Trauma is a ghost and memories can be disturbing. Each has the ability to drive a person to madness or inspire in him a certain enlightened strength. Someone's ability to act with resilience, despite the severity of their impairment, determines how their experiences will affect them and, in turn, whether those effects will have a positive or negative influence on their future life. Toni Morrison's Beloved demonstrates the relentless effects of trauma on victims, regardless of the severity of the incident, and perfectly depicts both the positive outcomes and negative consequences that arise from how a person handles their situation. In this, Morrison argues for the power of traumatic experiences, as they can evoke anything from empathy to madness, and the importance of remaining resilient in difficult times. Each character in Beloved undergoes some sort of harmful experience that fills them with a sense of compassion or pushes them towards their own demise. The fact that a person applies his pain to personal growth and exerts an unknown strength to overcome the traumatic effects of his agony lays the foundation for a more beautiful and enlightened future. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThe weight of one person's trauma cannot be compared to that of another person, as a painful experience will trigger absolute agony in a person, regardless of how their pain may be juxtaposed with that of another . Baby Suggs falls prey to these thoughtless comparisons, as members of the close-knit community begin to criticize her and the experiences she has had. As they gather in the courtyard of 124, the general consensus of the community becomes: Where does he get it all, Baby Suggs, saint?... Loaves and fishes were His powers: they did not belong to a former slave. who had probably never carried a hundred pounds on scale... who had never been whipped by a ten-year-old white boy like God knows they had. Who hadn't even escaped slavery. (Morrison 161-162) Baby Suggs' peers, to whom she has dedicated her new self, and those who have become family to her, do not believe that her trauma matches the severity of theirs, and so choose to isolate themselves. his. Because of the horrors they saw, from being “whipped” to forced flight, people allowed their harrowing encounters with abuse and torture to hinder their personal growth. They don't realize that, in the end, what Baby Suggs endured, compared to what they themselves endured, doesn't matter because the torment cannot be quantified, and it was the torment that drove her to the grave. She may not have "escaped slavery" or "carried a hundred pounds on the ladder," but Baby Suggs is pushed beyond the limits of her "holy" goodness, to a breaking point that causes her to lose the last shred of hope for a life. of truly lived freedom. In her final moments, she asks for the simplest beauty in life, color, which helps her find the first fragments of peace in the crazy life she has led. Ultimately, Baby Suggs' continued inability to look her trauma in the face is what inevitably consumes her, and no matter what horrors she has or has not encountered in her life, she reaches a point where she can no longer fight. trauma affects his life is based solely on the resilience he demonstrates in his situation and what he is able to take away from his experiences. Where Baby Suggs' pain, though seemingly moderate compared to that of others, kills her, characters like Sixo have the power to take charge of their lives and attempt to bring about changeradical. Sixo, whose horrific life ranges from constant beatings to just a taste of freedom before it is ripped away from him, is inspired and motivated to escape, take his friends and "family" with him, and live a free life. Despite being brutally murdered by the teacher and his white nephews, his final minutes of life demonstrate that he has truly overcome his traumas, and although he could not physically escape, he has found his spiritual freedom. As he is “surrounded and bound,” then lit on the fire, he “laughs… His feet are cooking; the fabric of his trousers smokes. He laughs. There's something funny... Sixo interrupts with his laughter to shout: 'Seven-O! Seven-O!'” (267). While being burned alive, the man who never laughed breaks down into hysterics. He laughs because, even if he doesn't live to experience the world outside of Sweet Home, his wife and the child she gives birth to will. A piece of Sixo, a human being who shares his genetics and the only thing that was ever truly his, his identity, will be born into a life of freedom. In his final moments of life, Sixo realizes that he has finally achieved the basic human rights afforded to all beings, emotion, happiness, family, and a legacy. His laughter is his way of showing that even if he falls, he has forever defeated the ghosts of his slavery and will be peacefully free in his afterlife. The overwhelming horrors of one trauma over another do not degrade the mistreatment and torture endured, and in the end, both Sixo and Baby Suggs willingly accept death and spiritual release. While the burden of Sixo's torture may have been more severe than Baby Suggs' experiences, his resilience and ability to envision a hopeful future beyond his trauma give him a more positive and powerful ending than Baby's. The trauma is relentless, even when the torture stops, the suffering does not. It is easier to let yourself be consumed by your pain and the memories associated with that agony, rather than fight what seems like a hopeless battle. This is the case of Paul D, who wasted his eighteen years of freedom by literally “walking away” from his problems, refusing to learn from his experiences, and locking up his perceived dangerous emotions in his “tobacco can” heart. His final breaking point comes when he discovers his true value as a slave, nine hundred dollars. This completely strips him of his humanity and forces him to see himself as someone else's property. As Sethe and Paul D begin to recall the horrible memories of Sweet Home, Paul D recalls, "'I would never be Paul D again, dead or alive.'... Saying more might push them both to a point where they couldn't" from which there is no turning back. He would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco box buried in his chest where once there was a red heart” (86). Paul D's trauma has left him sheltered and scarred, and so he demonstrates a strong desire to protect himself and others from ever experiencing that pain again. He doesn't allow himself to continue to reflect on his difficulties, despite the fact that he and Sethe remain in a constant period of trying to heal and move forward, lest either of them fall back into the cycle of being stuck in the void. past. Paul D condemns all his emotions, his memories and the components that make him human in his "rusty tobacco box" so that he does not become attached to the feelings that come from a pure "red heart". Although his intentions are to protect himself from the pain of living in the past, Paul D has closed himself off to the empathy, compassion, and pure love that can be wholeheartedly learned by overcoming trauma. Every person is susceptible to trauma and being seriously affected. give ithorrors they experience. Ironically, the character who embodies the horrific trauma that tortures every person in the community also acts upon the effects of his own harm. The beloved is a newborn baby, barely crawling, when her loving mother cuts her throat with a saw. When she is reborn and returns to 124, the trauma of being killed and abandoned as a child is what makes Beloved embody the haunting return of the past. Sethetries to apologize, to explain the reasons for his actions, but Beloved refuses to understand. The lyrics read: [Beloved] took the best of everything - first... the more she took, the more Sethe began to talk, explain, describe how much she had suffered... Beloved accused her of leaving her behind. For not being kind to her, for not smiling at her... Sethe cried... Beloved wasn't interested. She said no one was there when she cried. (284) Beloved's traumatizing experience of being killed by her mother and not “saying hello or even looking at her before running away from her,” is what drives her to act the way she does. His revenge for her pain is to "make the best of everything" and grow as Sethe gets worse. Being a representation of how easily the past can haunt the present, Beloved has complete control over Sethe and makes her feel total remorse and agony that she didn't feel when she first committed the act. Beloved's manipulation of everyone around her, to carry out a revenge she can never receive, is the result of her inability to sympathize with her mother's "suffering", forgive, and learn the lesson she is clearly taught : the importance of sacrifice, family, and the power of unconditional love. Beloved personifies the idea that memories, no matter how horrific, cannot be avoided, but rather must be faced. The agony that is continually felt has the ability to drive a person to madness, isolation and self-destruction. As Sethe begins to adjust to a life without slavery, her previous owner tracks her down with the intention of enslaving her and, in turn, her children. On the verge of madness with her utter refusal to condemn her children to such a cruel life, she plans to kill them. Sethe, the woman whose entire individual identity is based on motherhood, is driven to kill her children because of the trauma she has suffered. Upon Beloved's return, she is forced to face the guilt she has pushed away for years and, "Once Sethe saw the scar... the little curved shadow of a smile in the kootchy-kootchy-coo place under her chin ...once Sethe saw her." , touched him and closed his eyes for a long time... It was as if his mother had gone mad” (281-282). Even in her freedom, Sethe is still possessed and controlled by memories of slavery and everything she did to desperately escape it. Seeing the scar on Beloved's neck forces her to stare the ghost inside her in the face and face a memory she's tried to forget. Sethe chooses to isolate herself from the community, rejecting any companionship that might be offered to her, as a way to avoid her guilt. She shows no remorse until Beloved returns, and the trauma that arises from her memories can only torture her further. Clearly, not being able to allow herself to feel and heal from her trauma is what sends Sethe into an unhealthy world of loneliness, guilt, and disturbing memories. While the inability to deal with trauma with effectiveness and resilience can lead to isolation, madness and the complete consumption of the past, adequately addressing difficulties and learning from them can bring a person to an enlightened state of empathy, compassion, love for those who are close to him. them and, finally,healing. The person who best describes this resilience is Stamp Paid, who has built his entire identity as a free man thanks to his recovery. Having been forced to release his wife, one of the few components of his life that made him human, Stamp Paid comes to the definitive conclusion that he has paid his debt to the world. He decides to live deliberately and entirely for himself, as he does not believe he will ever be in debt again. The trauma that Stamp Paid has endured, rather than deteriorating his sense of hope or will to persevere, inspires him to become a great advocate for togetherness and unity in the African American community. When he finds himself in Ohio, among the ex-slave population, he “extended his debtlessness to other people by helping them repay everything they owed in poverty” (218). Stamp Paid, much like Baby Suggs, discovers his new life's purpose in charity and bringing others to the same state of spiritual and emotional restoration he has found. He benefits both from believing for himself and from teaching others: “You have paid for your life; now life owes you.” Stamp's role in the community is to protect, both physically and emotionally, and unite Cincinnati's African Americans in a kind of family and humanity they have never known. As someone who has looked despair in the face and has not lost faith in a happy life, Stamp Paid plays the most significant role in the community dynamic, as he demonstrates pure compassion towards those less fortunate than himself and the positivity that comes with it. really learn from him. your past experiences can lead. The person who finds the greatest sense of positivity and empowerment amidst her struggles is Ella, the final hero of the story. Having experienced a childhood as a constant victim of rape at the hands of her father and brother, Ella believes she has seen "the lowest yet" and has come to the conclusion that "no one saw this coming" (301). Because Ella has experienced the kind of trauma that could have destroyed her completely, Ella has chosen to learn from her experience that no one deserves that kind of cruel suffering and acts with empathy to defend those who must endure it. Ultimately, “it was Ella more than anyone who convinced others that rescue was necessary. She was a practical woman who believed that for every ailment there was a root to be chewed or avoided… There was also something personal in her fury” (301-302). The fact that Ella is described as "practical" speaks volumes about the resilience of her character, as practicality becomes difficult to achieve when a life of incredible agony, "a murder, a kidnapping, a rape - whatever", is all that that a person grows. until we know the world that will be. She sees the harmful situation of Sethe and her “sensible” daughter and finds “something personal” in her pure anger. Seeing the horrors she experiences, Ella has grown into a compassionate, empathetic, and empowered woman who will protect anyone in trouble, whether they agree with her past decisions or not. She is the emblem of human understanding and consideration for the experiences that drive people to take certain actions, as she was able to grow from her trauma. There is a lesson to be learned about resilience and recovery from even the most terrible situations: it is never too late for a person to take charge of their life and begin to heal. Denver, Sethe's ever-unhappy daughter, is the character who most demonstrates this radical shift between being overwhelmed by memory and deciding to initiate a necessary change. Once Denver is able to accept her traumas as her own, such as drinking Beloved's blood and being subjected to a life of harmful isolation, instead of..