Part VII: In Love and Death

Beloved goes right along with everything I've been saying this far about how good and evil is relative. Sethe killed her youngest daughter, Beloved, to save her from slavery. The community was disgusted with her and thought she was a monster, but to her it was an act of love. She only killed Beloved because she knew death was far better than slavery. But then comes the question of whether she had the right to determine her child's future. So when it comes down to it, Beloved brings up the conflict of good vs. evil, but it is in the form of love vs. selfishness or pride. As for who determines what good and evil is, Beloved seems to suggest that good and evil can only be objectively labeled once the outcome of the act is seen. If it has a positive outcome, there you go. Good. However, if it has a negative outcome, that's bad. Unfortunately, nothing is quite that cut and dry, but that's the gist of it. The point is, it's hard to say if what you're doing is good or evil when you're doing it. History can look back at anything and determine it was evil. Just look at slavery. Slavery existed in America for so long because at the time, no one thought it was evil. Obviously, now we can see that enslaving other human beings is pretty bad. But at the time, it was just the norm.