As a capable black woman and as a mother, Sethe feels obligated to provide Beloved, whether her daughter or not, a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it (Beloved 67-68). Therefore, her job as mother, as caretaker, as life-giver and life-maintainer is never-ending, and because it is never-ending, it has the potential to take her to her grave. Beyond that, Sethe fears losing Beloved before she can make her understand that worse than killing her own daughter, —far worse—was what Baby Suggs died of what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what made Paul D tremble. (Beloved 251). Although not entirely true, for Sethes best thing is herself, the one thing about herself that she values, that slavery has not taken away from her is motherhood. This, for Sethe, is maintaining a mental survival for her children, preventive medicine for the ills of slavery. As Kubitschek notes, On the plantations black womens nurturance—from the physical (nursing milk) to the metaphysical (energy and patience)—is used up primarily in working fields and tending white children (166). But for Sethe, who was able to have her children with her, the major means of protecting children from slavery is to value them and to communicate this value to them (Kubitschek 166). This is a sacrifice Sethe and many mothers, traditional and nontraditional, are more than willing to make. This becomes especially painful in part two of the novel. When Sethe thinks about Beloved and her own actions, she says she will explain it all to Beloved, reflecting, How if I hadnt killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her Ill tend her as no mother ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children (Beloved 200). Here we can see transforming and destereotyping potential of Sethes actions. She goes on thinking of how she will change, how she can mother now as a free woman. In this case, it is as if Sethe must be a nontraditional, unstereotypical mother in order to accomplish the traditional mothering role she wants to attain. She also reflects on her faults when Beloved returns, how she was distracted by Paul D and should not have been. But it is at this point that she demonstrates the difference between man and woman, between father and mother. Kubitschek argues that In the twilight area of an illegal freedom, Sethe has immediately, upon being summoned back to slavery, acted on a slave definition of mothering: presence is all (167). Being together, even if dead together, was enough. Presence is all. Lucille Fultz cites Marsha Darlings interview with Morrison in which Morrison asserts: Under the theatrical conditions of slavery, if you made that claim that you are the mother of these children you were claiming the right to say something about what happens to them. Morrison terms Sethes commitment to her children an excess of maternal feeling, a total surrender. This surrender is configured in Sethes desire to protect her daughter from the ills she suffered as a female slave. (40) Sethe takes her protection of her children one step further. Fultz contends that Through desire and knowledge Sethe achieves subjectivity for herself and her children. She refuses to subscribe to the system that treats her and her family as objects (38). She especially needs to make up to Beloved, perhaps because she killed her, or perhaps because the death separated them as Sethe had been separated from her own maam. Kubitschek asserts, Still defining motherhood as keeping her children with her, Sethe cannot reject the ghosts presence (167). Perhaps it is more a loss of a time component than the actual murder component that Sethe regrets. Thus, because she spent so little time with her own mother, she must spend as much time with her daughters as possible, which leads to their month of playing together. Morrison visually paints their month, noting the star-loaded sky, sweet milk, string puzzles in afternoon light, shadow pictures in the gloaming, a garden of vegetables and flowers (Beloved 240). All of this serves Sethes purpose until Beloved decides it is not enough, and Denver realizes that her mother could die and leave them both and what would Beloved do then? (Beloved 243). Beloved has no life of her own, no name, and never did. She was never called anything but the crawling already? girl and Beloved as her gravestone marked her. Not a name to cling to. Morrison tells us that Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name (Beloved 274) because she is a representation of life, many lives, but does not get the opportunity to live her own. She can be the woman during the Middle Passage; she can be the woman in slavery; she can be the woman who escaped slavery; and she is all of these. She embodies each and every woman of the African American motherline and is also linked to Sethes own mother who, like the murdered granddaughter, remains nameless (OReilly 86, 87). But as a result, she is never herself. Morrison poetically crosses three generations of women, who learn and demonstrate survival skills, in a very matriarchally religious trinity—mother: Sethes mother; daughters: Sethe and eventually Denver; and holy ghost: Beloved. Each fights for survival of herself, and of future generations through different means. Sethes mother rebels and is hanged, but impresses upon her daughter what truly matters—the self and a sense of connection with ones own matrilineal line. Sethe escapes slavery with her children and is willing to kill them so that they may survive maintaining their natural selves. Beloved is reincarnated. This is her survival, but it also leads to Denvers ability to survive on her own, which further protects and preserves the potential for future generations. Essentially, all these women can fight for survival at this point in the novel because there is a sense of belonging, of necessity. Sethe gives herself inherence when she places complete necessity on herself for the responsibility of her children. Morrison describes Sethe as a free woman, as a free mother, writing, Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another (Beloved 95). But that is what Sethe is able to do. In the Clearing, she claims herself. At this point, she is finally able to attach herself to the self that she can create. As a result, she can also, hi her mother role, help begin to claim selfhood for those around her. Thus, she returned to 124, opened the door, walked in and locked it tight behind her and when Sethe locked the door, the women inside were free at last to be what they liked, see whatever they saw and say whatever was on their minds (Beloved 198, 199). This is all part of Sethes role as mother. She defends others, her own girls especially, with her whole body, her whole home. Yet, the one thing she does not immediately understand or establish for herself, until Paul D makes her realize it, is that Beloved, her crawling already?girl, was not her best thing. Sethe is a woman destined for survival early on because of the actions she takes and the decisions she makes as a mother, but she cannot see her personal value beyond powerful motherhood until the end, when she is a free woman: free of slavery, free of Beloved, beginning to be free of the past, free of the blame of murdering her daughter to save her, and free of the blame of making the ink schoolteacher used to assess their animal characteristics and measurements (Beloved 271). Then and only then does she fully comprehend the destereotyped notion of best thing as herself. Redefining motherhood for herself, Sethe also redefines the foundation of humanity. By making her character commit that horrible act, Toni Morrison asks her reader: is the inhumanity in Sethe’s killing of the baby or is it in the horrible system that drives her to commit this act? Playing with the reader’s mind, Morrison dislocates scenes of the slaves’ beating that are prevalent in narratives of slavery. For the image of the master holding the stick, she substitutes that of the slave committing a violent act on her own child. From now on the slave is given the opportunity to have a voice. Why murder her baby? With this infanticide, Sethe’s writing of history undermines the ideology that founded the white masters. This ideology, based on a racial and gendered duality, locates humanity within the white race. It is this vision and appropriation of humanity that Morrison attacks. If humanity lies in the empowerment of the white man who engages in a violent exploitation of the non-white, driving the latter to kill her child, where does inhumanity stand?

Father Son Relationship in The Black Pearl :: essays research papers

The Black Pearl A young boy reveals his innersole with his father on a journey. He becomes a stripling. The young boy wants to go out to sea with the men. He's an open boy towards the sea and is very understandable and doesn't dread everyday to be horrible because she's on a boat. Daniel has always dreamed of going to sea. He?s always wanted to sail across it and be in it's vast blue. So when he hears of her fathers plan to go sailing to England on a ship, to go pearl hunting, he just has to go. At first he was reluctant to let him go, considering he was a new time sailor to the family he would be the only young child aboard. Eventually they were talked into letting him come a long. The ship was fairly old and needed to have a lot of work done on it before it could head out to sea. They stop at Block Island, Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, and a little place close to Cape Cod before they finally head out to sea. Their relationships and patients ate tested out on the ocean. Organized as can be, Ramon and his father once started pearl hunting when they were younger. He works hard on it then sells them in the near my market. They are very popular to the towns? people. The fighting continued and got worse. Patients ran low until they were forced to pull each other?s together behavior together when the sea monster captures Sevillano. When Raymon found a huge pear. The pearl was amazingly beautiful. Its shape and size couldn?t compare to a vagrants money on the towns Marketing streets. The pearl was thought to be fake, but only Daniel and his father new the truth, that it was real. Daniel trusted him self to polish it and shape it, but his father didn?t trust him with the valuable gem stone. His father didn?t think Daniel had enough experience to be handling such a precious stone. When they spotted land after Daniel had captured the beautiful pearl, the whole town had known what had happened and all had gathered. Mostly rich people had come to the bay where they had landed because only there money could compare to the stones beauty and marketing price.

SWOT analysis for G-shock watch from Casio Essay

Strength In the SWOT analysis of G-shock watch from Casio, strength of G-shock watch from Casio is an important element. Firstly, we know that G-shock, Baby-G, Edifice and Pathfinder are sub-brands of Casio; they have targeted for a different group and marketed accordingly. Those brands targeting group are urban upper middle class youth. They have targeting it with clear and focused. Plus, the positioning of Casio is watches that are technology advanced. Because Casio most popular product is watches and it already designed world’s first LCD watches with having a full auto calendar. Other brand might not have those technologies yet, but Casio already have it. Now a day, people love much for LCD technology product, for example LCD TV, LCD laptop, LCD desktop and others. That is why the Casio designed LCD watches and it very popular now. There is many other innovations are synonymous with the Casio image. In addition, we can see that Casio has focus on sponsored events in the area of sports and also we can found a lot of athlete in G-shock from Casio’s advertisement. That is because G-shock watches have a similar function with those sport’s watches and sponsored events in the area of sports and use an athlete in their advertisement can prove beneficial to the brand image. The most important is, G-shock watches from Casio are cheaper if comparing to others brands but have an excellent quality. People now a day always prefer cheaper product with a good quality, and it is suitable for youth today because youth have low income. Casio brand can stand so long and popular in today because it is protected with 1986 registered trademarks in 187 countries around the world. We can see the Casio everywhere around the world. This is also the reason of why it is popular, because almost every countries around the world recognize G-shock watches from Casio. Weakness For G-shock watches from Casio, we found that it more like a watches brand than electronics brand. Almost all the watches have the same function, but just a different design and style, from here we can see that G-shock watches from Casio have put a lot of effort for designing the watches but not doing an innovation to improve the technology of the watch. We also can see that  they have a different colour watches and famous athlete in their advertisement but not a high technology watches in their advertisement. In my opinion, designing watches is not that simple like only for the appearance. Because G-shock watches from Casio are focusing in their watch’s appearance. Opportunity G-shock watches from Casio have a fashion design and style, it means that it has an opportunity to tied up with those fashion house and sponsoring events. For example, G-shock has produce watches that with a Starbuck’s logo and design. Not only the Starbuck, there is a lot of fashion house like to cooperate with G-shock watches from Casio. Now a day, we can see that many famous athletes have wearing G-shock watches, and many models like to wearing it because of it fashion design and style. As what I am saying at the strength of G-shock from Casio, G-shock from Casio have targeting youth today, and it is very successful because we can see that youths today are really attracted by G-shock from Casio because of it fashion design and style. One more reason that G-shock watches from Casio is attractive because it have a similar function as the old style sport watches. Threat G-shock watches are popular right now, but it also having threat. We know that G-shock is a sub brand of Casio, so they might face threat of counterfeit Casio product. Not only Casio, other sub-brands like baby-G, Edifice, Pathfinder also produce watches, and the appearance from those sub-brands has almost similar to G-shock. Not only the appearance, they also produce sport watches and digital watches, even the function also similar to the G-shock brand. In addition, there is one more threat that G-shock might be faced, that is competition in watches with the â€Å"sport look† in the market is heavily populated, that is because not only G-shock having a â€Å"sport look† watches in the wide market. Like what I’m saying that is a lot of brands that having those â€Å"sport look† watches and also having the similar function as sport watches. So that is hard to populate if just having a â€Å"sport look† watches. To solve this threat, we can found that G-shock now has trying to develop and designing other type watches that not just only â€Å"sport look†.

A New High for Society - 1887 Words

According to a recent study taken by the Gallup Poll, taken by the US government, states that 58 percent a clear majority are in favor of legalization of recreational marijuana; compared to the 39 percent that say no and the additional three percent who are unsure. Although the majority of American’s are in favor of recreational marijuana federal law challenges the optimism of Americans. In 48 states marijuana is classified as a â€Å"controlled substance† putting Americans at risk of a felony charge and permanently altering the life of an individual. By letting the voters choose, we can truly see the democracy America has to offer while creating a flourishing economy simply by opening up options the public wants. But at what cause? Legalization of recreational marijuana is linked to poor grades and various amount of health illnesses. Although it may be true that marijuana is linked to poor health the economics behind legalization is far more beneficial than most realiz e. Legislators need see what America wants and needs, and by majority that is marijuana. As marijuana becomes a more prominent debate topic America is slowly losing out on the chance of an economic upsurge. While accepting the risk of health issues recreational marijuana needs to be legalized to create jobs for economy, end the war on drugs, and create a safer environment for all America’s citizens. In the beginning America was founded off of the principle of opportunity and constituting a large number ofShow MoreRelatedCliques/Groups, Scapegoats, and Exclusion: the High Society of New York in the Age of Innocence1383 Words   |  6 PagesIn the current time, there are all kinds of groups/cliques. There are: the jocks, the nerds, and the goths in high school, and the upper class, the middle class, and the poor in society. Each of these groups has their own set of customs/rules that are followed. None of these rules are written. They are just understood. 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