Milk and Butter: Sethe and Halle
“I was pregnant with Denver but I had milk for my baby girl" (19).
"...After her milk had been stolen, her back pulped, her children orphaned, she was not to have an easeful death. No" (39).
"BELOVED is my sister. I swallowed her blood right along with my mother’s milk" (242).
Sethe needed to leave Sweet Home so she could bring milk to her children, but her milk was stolen. Meanwhile, Halle is up in the loft of the barn, watching, with butter smeared all over his face. Halle never owed anyone milk, but he enjoyed the butter while Sethe never could. Butter is quite literally made from milk (fun fact: you can actually make butter from breastmilk, but they're probably referring to cow milk). Halle got away with "squatting by the churn smearing the butter as well as its clabber all over his face" (83). In this scene, he realizes how helpless and dehumanized Sweet Home has made him feel, especially "because the milk they took is on his mind" (83), but I tend to focus more on Sethe as a victim here.
Sethe is milk. Halle is butter. You might think butter is better (unless you're Zoey...), but you can't make butter without milk just like you can't have this whole family without Sethe birthing all these children and bringing her milk to them. Although Halle had familial expectations, he biologically didn't have milk to deliver like Sethe did. The family survived because of Sethe. Sure, Halle took care of them and was a part in making them, but ultimately it was Sethe. It's always been Sethe.
"Other people went crazy, why couldn’t she? Other people’s brains stopped, turned around and went on to something new, which is what must have happened to Halle. And how sweet that would have been: the two of them back by the milk shed, squatting by the churn, smashing cold, lumpy butter into their faces with not a care in the world. Feeling it slippery, sticky—rubbing it in their hair, watching it squeeze through their fingers" (84).
Sethe wanted to give up everything. She has also been dehumanized at Sweet Home, facing unbearable trauma. Despite it all, the love of her family pushed her through. You can always rely on milk. And near the end, we see Denver and Beloved drinking hot milk after ice skating. The milk is always there. It's been delivered.
I like your blog and how you emphasize the importance of Sethe to the family. I think that your Sethe and Halle to butter and milk analogy was creative and was something that I did not think of. I agree with you that Sethe is a major component of the family and that her contributions in giving birth to the children and always providing for her family are significant.
ReplyDeleteOk. First off, I did not need to imagine breast milk butter. That was not an image I needed in my head. Thanks for that. I think the fact that Halle is eating the butter (the milk) and putting it on his face really says something about Halle and Sethe's relationship too. Beyond just being the mother of the family to her children, Sethe is the backbone of the family including Halle. He is also indulging in her milk (or the idea of it rather), supported by Sethe.
ReplyDeleteThe association between the assault on Sethe that Halle witnesses and butter is also significant on another level: Sethe is "milked" by the mossy toothed nephew in the barn while the teacher looks on and takes notes, which is one more way that schoolteacher's regime is introducing livestock imagery and practices into the workings of Sweet Home. One of the core elements of Sethe's trauma at Sweet Home has to do with this equation of enslaved people with livestock, which is entirely associated with schoolteacher's "methods," and butter, of course, is an agricultural product. So as queasy as the "breastmilk butter" image is, the association in Halle's damaged mind seems pretty clear--his wife, with her milk for THEIR children, is treated like a cow or goat to be milked by a farmhand, and his powerlessness to do anything about the situation "snaps" him.
ReplyDeleteI think of the breast milk in Beloved as a metaphor for all things maternal - love, nurturing, responsibility. And with the butter churn scene Morrison gets at the difference Halle and Sethe - it's Sethe job to create job, and deliver it to her children, as a mother. Meanwhile Halle, while still a parent, lacks that extra level of responsibility, and in moments of extreme trauma gets to sit back and... comfort himself? With butter, the product of milk's labor. Meanwhile Sethe has to get to her kids
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting analogy, and I didn't really notice how often it showed up before your blog post. As the mother Sethe is forced to get milk to her children - push through, escape Sweet Home, and make it all the way to Cincinnati, while Halle doesn't face that same pressure. He gets to give up and not make it to his children, and the fact that in that moment it's butter that he has all over his face is really interesting. Also milk is so much better than butter.
ReplyDeleteMilk is so important to her relationship with Beloved. What kept her going the entire journey is that she had to bring milk to her baby. Then when she loses her, Beloved becomes mixed with the milk. I think there's something really interesting to that imagery, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. I also think the ice skating scene with the hot milk is interesting. Comparing to Halle's scene, if milk is something that represents a turn to craziness, this certainly works in this scene. At this point, the three women have locked themselves away and their relationships have started to spiral.
ReplyDeleteI think this concept is really interesting, and I like the point you make about butter being made from milk. The connection between Halle's butter and Sethe's milk during the scene Paul D. recalls has always confused me, and I honestly even considered the butter being made from her milk (and if not literally, metaphorically..?). I think the metaphor yet also literal meaning of Sethe's milk is really important throughout the novel, and it fits in with the instinct to nurture as a mother.
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