Animalistic Actions: Sethe’s View of Whites and Herself

As Sethe enters Sawyer’s Restaurant, her internal monologue reveals that not only does she consider herself to be less than human as a result of her enslavement, but she also considers whites to be less human and more animalistic as a result of their cruelty towards those who were enslaved. As Sethe describes, the cruelty of whites was what “[d]rain[ed] her mother’s milk…[d]ivided her back into plant life…[and] [drove] her fat-bellied into the woods” (222). A form of anaphora, the consonant “D” is repeated at the start of each phrase. The use of this device draws attention to the verbs (drain, divide, and drive), which are not normally used in conjunction with human behavior. Each has a connotation that is typically associated with objects, which shows how Sethe has been treated as less than human in her life, so much so that she now uses inhuman language to describe herself and her experiences. Sethe is also ambiguous when she talks about who caused her so much pain. “Drain her mother’s milk, they had already done” (222) is the phrase that Sethe uses to describe the actions of whites against her. Although Morrison makes clear that whites are one of the main causes of Sethe’s suffering, she still has Sethe use ambiguous pronouns such as “they” when talking about whites. “They” doesn’t signify whether the ones causing Sethe harm are human, which perhaps symbolizes how Sethe can neither speak about herself as a human nor speak about whites as being human. Just as whites have dehumanized Sethe, she has in turn dehumanized the whites. She feels contempt for them after they “buttered Halle’s face; gave Paul D iron to eat; crisped Sixo; hanged her own mother” (222). The use of cataloguing as well as asyndeton shows how the list that Sethe has created of the faults of whites is ongoing and perhaps endless. Sethe’s internal monologue reveals that not only has she come to think of herself as less than human, but that her perception of white people has become increasingly more animalistic each time she is hurt by their actions.