Perspective

Throughout Beloved, Morrison uses perspective and contextual shifts to affect how the reader (and other characters) views certain characters. When I think about this, one major example jumps out at me because of its ability to incite an emotional response within the reader: Sethe’s case of infanticide. In this case, the reader gets to see the story as seen by different people: Sethe herself and Schoolteacher/the slavecatcher (also from the newspaper clipping). By providing multiple points of views, Morrison gives the reader the opportunity to see Sethe in different lights.

Sethe’s actions can be viewed through a lens of preservation and love, when analyzing her situation with all of the context in mind. When viewing the scene as seen by the slave catcher and Schoolteacher, the reader can fully take in the callous and evil threats/way of life that comes with living under slavery. As a third person ‘fly on the wall’, oftentimes it can be hard to fully immerse yourself with a character’s complex identity, but Morrison succeeds in doing so here. Schoolteacher's view of black people as no more than animals can induce a visceral reaction within a reader, thus making it difficult for one to not sympathize with Sethe in this scenario. This is an important perspective to have for both the reader, who may not know the extent of the depravity of slavery, and members of Sethe’s community that shun her, that don’t know the lengths she went through to escape slavery. 

The inclusion of the slave catcher’s point of view forces the reader to acknowledge Sethe’s journey from being enslaved to being a free mother. Overall, I would argue that this scene is the single most important scene with respect to appreciating Sethe’s character development and what made her the way she is throughout the book.

 
--Ethan