As we discussed in class, it’s quite interesting that arguably the most important scene in Beloved is told from the perspective of a character who isn’t present for most of the book. While this choice and this scene in general is intriguing for a number of reasons, what stood out to me personally is the fact that so much of the language has to do with animals. The first three pages of this chapter are written with a some kind of a reference to an animal in most of the paragraphs.
This language sets up a (blatantly obvious, yet ever disturbing) dynamic for the chapter: the “four white horsemen” are hunters, seeking out “Negroes” who are viewed as equivalent to animals to be hunted down, and even worse, damaged property. The chapter is told in this “hunter vs. hunted” dynamic, and to the hunter, Sethe killing her first daughter, is just a failed hunt.
This dynamic also puts the reader in a position where they would expect Sethe to act animalistically, because the reader is in the head of white men who see Sethe as an animal and expect her to act as such. The context of the chapter lends to a reader who is somewhat more cynical of Sethe than a reader who just read a chapter that talks about Sethe at Sweet Home. This complicates the story for the reader because up until this point it is still possible for the reader to be completely sympathetic towards Sethe, but this chapter certainly challenges what sympathy the reader has left. To demonstrate this effect, we can look at Paul D, who is portrayed as a kind, empathetic character (especially towards Sethe) that leaves Sethe as soon as he comes to terms with the fact that the story he heard of her murder is true.
Entering the minds of the four white horsemen allows us to take a look at exactly the mentality that runs the world that Sethe is running away from. From the moment Sethe overhears Schoolteacher’s nephews discussing “human characteristic” and “animal characteristics” of the slaves, she is scarred. These men have treated Sethe beyond horribly and don’t even think of her as a human being, which is clearly laid out in how they think of her in this chapter, as if it hasn’t been clear enough in Sethe’s “rememories” of Sweet Home. This is what Sethe feels she can’t possibly let herself, or any part of her family, return to.
