As we discussed over the course of the first half of the book, Sethe has an extremely strong character, able to rule her life with a seemingly iron grip. She is not fazed by her children running away or living in a house with a ghost, not paying attention to things that should hit deeply on an emotional level. As we later learn, she unquestioningly and without remorse commits infanticide, not regretting the terrible consequences it had not only on her, but her remaining children, family, and standing in the African-American community in Cincinnati. Out of everyone in the story, I feel that Baby Suggs is the one that drew the shortest stick. While many of Sethe’s issues in the most recent timeline were consequences of her own actions, Baby Suggs did not have much influence over the course of her last ten years.
Thanks to the relatively more lax slaving practices of Mr. Garner, Halle was able to buy freedom for his mother, but was unable to earn the money needed to buy himself out before Mr. Garner died and a crackdown on the slaves of Sweethome was initiated. I apologize, but I just want to do a little math here. If Halle was able to earn enough money to buy his mother her freedom from just five years of working Sundays, he wasted most of his time while a slave. If he had instead bought himself freedom first, after that he would be able to earn money working all seven days of the week and buy out Baby Suggs in under a year. It is natural that he wanted to free his mother first, particularly since there was no sign that Halle would be stopped from working at any point, but purely logistically speaking it would have made more sense to buy his own freedom first.
That entire point proves that the main characters we meet just have too much love, more than is safe for slaves. Halle’s emotions get in the way of doing the right thing in the long run for his family and for himself. The absurd amount of emotional trauma that the characters undergo leaves them clinging to whatever they have left, leaving us the scene of Halle with butter smeared over his face. Sethe is left an iron will and eighteen years suppressing memories, Paul D instead grows a wandering mind and some hope for the future. Because of her love, Baby Suggs does nothing but stand idly by as her generosity to the community and Sethe’s terrible actions make the oldest member of the family lose out on the things she held most dear. Although free, the moment that her community turns on her, she becomes imprisoned in her own house, bound to inaction until her death.
Thanks to the relatively more lax slaving practices of Mr. Garner, Halle was able to buy freedom for his mother, but was unable to earn the money needed to buy himself out before Mr. Garner died and a crackdown on the slaves of Sweethome was initiated. I apologize, but I just want to do a little math here. If Halle was able to earn enough money to buy his mother her freedom from just five years of working Sundays, he wasted most of his time while a slave. If he had instead bought himself freedom first, after that he would be able to earn money working all seven days of the week and buy out Baby Suggs in under a year. It is natural that he wanted to free his mother first, particularly since there was no sign that Halle would be stopped from working at any point, but purely logistically speaking it would have made more sense to buy his own freedom first.
That entire point proves that the main characters we meet just have too much love, more than is safe for slaves. Halle’s emotions get in the way of doing the right thing in the long run for his family and for himself. The absurd amount of emotional trauma that the characters undergo leaves them clinging to whatever they have left, leaving us the scene of Halle with butter smeared over his face. Sethe is left an iron will and eighteen years suppressing memories, Paul D instead grows a wandering mind and some hope for the future. Because of her love, Baby Suggs does nothing but stand idly by as her generosity to the community and Sethe’s terrible actions make the oldest member of the family lose out on the things she held most dear. Although free, the moment that her community turns on her, she becomes imprisoned in her own house, bound to inaction until her death.
