Through Schoolteacher's Eyes

About halfway through the novel, Beloved, the reader learns the big “secret” of the novel, of what the story has been leading up to thus far. Sethe, in an attempt born out of the mysterious bonds of love, tries to save her children, and in doing so, injures her sons and murders her two-year old daughter (175). Toni Morrison reveals this horrific event by beginning with the perspective of schoolteacher.

The viewpoint of schoolteacher is interesting, because in his version of what he sees Sethe do, he is almost compassionate. At first glance, schoolteacher seems to have some decency in him when he talks about Sethe. However, that façade is soon ruined upon closer examination of the text. Schoolteacher notices all the:

nigger eyes…Little nigger-boy eyes open in sawdust; little nigger girl eyes staring between the wet fingers that held her face so her head wouldn’t fall off; the little nigger-baby eyes crinkling up to cry in the arms of the old nigger whose own eyes were nothing but slivers looking down at his feet. But the worst ones were those of the nigger woman who looked like she didn’t have any. Since the whites in them had disappeared and since they were as black as her skin, she looked blind (177).

Eyes are considered to be portals to the “soul,” which is a considered to be a human trait; it is a quality that only humans have. So, by actively noticing all the ex-slaves’ eyes, he is humanizing them. Schoolteacher brings them up to his level as a human being, and perhaps there is some compassion. However, the word “eyes” is always prefaced with the word “nigger.” The n-word becomes an adjective to specify what kind of eyes they have, and separates them from schoolteacher and his white counterparts. Instead of compassion and empathy, the most emotion schoolteacher is moved to is that of pity; the pity of his inferiors. Furthermore, he notices that Sethe’s eyes are all black. They have no more white. Schoolteacher is white and Sethe is black. In his view, white is good and superior and human. Sethe no longer has any trace of white in her eyes and by extension, her soul. For what she has done, schoolteacher can no longer see her as human and thus, capable of good.

Additionally, schoolteacher is not moved at all by Sethe’s plight since he simply takes off after arriving upon the gruesome scene and considers them all as property lost. Sethe was “the woman schoolteacher bragged about, the one he said made fine ink, damn good soup, pressed his collars the way he liked besides having at least ten breeding years left. But now she’d gone wild…The whole lot was lost now” (176). He speaks of Sethe in dehumanizing terms. He frequently makes a comparison between the slaves and animals. Breeding is what animals do, or rather what people have domesticated them to do. So Sethe is merely an animal and a piece of property to schoolteacher. Therefore, the absolutely horrific and gruesome scene he comes upon, does not move him. What Sethe does to her own child is rendered as animalistic; as if the infanticide were nothing more than a lion hunting for its food.

Ironically, although schoolteacher is the white man and thus the supposed “superior” to all the slaves, he has no name. He is simply referred to by his occupation without any distinction, not even any capitalization. Schoolteacher has no identity and identity is a key human trait. Thus, the lack of identity is dehumanizing. Schoolteacher, through his apathy and racism, is really the one who is an “animal.”