animalism. Only when she can discard these labels and negative images can she begin to love herself and look to the future with hope and promise as opposed to being haunted by her miserable past. Paul D., a slave who used to be on the same plantation as Sethe, helps her come to this understanding because, as he tells her, “Sethe, more and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow” (Morrison 273).
Because of internalized negative self-image, Sethe strikes out in violence at the wrong cause of her anger and pain-her daughter Beloved. The hatred and abuse of whites has made Sethe internalize a negative perception of herself and she reacts in rage towards her daughter as a way of resisting absolute white dominance. When Sethe takes an ice-pick to the white man the author is not condoning white murder, instead Sethe’s rage is at least transformed onto the object which caused her oppression. By doing this she destroys the power of the hold on her from the past. She is free now to begin looking toward the future, a future in which she and Paul D. might find some happiness and love. She has finally developed a real vision of freedom as, “a place where you could
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