"Slavery and Motherhood"

In “Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” by Terry Paul Caesar, the author is very direct with her interpretation of the book through the feminist lens.   In this article she utilizes the concept of the Ájé which is a “sister system” where no males are present. Women who are referred to as Ájé are “feared and reserved in Yoruba society” (171). The author states that when “Ájé is passed genetically and amalgamates spiritually and physically, the result is mothers and daughters immersed in a web of creation and destruction, love and hate, silence and signification.” This all ties back to the relationship between Sethe and her daughter Denver as well as her other daughter Beloved. The author focuses on the relationships between the feminist characters in this novel, taking a specific viewpoint of the feminist lens and analyzing it closely. Interestingly, Ájé discusses the killing of the progeny, “mentally, spiritually or physically” and reveals that we as readers need to reassess this simplistic interpretation and in the case of Beloved and Sethe she shows that there is no destruction  but rather, “putting them [daughters] where they’d be safe”.   Caesar delves into a discussion of the Ájé of Margaret Garner, the woman who Beloved was modeled after and relays how Morrison is actually linking her with the characters in the novel. By showing the healing that can go on through  this cosmic plane, Sethe and Beloved are reunited and freed.  

I have never heard of Ájé before this article and Caesar provided me with a new perspective that actually made me feel as though there was more deeper healing involved in the novel than I had originally anticipated.  She begins her article by saying that Morrison often is frustrated by the critical writings about her novels because they are usually inaccurate and this was her attempt at understanding what Morrison intended.  It was fascinating for me to read Morrison’s response to this critique because I believe this article analyzes through such an uncommon perspective.