Beloved Social Construction

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The socially constructed views of the self, found in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, shapes gender identity and exposes hardships characters face associated with these views. A social construction approach to gender and sexuality would examine the behaviours, ideologies and subjective meanings within human groups, who are assimilated and mediated by culture (Vance 6). A predominant social construct found in Beloved is race. Race is used by members of society to group and classify individuals. In Morrison’s novel, readers are exposed to the racial hierarchy of Whites dominating Blacks. Beloved is rooted in themes of slavery and white supremacy (another social construct used to dehumanize colored people and rationalize their slavery). Sethe …show more content…
Sexuality and gender are recognized as distinct systems which intersect at many points, where everyone has a biological sexuality, and this system turns sexuality into a cultural product (2). The heteronormative society in Beloved contains two binaries of gender, the male and the female dichotomies. Socially constructed, the male is to be masculine, strong, superior to and have desires for women, and the female is to be feminine, dependent, inferior to and have desires for men. In the novel, Paul D becomes lovers with Sethe – as she provides him with stability and allows him to come to terms with his past, however, he becomes more distant from Sethe as Beloved grows closer and his fantasy begins to fall apart. In Paul D’s attempt to gain back control of the family and regain his dominance, he tries to impregnate Sethe (124). This act conveys how the socially inclined notion of males being the dominant figures in households, are deeply rooted in members of society. The prevailing force (Beloved) threatened his masculinity – by dominating the household, and his fear of unmanliness resulted in him leaving. The sex/gender system describes that one’s sexuality has to do something for society and if it does not then they must be ashamed of themselves and this is exactly what …show more content…
Garner has with another white slave owner he states, “Y'all got boys…Young boys, old boys, picky boys, stroppin boys. Now at Sweet Home, my niggers is men every one of em. Bought em thataway, raised em thataway. Men every one” however, the other slave owner proclaims that “ain’t no nigger men” (12). It has been socially constructed for the white male slave owner to believe that black slaves are not real men (they do not belong to the male binary). This is because with racialization, black individuals are dehumanized and it is unfathomable to classify both white males and black slaves as men. Relating to the notion of an individual having multiple identities, male slaves face great hardships (abuse, cruelty, death, otherness, etc.) due to society’s belief that they are just slaves and not men. These slaves are perceived by society as animals and their abilities to create their own identities are repressed by the
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