The mother-daughter Aje relationship in Toni Morrison's Beloved

It is well-known that Beloved is a re-membering and re-ordering of the life, actions, and Aje of a woman named Margaret Garner. In "The Negro Woman," Herbert Aptheker recalls Garner's act of Aje, which occurred in 1856: "One may better understand now a Margaret Garner, fugitive slave, who, when trapped near Cincinnati, killed her own daughter and tried to kill herself. She rejoiced that the girl was dead--'now she would never know what a woman suffers as a slave'--and pleaded to be tried for murder. 'I shall go singing to the gallows rather than be returned to slavery'" (qtd. in Davis 21). Garner ordered her existence, and that of her progeny, with the only means available to her--her Aje. And Sethe uses the same maternal, retributive, protective Aje" as the historical Garner. However, due to the brutality of the institution of slavery, the actions of Sethe and Garner are not rare or unique.

The Unwritten History of Slavery identifies another child-saving Aid in Fannie of Eden, Tennessee. Fannie's daughter Cornelia recalled that her mother was "the smartest black woman in Eden" and a woman with an Aje-esque duality. Fannie "could do anything": "She was as quick as a flash of lightening, and whatever she did could not be done better." But she was also "a demon." As her daughter recalled, "Ma fussed, fought, and kicked all the time.... She said that she wouldn't be whipped. She was loud and boisterous.... She was too high-spirited and independent" to be a slave. "I tell you, she was a captain" (Rawick, Unwritten History 283). An enslaved captain, Fannie ingrained Aje survival tactics into Cornelia from childhood, telling her, "I'll kill you, gal, if you don't stand up for yourself.... fight, and if you can't fight, kick; if you can't kick, then bite" (Rawick, Unwritten History 284).

As a living example of Aje-resistance, when the plantation mistress struck her, Fannie beat her, chased her into the street, and ripped off her clothes. (5) Fannie declared, "Why, I'll kill her dead if she ever strikes me again." Fannie is clearly historical mother to Sixo, the ever-self-possessed enslaved African in Beloved who grabbed his captor's gun to provoke a stand-off. Cornelia recounted her mother's reaction to the county whippers who had been employed to chastise her for beating Mrs. Jennings:

   She knew what they were coming for,
   and she intended to meet them
   halfway. She swooped upon them like
   a hawk on chickens. I believe they
   were afraid of her or thought she was
   crazy. One man had a long beard
   which she grabbed with one hand, and
   the lash with the other.... She was a
   good match for them. Mr. Jennings
   came and pulled her away. I don't
   know what would have happened if
   he hadn't come at that moment, for
   one man had already pulled his gun
   out. Ma did not see the gun until Mr.
   Jennings came up. On catching sight of
   it, she said, "Use your gun, use it and
   blow my brains out if you will."
   (Rawick, Unwritten History 287)