The "Freedom" of Sweet Home


In the story of Beloved, Sweet Home plays a central role in the “rememory” of the characters. Though at first only alluded to, the story of the Sweet Home plantation and how it relates to the current situations and behaviors of the main characters slowly unfolds throughout the book. Before the arrival of schoolteacher, Sweet Home and its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Garner, seem to have been “compassionate” towards the enslaved people that worked there. The Sweet Home men: Paul A, Paul D, Paul F, Sixo, and Halle, were known throughout the area as unique in their position as slaves because they were treated like men by Mr. Garner. He gave them a certain level of respect, and he even allowed the men to have guns, which was unheard of at the time. However, how much autonomy did the Sweet Home men truly have?

Though the Sweet Home men had independence and dignity under their original owner, that does not change the fact that they were “owned.” The only reason Paul D. and his brothers had these privileges and freedoms was because Mr. Garner had given it to them. They weren’t legally entitled to those rights, and however benevolent Mr. Garner may have been, he still held the power to snatch away their freedom (so to speak) in an instant. This facade of liberty is destroyed when Mr. Garner dies, and schoolteacher takes his place. The previous kindness and generosity Mr. Garner treated the Sweet Home men with (though in my mind, there is no way to be kind or generous to someone you’ve enslaved) is replaced by schoolteacher’s sadistic, ruthless and horrifyingly racist treatment of them. He takes away any self-determination the brothers had, administers cruel punishment, and thinks of them as animals, as something one forces into submission.

With a simple owner switch, the lives and treatment of the Sweet Home Men dramatically changes. The difference on the plantation between Mr. Garner and schoolteacher’s time on it exhibits how the circumstances of the men completely depends on who “owns” them, and no matter how well/badly treated they are, they will never truly be free in the system of slavery.


Comments

  1. JohnDecember 13, 2021 at 10:12 PM

    Great post! I think the irony in the name Sweet Home really comes to light in what you say in this post. I agree that no matter what master people in Sweet Home had, they were never truly really free legally, and to take it a step further, I would say that the people in Sweet home had a skewed idea of benevolence, because they had never truly been free, so they thought of Mr. and Mrs. Garner as good people, even though having slaves pretty much disqualifies you from being a good person.

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  2. MitchellDecember 17, 2021 at 12:15 PM

    Readers who remain unimpressed by Garner's "humane" version of enslavement--no matter what his worse neighbors think of him--must enjoy the section when Baby Suggs is silently replying to all of his "wasn't I good to you, Jenny?" questions when he's bringing her to Bodwin's and freedom in Ohio. She thinks to herself, "But you got my boy and I'm all broke down. You be renting him out to pay for me way after I'm gone to glory" (172). Garner's willingness to allow Halle to "rent himself out" to "buy" his mother's freedom is one of the primary examples of his "humane" slavery, but we're reminded that he is actually *profiting* from the deal (as the "rent" goes to him), and he ends up purchasing Sethe (young and able-bodied) after Baby Suggs has a bad hip and can't work as well anymore. The longer we look at it, the less good the deal looks. Even Halle has no illusions about Garner's kindness--he knows it's a rotten deal, but it's still worth doing in order to gain his mother freedom in her later years.

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  3. LiliDecember 17, 2021 at 6:24 PM

    Great post! I totally agree when you mention how although Sweet Home's original owners were more compassionate, that they still owned slaves and the slaves were still their property. I think the name of the plantation also sheds light on that concept. Sweet Home sounds like a really nice name and a loving environment, but in reality it contains the horrors of slavery in its walls.

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  4. erin's blogDecember 18, 2021 at 12:24 PM

    Exactly, and the fact that Garner clearly enjoys thinking of himself as this benevolent slave master figure really adds another layer of gross. He uses the half humane treatment of human beings to boost his ego more than anything else.

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  5. CadiDecember 18, 2021 at 8:30 PM

    You bring up so many interesting points here! I didn't completely realize how the autonomy of the Sweet Home men completely relies on their owner. This connection means that their freedom is pretty much only a temporary façade of freedom rather than actual liberty, since they still don't have control over their own freedom. And even though Mr. Garner treats the Sweet Home men with respect, the fact that he owns them is disrespectful in itself.

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  6. Charlie HechlerDecember 19, 2021 at 11:02 PM

    Great post! I agree that Mr. Garner's illusion of freedom that he creates for the Sweet Home men although slightly benevolent, is still just that, an illusion. All we can see for Mr. Garner is that he is a slightly less evil slave owner, which isn't saying much. He still owns slaves, and takes advantage of them, if he was truly good, he would not have slaves in the first place.

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  7. TeoDecember 29, 2021 at 4:01 PM

    Nice post Clara! I think you do a great job of showing how terrible the slave system really is. Even though the slaves are treated fairly well relative to other slaves by Mr. Garner, they are treated like animals in just an instant because of a new owner coming in in Schoolteacher. Great job!

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