"two boys with mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading
teacher watching and writing it up." Schoolteacher in a nutshell.
Schoolteacher arrives with his nephews to manage Sweet Home after the death of Mr. Garner. He
seems to be an educated person but is very cruel from the start. He uses tactics of conventional slavery on
the slaves of the plantation to replace what he saw as Garner’s too-soft approach. His oppressive regime of
rigid rules and strict punishment reminded me how horrible slavery truly was. Being the only purely
evil character in the novel, Schoolteacher is frightening for his detached and methodical cruelty. Not
only does he beat and abuse his slaves, but he also takes notes on their actions and studies them like
animals. He seems, literally, to see them as animals. His pursuit of certain "knowledge" is especially
disturbing, because it demonstrates a horrifying justification for racism, leading to the rationalization of
murder and other unspeakable actions.
teacher watching and writing it up." Schoolteacher in a nutshell.
Schoolteacher arrives with his nephews to manage Sweet Home after the death of Mr. Garner. He
seems to be an educated person but is very cruel from the start. He uses tactics of conventional slavery on
the slaves of the plantation to replace what he saw as Garner’s too-soft approach. His oppressive regime of
rigid rules and strict punishment reminded me how horrible slavery truly was. Being the only purely
evil character in the novel, Schoolteacher is frightening for his detached and methodical cruelty. Not
only does he beat and abuse his slaves, but he also takes notes on their actions and studies them like
animals. He seems, literally, to see them as animals. His pursuit of certain "knowledge" is especially
disturbing, because it demonstrates a horrifying justification for racism, leading to the rationalization of
murder and other unspeakable actions.
As strange as it may sound, it was something else that really creeped me out about Schoolteacher. In
arguably the most intense and powerful scene in the novel where Sethe murders her own baby in the
shed of 124, Schoolteacher has an interesting response. By this I mean he had no response at all. He
sees a woman instinctively kill her own child so it can’t be taken by him, and he acknowledges it as a
slightly unorthodox result of an experiment. It was just another day at the office for him and the slave
catchers. And beyond that, he uses Sethe’s actions to “educate” his nephews on how people of color acted. When
Sethe kills her baby to take her life away from Schoolteacher, he is disappointed that he failed to bring
the baby back to Sweet Home, and pays no attention to the fact that a baby was murdered. He sees the
entire experience as failed job.
arguably the most intense and powerful scene in the novel where Sethe murders her own baby in the
shed of 124, Schoolteacher has an interesting response. By this I mean he had no response at all. He
sees a woman instinctively kill her own child so it can’t be taken by him, and he acknowledges it as a
slightly unorthodox result of an experiment. It was just another day at the office for him and the slave
catchers. And beyond that, he uses Sethe’s actions to “educate” his nephews on how people of color acted. When
Sethe kills her baby to take her life away from Schoolteacher, he is disappointed that he failed to bring
the baby back to Sweet Home, and pays no attention to the fact that a baby was murdered. He sees the
entire experience as failed job.
In Beloved, Schoolteacher is a representative of white supremacy. His presence single-handedly drives
Sethe to do the unthinkable: she murders her own child, seeing it as a better alternative to letting
Schoolteacher take her back to Sweet Home. Morrison uses the undeveloped character of Schoolteacher
to portray the dehumanizing effect of white supremacy on people of color after the Civil War.
Sethe to do the unthinkable: she murders her own child, seeing it as a better alternative to letting
Schoolteacher take her back to Sweet Home. Morrison uses the undeveloped character of Schoolteacher
to portray the dehumanizing effect of white supremacy on people of color after the Civil War.
I agree that this was super disturbing. Just the thought of seeing Schoolteacher drives Sethe to murder her child who she loves so deeply, and it probably doesn't occur to him the psychological terror she experiences. Later, it seems he doesn't care much about what happened, and kind of blows the murder of BEloved off, like you said as a 'failed experiment.' While he does this, he ignores the fact that his own cruel treatment of the slaves pushed them to do this.
ReplyDeleteI would actually argue that in terms of the novel's setting, Schoolteacher had a relatively normal response, which is terrible from the reader's perspective. In a society where slavery is a common thing, it's not that Schoolteacher is cruel, it's actually that Mr. Garner is treating them very strangely (which ultimately sets the Sweet Home Men up for a big wake up call). I think that Schoolteacher represents less of a "white supremacy" but more of a symbolism for the true force of slavery and how much their influence completely undermines the freedom of African Americans and freed slaves
ReplyDeleteThe quote you included at the beginning of your post is a turning point in Schoolteacher's character. We now see that Schoolteacher is evil and his ability to view Sethe as a thing, an animal to be coldly observed even when it's clear that she's suffering something totally inhuman. In other words, Schoolteacher doesn't have the ability to feel compassion or empathy for other human beings. And that means he can be capable of all sorts of cruelty, like the reactions we had from him when he saw Sethe and her murdered baby in her arms.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a great point. Schoolteacher's reign at Sweet Home made it hell for all the slaves. When Mr. Garner was alive, everything seemed fine at Sweet Home. Most of the slaves were content as they were actually being treated as human beings. As you have mentioned, Schoolteachers dehumanizes them and treat them like animals that can be controlled. It is disturbing to see Schoolteacher's response to the Sethe killing Beloved. He's just an evil character overall.
ReplyDeleteI agree, part of what made that scene so horrible was watching it from schoolteacher’s almost detached point of view. His sense of Sethe and her children as less than human, almost to the point of where they’re not alive, does seem to perfectly alight with many of the ideas of white supremacy. Another interesting parallel is how he “teaches” his students about how people behave, which could be reflective of the ways in which a lot of white supremacy is very faux-academic, trying to use “science” to find the so-called animalistic features of people in different races.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read this scene, I was also disturbed by Schoolteacher's lack of a response to Sethe's actions. The fact that the scene was told from Schoolteacher's perspective somewhat "normalizes" his response. I also agree that this point of view aligns with white supremacy, especially in the way he sees Sethe killing baby Beloved as a failed experiment - it shows how he didn't view them as people.
ReplyDeleteThis scene is certainly disturbing. Some might argue that it is also the pivotal point in the narrative, as it scars Halle and essentially forces Sethe out of sweet home. It is discussed without acute detail for a good portion of the book until we get a detailed description which is frankly disgusting. It is easy to see why Halle had the reaction he had.
ReplyDeleteSchoolteacher defeintely felt wrong to me from the beginning, but that reaction was eerie. He has no sympathy for the negative consequences his actions bring to others. He just jots down everything in his notepad. I wondered what he thought in his mind to justify his actions. Anyone with morals, which he seems to try and teach to his nephews have to have empathy for others, but he disregards it with Sethe.
ReplyDeleteI think the school teacher as one of the most frightening characters in the story. The trama that he caused doesn’t simply lie on the surface but it digs deep into the psychological pain that Sethe feels. The events that the school teacher does is eventually seen in the state that Sethe is in near the end of the book. We see a lot of guilt and trauma on Sethe’s face but there is absolutely no remorse in the school teacher. Compared to Mr. Garner from before, school teacher seems like the absolute evil. I wonder how he was able to sleep at night, it seems like he simply didn’t consider Sethe as a being.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and I think the character of Schoolteacher is meant to represent all of the white pro slavery culture in an otherwise black focused book, and he definitely is characterized as evil. While Garners actions as a slave owner have their own questions, Schoolteacher's are completely horrible. And in the way that he looks on his own actions, showing no humanity, no empathy for Sethe, I would agree that he is the most evil character in Beloved.
ReplyDeleteGreat post brother. Schoolteacher's response was quite horrifying. He seems like almost a scientist who witnessed a failed experiment. He even comments "this is what happens when you beat them too much". IT completely takes away from the emotional aspect to this dark scene. Sethe is making a choice between life or death and Schoolteacher is just looking at it like a normal response. At least his nephew felt some remorse.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most disturbing things about schoolteacher, was his disregard for logic when punishing the slaves. We see Sixo giving reason as to why he stole a small pig and ate it, hoping to work harder because of it. Schoolteacher says "definitions belong to the definers - not the defined" (Morrison 225) which proves his beliefs that the slaves were inferior, and their identities belonged to him.
ReplyDelete