Beloved Big Question: Is Sethe a "Slave to her Environment?"

The novel Beloved is intriguing to analyze from a nature versus nurture standpoint. The most practical way to go about answering this question is to zone in on Sethe, the main character. To a large extent, environment plays a part in the development of her character. This is obvious, especially given the context of the novel. She demonstrates the extent to which slavery's stringent chains have restrained her by evading confrontation with her past. Her inability to vocalize the past with her daughter, Denver, reveals the degree to which the past has left an indelible "chokeberry tree" on her being. Only after the reemergence of Beloved, Sethe is able to grasp and share about her past. This event indicates a shift in the novel, and reaffirms this notion that Sethe is largely shaped by her past surroundings because she remains relatively secretive about her past until Beloved's arrival. In this sense, Beloved is a symbol for the past resurfacing in the present, and thereby, affecting the future. I would argue that by being a symbol for the past and for Sethe's external environment, Beloved actually prompts Sethe to become more driven by self-action rather than by surroundings. This is evident especially through the anecdotes in the novel. For example, Sethe reveals a lot about her past upon Beloved's arrival in the novel. An instant connection appears to exist between the two characters. This is not unlike Sethe's connections to the past, and their effects on her future. By enabling Sethe to "rediscover" and "retell" of her past, Beloved allows this character to experience personal growth through her anecdotes. By coming to grips with the "external factors of the past," Sethe is able to discover her own self and thus, appreciate that her own actions, and not just her past, have shaped her as a human being. While Sethe's past is obviously ominous and revealing of the obsequious subservience she experienced on a daily basis, her action to murder Beloved and her ability to run away from Sweet Home makes the reader wonder about this character's malleability. In fact, these two actions in the novel seem to imply that Sethe is an audacious character, and her tensions with her past have been indirectly shaped by her actions. Therefore, her actions, to a large extent, have affected her as a person. The distinction in this novel is clearly difficult to make, however, it is fair to say that Sethe's ability to finally accept the impact that her external environment has had on her enables her to discover the decisiveness of herself. On the flip side, her ability to formulate a rationale for murdering Beloved enables us to see the extent to which slavery was cruel. Her environment, in this case, affected her so greatly that it prompted her to murder her child so that this child would be safe from this precarious environment she had been accustomed to. Sethe is a complex character. It is fair to say that in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of this character, we must understand the intertwined nature between Sethe's actions and her surroundings. And by doing so, we as readers can deduce the conclusion that Sethe's character is shaped by her actions and environment. Not only is her character shaped by these two factors, but also Sethe's actions are shaped by her environment, and her past actions have affected the current environment she resides in.

Big Question: The Stranger

Albert Camus writes a seemingly superficial, but nonetheless, poignant novel in The Stranger. Meursault, the novel's simultaneous protagonist and outcast, faces the difficulty of succumbing to society's deceptive facade of concealing authenticity. With this lingering thought, are the character's personal qualities and behaviors ultimately shaped by his actions, or simply by society's malleable hand? From the onset of the plot, Camus portrays Meursault as a blunt, almost flippantly frank, human being. In other words, the novel's protagonist is labeled as an "outcast" because he underscores the power of truth, and according to the societal norm, shares a superfluous amount of true emotion that is often times morally inappropriate in a societal context. By being the character who initially belittles the ingenuous facades of the societal standards, Meursault is the outcast. At the same time, however, he may be more of a person than any individual in the novel because of his inability to obscure his honesty, and willingness to speak the truth. With what has been said so far, it can be easily concluded that Camus is conveying to the reader the simple, resonating message that our character is not socially malleable, and instead, our actions determine our personality and character. This is the easy answer. Camus, in contrast, demonstrates a deeper meaning. While for the majority of the novel, Meursault is indignant of the affected social behavior around him, and impermeable to the membranes of societal influence, his paradigm of thought changes after he haphazardly murders an Arabian man. After this action, Meursault is subsequently locked up and awaiting his trial. As he spends his days in prison, the protagonist incessantly and continually remarks of the inevitably of events. For example, on p.81, he says, "No, there was no way out, and no one can imagine what nights in prison are like," or on p.97 he says, "Something had changed..as if familiar paths traced in summer skies could lead as easily to prison as to the sleep of the innocent." These quotations, even in different contexts, reveal Meursault's insecurities and renunciation of control over societal events. Camus, throughout the novel, seems to use society as an extended metaphor, an allegory, for an Almighty being. This is apparent when, during the end of the novel, Meursault, the "anti-Christ," is pitted against the priest, a symbol for society's beliefs in God. With this in mind, society is God, and thus, Meursault's gradual acceptance of his fate in society symbolizes the idea of societal predestination, and how Meursault's society, by forcing Meursault to accept the consequences of murder and the societal punishments it entails, thereby has a large effect on the protagonist's character. Going back to the original question of nature vs. nurture, the answer is complex. It is a gradual transition from utter invincibility to begrudging acceptance, a transition from celebrated individuality to forced assimilation, and a transition from actions, personal decisions, and self-control, to predestination, self-renunciation, and helplessness.