The Bible and Archaeology

The Bible and Archaeology An important step forward in scientific archaeological research, and a 19th-century outgrowth of the previous centurys Enlightenment  was the search for the truth of the events written about in the ancient historical accounts of the past. The main truth of the Bible, Torah, Koran, and the Buddhist sacred texts among many others is (of course) not a scientific one but a truth of faith and religion. The roots of the scientific study of archaeology are deeply planted in the establishment of the boundaries of that truth. Is the Bible Fact or Fiction? This is one of the most common questions I get asked as an archaeologist and it is one for which I have yet to find a good answer. And yet the question is at the absolute heart of archaeology, central to the growth and development of archaeology, and it is the one that gets more archaeologists into trouble than any other. And, more to the point, it brings us back to the history of archaeology. Many if not most citizens of the world are naturally curious about ancient texts. After all, they form the basis of all human culture, philosophy, and religion. As discussed in the earlier parts of this series, at the end of the Enlightenment, many archaeologists began actively searching for the cities and cultures described in the available ancient texts and histories, such as Homer and the Bible, Gilgamesh, Confucian texts, and the Vedic manuscripts. Schliemann sought Homers Troy, Botta sought Nineveh, Kathleen Kenyon sought Jericho, Li Chi sought An-Yang, Arthur Evans at Mycenae, Koldewey at Babylon, and Woolley at Ur of the Chaldees. All of these scholars and more sought archaeological events in the ancient texts. Ancient Texts and Archaeological Studies But using ancient texts as the basis for historical investigation was- and still is- fraught with peril in any culture: and not just because the truth is hard to parse out. Governments and religious leaders have vested interests in seeing that religious texts and nationalistic myths remain unchanged and unchallenged- other parties might learn to see the ancient ruins as blasphemous. Nationalistic mythologies demand that there is a special state of grace for a particular culture, that the ancient texts are received wisdom, that their specific country and people are the center of the creative world. No Planet-Wide Floods When early geological investigations proved without a doubt that there was no planet-wide flood as described in the Old Testament of the Bible, there was a great cry of outrage. Early archaeologists fought against and lost battles of this sort time and again. The results of David Randal-McIvers excavations at Great Zimbabwe, an important trading site in southeastern Africa, were suppressed by the local colonial governments who wanted to believe that the site was Phoenician in derivation and not African. The beautiful effigy mounds found throughout North America by Euroamerican settlers were wrongly attributed to either the mound builders or a lost tribe of Israel. The fact of the matter is that ancient texts are renditions of ancient culture which may be partly reflected in the archaeological record and partly will not be- not fiction nor fact, but culture. Better Questions So, lets not ask if the Bible is true or false. Instead, lets ask a series of different questions: Did the places and cultures that are mentioned in the Bible and the other ancient texts exist? Yes, in many cases, they did. Archaeologists have found evidence for many of the locations and cultures mentioned in the ancient texts.Did the events that are described in these texts happen? Some of them did; archaeological evidence in the form of physical evidence or supporting documents from other sources can be found for some of the battles, the political struggles, and the building and collapse of cities.Did the mystical things that are described in the texts occur? Its not my area of expertise, but if I were to hazard a guess, if there were miracles that occurred, they wouldnt leave archaeological evidence.Since the places and the cultures and some of the events that are described in these texts happened, shouldnt we just assume that the mysterious parts also happened? No. Not any more than since Atlanta burned, Scarlett OHara really was dumped by Rhett Butler. There are so many ancient texts and stories about how the world began and many are at variance with one another. From a global human standpoint, why should one ancient text be more accepted than any other? The mysteries of the Bible and other ancient texts are just that: mysteries. It is not, and never has been, within the archaeological purview to prove or disprove their reality. That is a question of faith, not science.

Saying No in French

Saying No in French Saying no in French is easy. The only problem is choosing from the many synonyms for no in French. Choose with care, because the differences between expressions are nuanced. Learn how to say the equivalents of  no, not a chance, I dont think so, down with, and more. The Many Faces of Non in French non noThis is the basic, standard French word for no. Non, je naime pas skier.   No, I dont like to ski. ah non /  oh non  Ã‚  oh noAh non and oh non express disappointment, as in oh no! or darn it! Ah non ! Ça ne marche pas !   Oh no! It doesnt work! non †¦Ã‚  Ã‚  no to...Non is followed by a noun to mean (say) no to or down with, especially in protests and demonstrations: Non au CPE !   No to the First Job Contract! Other synonyms for non      absolument pas  Ã‚  absolutely not  Ã‚  Ã‚  au contraire   on the contrary  Ã‚  Ã‚  aucun (problà ¨me, argent, etc.)   no (problem, money, etc)  Ã‚  Ã‚  bien sà »r que non  Ã‚  of course not  Ã‚  Ã‚  certainement pas   certainly not  Ã‚  Ã‚  des clous ! (familiar) no way!  Ã‚  Ã‚  du tout   not at all Expressions With Non   Ã‚  Ã‚  je crois que non  Ã‚  I dont think so  Ã‚  Ã‚  je ne dis pas non   I wouldnt say no  Ã‚  Ã‚  mais non   of course not  Ã‚  Ã‚  moi non   not me, I dont  Ã‚  Ã‚  nest-ce pas ?   no? right? isnt it?  Ã‚  Ã‚  niet ! (familiar) no way!  Ã‚  Ã‚  non merci - no thank you  Ã‚  Ã‚  non et non !   absolutely not!  Ã‚  Ã‚  non plus   not (that) either  Ã‚  Ã‚  non que subjunctive   not that †¦Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  ... ou non ?   †¦ (are/will/do you verb) or not?  Ã‚  Ã‚  pas de (problà ¨me, temps, pain, etc)   no (problem, time, bread, etc.)  Ã‚  Ã‚  pas du tout   not at all  Ã‚  Ã‚  pas question ! (familiar) no way! not a chance!  Ã‚  Ã‚  pas tout fait   not exactly, not quite  Ã‚  Ã‚  que non !   absolutely not!

Planning for coordination with federal entities regarding homeland Essay

Planning for coordination with federal entities regarding homeland security - Essay Example The Department of Homeland Security is the central agencies that to provide effective management resource within federal, state and local governments on security issues. Its primary responsibility as a security authority is to anticipate, preempt, detect and deter threats to the homeland and its people from terrorist attacks, natural disasters or any other emergency. Its goal is to coordinate different agencies and programs into a single agency for fast and efficient response to the crisis. Larry Ness states, ‘the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is still consolidating most of the more than 40 federal entities’ (Ness, 2006, p. 49). Its security responsibilities are varied and related to the governmental jurisdictions at federal, state, and local level and acts as a complementary system that connects all levels of government. It is an independent agency reporting to the President and tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and mitigating against disaster. Its role has become all the more important after 9/11 and works with a vision of ‘A Nation Prepared’. It works under FEMA and forms integrated disaster response task forces, comprising of emergency service personnel, equipped with necessary skills, techniques and tools that can be deployed for rescuing victims of structural collapse. Its aim is to protect civilians and prevent the loss of property from natural hazards. It acts as an emergency management to protect lives and property through partnerships with governments at the State and local levels as well as the private sector. It helps to promulgate interior security of the nation and the reduction of crimes and potential threats to federal facilities throughout the nation, and require close coordination and intelligence sharing with the investigative functions within Immigration and custom enforcement (ICE). FPS is a full service agency with a comprehensive HAZMAT, WMD,

Criminal Procedure Unit 2 Homework Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Criminal Procedure Unit 2 Homework - Article Example The court, however, adjusted prior interpretations of the clauses, unreasonable search and seizure, to include immaterial intrusion via technology as a search. The court conducted two prolong tests, which required the defendant to indicate whether he had subjective imagination. In this regard, such imagination concerned the surrounding where the search was conducted and whether the society accepts such expectation as reasonable. The court ruled that Mr. Katz had a reasonable expectation of privacy within the telephone booth and that police officers had no exigent circumstance. Therefore, it was essential for them to seek for a warranty before undertaking such an action. The term seizure is used to describe any form of interference to a person’s possessory interest in material goods. Unreasonable seizure implies a circumstance where the chattel owner had a reasonable anticipation of privacy in the items seized. A person or property is said to be seized, when law enforcing officers apply force to restrain the person or property. This situation occurs if the chattel or person does not exercise one’s freedom to leave the situation (Amar, 1994). The case of Terry v. Ohio involved Terry and two other men watched by police officers in plain clothes. The officers believed that the men were ‘casing a job, a stick-up’, and for that reason, they proceeded to frisk the three men (Lichtenberg, 2001). The officers recovered illegal weapons held by the two men. The court questioned whether the search and seizure of the men amounted to a breach of the Fourth Amendment. The court decided that the search performed by the police officers was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The court determined that the police officers operated on more than a ‘hunch’ and that a reasonable man would have been tempted to believe that

African Americans and the Prison System Essay Example for Free

African Americans and the Prison System Essay I. Introduction In the book the Mugging of Black America, Earl Ofari Hutchinson relays an interesting experience by a reporter. The reporter, who spent two and a half hours watching suspects march before Washington, D. C. Superior Court Judge Morton Berg, noted that all but one of these subjects was Black. He stated, ? Â §There is an odd air about the swift afternoon? Xan atmosphere like that of British Africa in colonial times? Xas the procession of tattered, troubled, scowling, poor blacks plead guilty or not guilty to charges of drug possession, drug distribution, assault, armed robbery, theft, breaking in, fraud and arson. According to Hutchinson, the reporter witnessed more than a courtroom scene; he witnessed the legacy of slavery. This paper will attempt expand on Hutchinson? Â ¦s theory. It will do so by first describing slavery and its lasting impact then it will attempt to show how the current criminal justice system mirrors slavery. PART 1: Slavery I. The History of Oppression and African Americans The history of the oppression as it relates to African Americans began in 1619. It was this year in which a Dutch ship brought the first slaves from Africa to North America. Following this arrival of twenty Africans in Virginia, white European-Americans created the institution of slavery. Slavery spread so quickly that by 1860 the original twenty slaves turned into nearly four million. In the beginning the legal status of these Africans was undefined. This absent definition created a lack of certainty which allowed for some slaves to become free after years of service. This only lasted briefly. In the 1660s, however, the colonies began enacting laws that defined and regulated slaves and the institution of slavery. One of the most important of these was the provision that black slaves, and the children of slave women, would serve for life. These ? Â §breeding laws were just the beginning. Soon, slavery in the United States was governed by a body of laws developed from the 1660s to the 1860s. Even though every slave state had its own slave code and case law, it became universal that slavery was a permanent condition. In addition to slavery being a permanent condition, slaves were also, under these laws, considered property. Slaves, being property, could not own property or be a party to a contract. Since marriage is a form of a contract, slave marriages had no legal standing. Most codes also had sections regulating free blacks. Under these codes blacks who were not slaves were still subject to controls on their movements and employment. These laws served not only as a physical limitation, but an ideological one also. In addition to granting slave owners and white people power over slaves and in some cases free blacks, the laws also granted slaveholders and white-Europeans an intangible source of power. Socially, the institution of slavery allowed white slave owners to believe they had not only physical control, but physical and mental superiority over the slaves. With only a few exceptions, all slaves were Africans. This fact placed the label of inferiority on black skin. The actual institution of slavery as it relates to master and slave lasted up in till the Civil war. The American Civil War was fought, in part, over slavery. During the war, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which ? Â §freed all slaves. This seemingly, brought the end of slavery throughout the United States, but unfortunately left a lasting impression. From this point on slavery took on a new form as former slaves being associated with the label of inferiority. II. The lasting effects of slavery: continuous oppression Slavery is defined by Webster? Â ¦s dictionary as ? Â §The state of being under the control of another person . Aalthough the actual physical control and violence supposedly ended after the emancipation proclamation, The intangible theory of supremacy derived from the institution of slavery resulted in many lasting effects. These effects in and of themselves are a form of force, a form slavery. a. The lost sense of culture and cultural pride: Feeling of inferiority Slave drivers made great efforts to eliminate African culture. For instance Africans were beaten if they were caught speaking their native languages or carrying out native rituals . Therefore, they were not able to effectively pass the languages, stories and traditions on to their children. This forced suppression resulted in the loss of verbal records and a rich legacy of history. It is no secret that there is pride in culture. Taking away the culture takes away the pride and the motivation and results in feelings of worthlessness. b. no economic foundation Slave drivers not only attempted to deprive the Africans of there culture and pride, but they successfully robbed them economically. Slaves were forced to work without pay for years while padding the pockets of the slave owners. This deficit of economics resulted in an inability to establish an economic foundation in the United States. c. Unleveled playing field Along with the deprivation of financial resources, another significant factor concerning the state of African Americans is arrested development. Slaves were deprived of opportunities to learn and become more competitive in many areas of society. Black people were not allowed to read or learn to read, so they could not take advantage of written text. All these lasting effects placed blacks in a severely disadvantaged state when slavery was abolished, led a socioeconomic structure in which white people generally held the highest ranks and Black people generally held the lowest ranks. III. Maintaining oppression In order to maintain this socioeconomic structure, there always seems to be a new form of oppression set in place to maintain ? Â §slavery. As if the above detrimental effects of slavery were not enough, the White southerners were anxious to maintain more direct power and control over people with black skin, despite there classification as ? Â §free. The White southerners decided to, again, use the law in order crystallize there theory of inferiority and keep black people at the lowest ranks. In 1865, southerners created Black Codes, which served as a way to control and inhibit the freedom of ex-slaves. These historic Codes controlled almost all aspects of life, and prohibited African Americans from almost all the freedoms that had been won during the Civil War. The codes, which were blatantly racist and oppressive, were eventually suspended in June 1866, during the ? Â §reconstruction era. During this time period in America and despite resistance, African-Americans were slowly becoming part of this nations inclusion. By 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution confirmed the long awaited citizenship for Blacks in America. By 1870, the 15th Amendment was added to the Constitution which made it illegal to deny the right to vote based on race. The Reconstruction era, although short-lived, showed the first real attempts of inclusive freedom for African-Americans since the abolition of slavery. Gains were taking place: Citizenship, Voting, Education, and Politics. But, the underlying desire to have power over those in black skin never subsided. Just like the black Codes, this desire to dominate again manifested itself in another form, Jim Crow Laws. These laws promoted discrimination and the denial of equal protection by law. Just like the codes, they too were eventually abolished. Just like the Codes, Jim Crow laws, the desire of our society to suppress those in black skin will soon take another form. Today that form is the Criminal Justice System. PART 2 The New Age Slavery: The Prison System I. The Prison Institution Prisons are big in the United States. During the past 20 years, the United States experienced a massive increase in incarceration. The prison population increased fourfold, from 330,000 in 1980 to nearly 1. 4 million in 1999, and the incarceration rate increased from about 140 to about 476 per 100,000 resident populations. Today there are more than two million Americans behind bars. But even more startling is the fact that more than one-half of these incarcerated Americans have black skin. Although black Americans only make up about 12% of the US population, they account for more then 30% of all arrests, 44% of all prisoners and 40% of prisoners on death row. II. Race and the Prison System These obvious disparities in the criminal justice system can be attributed to many different things ranging from racial profiling to the lack of opportunity and poor education, but most criminal justice observers believe that these disparities have emerged from the underlying assumptions rooted in slavery. The assumption that slaves were inferior has carried over to today. Currently this theory of inferiority and desire to maintain oppression influences one of the major policies in place attacking African Americans today, the ? Â §war on drugs. Most of the shocking disparities in the criminal Justice System as it relates to African Americans in prison can be attributed to the ? Â §war on drugs. According to a study by Human Rights Watch, African-Americans comprise 62 percent of the drug offenders admitted to state prisons. In seven states, blacks constitute between 80 and 90 percent of all people sent to prison on drug charges. According to studies of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, African-Americans constitute 15 percent of the national drug users, but comprise an amazing one-third of all those arrested on drug charges and 57 percent of those convicted on drug charges. The criminal justice system generally, and contemporary crime and drug policies in particular, serve as a means for White America to control the African Americans like they did in the 1600 . III. The lasting oppression Similarly to the black codes and segregation implemented after the abolition of slavery; restrictions are placed on prisoners after they are released. Once a prisoner is released from prison, parole and the bans on public assistance, public housing restrictions, etc. create barriers and a seemingly doomed cycle of dominance. Since half of the prisoners in prison are African American, these barriers, like the lasting effects of slavery, have a disproportionate effect on our black communities. III. The effects of oppression According to the Department of Justice? Â ¦s Bureau of Justice statistics, the number of adults in prison, jail, or on probation or parole reached almost 7 million during 2004. Since Blacks comprise 30 percent of probationers and 41 percent of prisoners. That means around 4,500,000 African Americans are affected directly by the criminal justice system. Unfortunately those African Americans sent to prison or under parole are not the only people affected. The impact on the black community does not stop at the prison door, conversely it goes far beyond. Even after a prisoner is released there are lasting effects to the prisoner, his or her family and the community as a whole. a. Demise of the Black family One effect of the high rate of incarceration of African American males in particular has been the decreasing number of marriageable men in the African American community. Along with high rates of homicide, AIDS-related deaths and other factors, this has created a substantial imbalance in the male-female ratio among adult African Americans. Whereas gender ratios for African Americans at birth are about 102-103 males for every 100 females, by the age range 40-44, this declines to 86 males per 100 females, whereas white rates are 100:100 for this group. b. Lost political voice The impact of the criminal justice system on the black community goes beyond the declining family structure to issues of political influence as well. As a result of laws that disenfranchise felons and ex-felons in various states, an estimated 1. 4 million African American males, or 13% of the black male adult population, is either currently or permanently disenfranchised as a result of a felony conviction. In fourteen states, a felony conviction can result in lifetime disenfranchisement, and in seven of these states, an estimated one in four black males is permanently disenfranchised. Thus, not only are criminal justice policies contributing to the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans, but imprisonment itself then reduces the collective political ability of African Americans to influence these policies. V. Solutions The constant demise in the structure of the black family, lost political influence and seemingly arrested development are all very familiar results of a history of oppression. Since these effects of slavery and disparities in the criminal justice system seemingly steam from hundreds of years ago there is no quick fix. Ideally the answer would lie in the destruction of all prejudice. But, it is impossible to erase the deep seated legacy and resurfacing effects of slavery. Therefore this problem must be attacked from a variety of different angles. Recommendations for change can be considered in the areas of awareness, legislative change, criminal justice officials? Â ¦ initiatives, and criminal justice/community partnerships. The following are some suggested that will allow for a beginning to a seemingly circular and endless problem. 1. Legislative Actions Legislation should be pushed to Reconsider Mandatory Sentencing Policies and Equalize Penalties for Crack and Powder Cocaine . 2. Criminal Justice Officials? Â ¦ Initiatives ?n Criminal Justice Officials should Expand Drug Policy Options And Expand the Use of Alternative Sentencing 3. Criminal Justice/Community Partnerships. The criminal Justice system and the community should attempt to Increase Community-based Diversion from the Criminal Justice System And Strengthen the Link between Communities and the Justice System VI. Closing Oppression in the form of institutionalization is nothing new to those dressed in black skin; it has been present since 1619. In this year Africans were brought to the United States and forced into the institution of slavery. Even after the abolition of slavery, a series of codes and segregation laws were set in place to maintain the suppression of black people because black skin was stigmatized as inferior. Even though the prejudice and biased codes and laws were eventually abolished themselves, this stigma remains. Because this theory of black inferiority was embedded in the American culture due to slavery, various means of oppression are able to continually resurface in different forms. Today that form is Criminal Justice System, more specifically the drug policies. Practically mirroring the institution of slavery, African Americans are being controlled and dominated by this system. Control by the USCJS includes the probation, parole, imprisonment, lost economic power, struggling communities and lost political voice. In order to end this vicious cycle of oppression, action must be taken. First people must be made aware of the disparities. Next those who are made aware must press for legislative change, criminal justice officials? Â ¦ initiatives, and criminal justice/community partnerships. The challenge for the community at large is to engage in broad discussion of the mix of family, community, and government initiatives that can begin to reverse the cycle that has been set in motion in recent years. Let? Â ¦s do what Abraham attempted o do in 1877, let? Â ¦s end this legacy of slavery.

citizen kane Essays -- essays research papers

Citizen Kane   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the movie Citizen Kane , young Charles Foster Kane is very energetic, optimistic and has a very positive outlook on life. At the same time he hates his old and bitter guardian, Mr. Thatcher, who has secluded himself from the everyday man and the only thing he is after is money and stature. Later on in life Charles Kane turns into an exact carbon copy of Mr. Thatcher, even though that is exactly what he wanted to get away from. In this essay I will prove how the used of sound, in the scenes in Thatcher ¡Ã‚ ¦s library and Xanadu, as compared to the earlier scenes in young Kane ¡Ã‚ ¦s newspaper office, help establish this development in Kane ¡Ã‚ ¦s character.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The scene in Thatcher ¡Ã‚ ¦s library starts off with the attendant being on the phone when the reporter walks in to talk to her. The non-diegetic sound is scary and creepy at the same time. It sounds very unwelcoming and gives the impression of Mr.Thatcher as being the bad guy and his library not a good place to be. At first glance we can see that it is a big hall with a huge statue of Mr. Thatcher. The floors are made out of marble and the first impression the audience gets of the room is that, it is very dark, cold and has a gloomy feel to it. The voices of the reporter and the attendant echo in the hall that gives us the impression of the place being very uninhibited and very uninviting, just as the personality of Mr. Thatcher. Once the reporter goes throug...

Toni Morrison’s Beloved: The Effects of Slavery on Family Bonds

Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved analyzes the effects of slavery on the lives of the African Americans in a very original and profound way. Instead of telling a story about the violence of the white slave masters and about the sufferings of the black people, Morrison reviews the way in which slavery affects the sense of selfhood and identity in the African Americans. The enslaved self cannot relate to the world in the same way as the free self. The master and slave bond is reenacted in the family relationships of the former slaves.Thus, the text investigates the perpetuation of violence and possessiveness after the liberation of the African Americans has taken place. The climax of the novel is indeed an extremely violent moment- Sethe, a runaway slave from the Sweet Home plantation attempts to murder her own children in order to protect them from future slavery. She only has time to kill her baby daughter, Beloved, before the white men stop her. The black slave thus turns the vio lence that was done to her against her own children in two ways: first of all, Sethe kills her daughter because she thinks death would be better her than a life of slavery.However, this violent reaction of the mother has another meaning as well: she acts as if her children were her own possession, as if she were a white master herself. However, motherhood is not the only relationship that is affected by the dark past.Morrison’s novel exemplifies, through a number of relationships, the way in which slavery affects the unity of the traditional African family. In this respect, Beloved traces the reconstruction of African American identity and of the African family as a central structure of society, after the freedom has been obtained.Thus, Toni Morrison’s novel is a different type of slave narrative, told from the point of view of the African Americans, and focusing on the psychological effects of the slavery on selfhood, identity and love. First of all, the bond that is most investigated in the novel is that between the mothers and their children.Through this however, the author points at the destructive force that slavery has on the entire African American community, and especially on the family. Motherhood symbolizes creation and as such, it is the center of any human society.Morrison reveals the violence of white people indirectly, through the murder performed by the mother against her own child, which is obviously a remnant of master and slave relationship. The relationship between Sethe and her daughter Beloved, who haunts her first as a ghost and then as a nineteen old girl, is certainly the central one in the novel and the one that best represents the extent to which slavery can affect the human nature. The master/slave bond is essentially based on dependence, violence, transgression of boundaries.Selfhood for the black people was reduced to the definition of the white men, who took possession of them as if they were objects and not human be ings. The motive that the whites used to justify the slavery of the blacks was always the fact that the latter were savages.Morrison deftly inverses this statement, and points to the fact that the jungle was actually created by the white people, who annihilated the sense of selfhood and humanity in the slaves: â€Å"Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle.Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. . . . But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew.It spread†¦. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own. (Morrison, 198-199) The strong bond between Sethe and her children reflects this ownership of the slaves by their masters.The jungle that was planted by the white people in the blacks through slavery is mirrored in the Setheâ₠¬â„¢s violence. The murdering act of Sethe can thus be explained: she does not know herself and mistakes her own identity with the fate of her children.Unable to see herself as an independent person, Sethe clings to her role as a mother and becomes extremely possessive. She mistakes her own identity with her motherhood, and thus, in a way, reenacts the violence of the white masters against her.Sethe feels she has no power over her own self because the white people had crossed all the boundaries and not only taken everything she possessed physically, but everything she had dreamed as well: ‘†Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed,' she said, ‘and broke my heartstrings too.There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks. ‘†(Morrison, 89) It is obvious that the â€Å"whitefolks† are â€Å"bad luck†, that is, for the black slaves they were the instruments of destiny itself, trough the power have over their lives.Thus, when Sethe k ills her infant daughter, she obviously acts, although out of love, as a white master would. As Malmgren remarks, Sethe’s violent act against her own child is actually a perpetuation of the logic of slavery: â€Å"Sethe so identifies her Self with the well-being of her children that she denies their existence as autonomous Others, in so doing unconsciously perpetuating the logic of slavery. †(Malmgren, 103) Morrison’s novel thus reflects the violence of the white race against the black one indirectly, showing how weak the theory that the African American are less than human has proven over time.The white people are actually the ones who took their humanity by treating them as objects or animals. Beloved therefore reviews the manner in which the master/slave bond affects the selfhood of the former slaves, to the point that it is replicated in Sethe’s murder o her own daughter.Motherhood is exemplified in the novel not only in the relationship between Sethe and Beloved, but also in the relationships between Ma’ma and Sethe, or Baby Suggs and her own children. Infanticide seems to have been rather common among the former slaves, as a means of protecting their children.Although Sethe had barely known her mother, she is told that the latter also killed her children, all but herself since she was the only one begotten in love with a black man and not through the rape of a white master: â€Å"She told Sethe that her mother and Nan were together from the sea.Both were taken up many times by the crew. ‘She threw them all away but you. The one from the crew she threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without name she threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him.The others she did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I am telling you, small girl Sethe. ’†(Morrison, 98) As Demetrakopoulos points out, the slavery affected motherhood in such a way that it permitted the excessive and protective love to endeavor guard the child from the cruelty of life itself: â€Å"In this act, Morrison gives us the most searching portrait I know of the paradoxical polarities in motherhood. For Sethe the children are better off dead, their fantasy futures protected from the heinous reality of slavery.It is better, Sethe's act argues, to die in the cradle than to live out one's full life span soul-dead, a zombie/ puppet daily treading the process requirements of someone else's life and needs. The child as the adult's fantasy of the future is obviously central to Sethe's murder of Beloved. †( Demetrakopoulos, 53)In this way, motherhood crosses the normal limits of human love and seems to be reminiscent of the instinctual bonds between the animals and their babies: â€Å"Even her escape from slavery was not really for herself.Her swollen breasts and the baby kicking within pressed her onward to the baby waiting for her milk. B iological necessity made her create a life that would allow her children to grow up. Sethe carries Beloved on her conscience and in her heart. For the mother, the dead child is maternity in potentia, the mother truncated.( Demetrakopoulos, 54)The white domineering culture that enslaved the black is the main cause of this displacement of identity in all the characters in the novel.Although in the text the ghost and then the embodiment of Beloved appear as the main motives for the destabilization and deterioration of all the other family relationships, it is clear that the murdered child represents not only motherhood but also love itself. The possessive and narcissistic love that is exemplified in the relation between Sethe and Beloved replaces the normal emotions for the troubled self. This kind of love that ignores the boundaries of selfhood is obviously the result of the years of slavery and dependence.The liberated self does not know its own substance and limits: â€Å"Beloved/ You are my sister/ You are my daughter/ You are my face; you are me/ I have found you again; you have come back to me/ You are my Beloved/ You are mine/ You are mine/ You are mine. † (Morrison, 216)Paul D fears Sethe's love precisely because he realizes it is extremely powerful and fierce : â€Å"This here new Sethe didn't know where the world stopped and she began . . . more important than what Sethe had done was what she claimed.It scared him†(Morrison, 90) As Barbara Schapiro emphasizes in her study called The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison's Beloved, Morrison constructs in her novel precisely the kind of love that is based on possession, dependence and entrapment to show that the consequences of slavery affect the sense of self in the individuals: â€Å"Toni Morrison Beloved penetrates, perhaps more deeply than any historical or psychological study could, the unconscious emotional and psychic consequences of slavery.The novel reveals how the condition of enslavement in the external world, particularly the denial of one's status as a human subject, has deep repercussions in the individual's internal world. These internal resonances are so profound that even if one is eventually freed from external bondage, the self will still be trapped in an inner world that prevents a genuine experience of freedom. †(Iyasere, 155) Paul D calls this type of love that Sethe manifests for himself and for her children â€Å"too thick†, as if it were undiluted by the sense of identity.This type of love, that Sethe has shown in killing he baby daughter is afterwards perpetuated by her in her relationship with the ghost, with Beloved and with Paul D. Thus, the very opening of the novel plunges into Sethe’s world and briefly exposes the nature of the relationships in her family. The house itself is called â€Å"spiteful†, that is haunted by the dark past in the form of Beloved’s ghost. The two sons of Seth e have left and Baby Suggs is dead, all because of Beloved’s ghost.Slavery thus still haunts the lives of the liberated people, and not only in the form of guilt. The fact that the murdered daughter is named â€Å"Beloved† hints to the way in which emotions have been affected and altered: â€Å"124 was spiteful. Full of baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years, each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims.The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old — as soon as merely looking in the mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny handprints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard).Neither boy waited to see more, another kettleful of chick peas smoking in a heap on the floor: soda crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to the doorsill. Nor did the y wait for one of the relief periods: the weeks, months even, when nothing was disturbed.No. Each one fled at once — the moment the house committed what was for him the one insult not to be borne or witnessed a second time. † (Morrison, 3) Heller showed that Morrison’s novel is an attempt at reconstructing of the family relationships, which had been so much influenced and deteriorated by the slavery system: â€Å"As a study of the connection between the historical and the familial, Beloved is concerned with the healing of the black American family and the â€Å"reconstruction† of kinship structures.These structures had been violated by the cruel fact of family life under the slavery system: as enslaved Africans, women and men had no right to themselves, to one another, or to their children. †(Heller, 108) Love and family relationships are clearly affected by the question of identity.For the former slave identity is still undefined since he had been so long treated as an object which has a certain price but no value as a human being. In some of the plantations, the slaves were not allowed to have their own families, and the black women were often raped by their masters.In these conditions, it is obvious that the people had no sense of self and therefore could not relate to someone else. As Carl Malmgren comments in his study Mixed Genres and the Logic of Slavery, the novel points to the way in which love is affected by the loss of identity: â€Å"The novel thus meditates upon and mediates between the various forms that love takes. In this regard, its dominant theme is the problematic of love, particularly as regards the question of identity. †(Malmgren, 105)Denver, Sethe’s second daughter is also affected by Sethe’s love for her dead child. She intuitively feels that the relationship between Beloved and Sethe is wrong, and she lives with the anxiety that the mother could at any time repeat the murderous act and maybe kill her too: â€Å"All the time, I'm afraid the thing that happened that made it all right for my mother to kill my sister could happen again. I don't know what it is, I don't know who it is, but maybe there is something else terrible enough to make her do it again.I need to know what that thing might be, but I don't want to. Whatever it is, it comes from outside this house, outside the yard, and it can come right on in the yard if it wants to. So I never leave this house and I watch over the yard, so it can't happen again and my mother won't have to kill me too. † (Morrison, 205)Denver is actually the one that saves Sethe by deciding to go out of the house in search of food, and to break thus the mother’s total isolation. She makes therefore the first step to establish a relationship between herself and the outside world.She also evinces a much stronger sense of identity in her desire to listen to stories that only talked about her: â€Å"Denver hated the stories her mother told that did not concern herself, which is why Amy was all she ever asked about. The rest was a gleaming, powerful world made more so by Denver's absence from it.Not being in it, she hated it and wanted Beloved to hate it too, although there was no chance of that at all. â€Å"(Morrison, 62) Teresa N. Washington in The Mother- Daughter Aje Relationship in Toni Morrison’s’ Beloved’ shows that Beloved actually is a symbolic incarnation of the African American consciousness coming back to life:â€Å"But in having equated her best self with her children, making the decision to save that precious self, and summoning the self for a discussion, Sethe comes face to face with her spirit, her embodied conscience, and her own (and all her people’s past. )† (Washington, 184) Thus, it is the white culture that first took possession of the black people’s selves and identities, thus destabilizing the entire African American community: â€Å"Anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you.Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore†¦The best things she was, was her children.. â€Å"(Morrison, 251) The novel concludes with the hope of Sethe’s regaining of her lost self: â€Å"You your best thing, Sethe. You are. † â€Å"Me? Me? † (Morrison, 273).The master and slave relationship is also based on dependence, and this is why Sethe has no sense of her real, independent self. She does not even dare to â€Å"go ahead and feel† for example: â€Å"Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something? † (Morrison, 38).This re-appropriation of the self is a symbol for the reconstruction of the African American identity and culture, and an example of the way in which the past can be accepted. The sense selfhood and the consolidation of the family bonds repre sent the consolidation of the African American community.Works Cited: Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie A. â€Å"Maternal bonds as devourers of women's individuation in Toni Morrison's Beloved. † African American Review. 1992. Vol. 26(1): 51-60.Heller, Dana. †Reconstructing kin: Family, history, and narrative in Toni Morrison's Beloved. † College Literature. Vol. 21(2). 1994.Horvitz, Deborah. â€Å"Nameless Ghosts: Possession and Dispossession in Beloved,† in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1989, pp. 157-67.Iyasere, Marla and Solomon Iyasere. Understanding Toni Morrison's Beloved and Sula: Selected Essays and Criticisms of the Works by the Nobel Prize-Winning Author. Troy: Whitston Publishing, 2000.Malmgren, Carl. â€Å"Mixed Genres and the Logic of Slavery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. † Critique. 1995. Vol. 36(2).Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987. Washington, Teresa. The Mother- Daughter Aje Relationship in Toni Morrisonâ₠¬â„¢s’ Beloved’.