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

When Fannie declared, as would Brer Rabbit, "I'll go to hell or anywhere else, but I won't be whipped," Jennings decided to send his unbeatable slave out of his Eden, but he told Fannie she could not take her infant, his "property," with her. Truly Garner's (and literarily, Sethe's) sister of struggle, on the day she was to leave, Fannie took her infant, held it by its feet, and, weeping, "vowed to smash its brains out before she'd leave it." Cornelia concludes, "Ma took her baby with her" (Rawick, Unwritten History 288). And yet Fannie was not exiled. She and her husband returned from Memphis to Eden and their children with "new clothes and a pair of beautiful earrings" (Rawick, Unwritten History 289). Fannie lived the rest of her life in as much peace as her Aje and an oppressive society could afford her. Indicative of biological acquisition of Aje, Cornelia grew to be just as Aje-influenced as her mother.

Cornelia's oral testimony about her mother is included in George P. Rawick's The Unwritten History of Slavery. Morrison corrects the ostensible oversight implied in Rawick's title when she writes the history and sprinkles the spirit of Fannie--from swooping vengeance to whip-grabbing standoff to beautiful earrings--throughout Beloved. Using the methodology of the traditional Yoruba Eye Oro, Sethe's actions in her sacred space blend the lives of both historical Iya, Garner and Fannie. Sethe, as did Margaret Garner, succeeds in killing her third child, the oldest girl. When schoolteacher and his men enter the woodshed, Sethe holds Denver by her feet fully prepared to bash her newly born head open on the rafters. It is apparently important to Sethe, Margaret, and Fannie that the girl-children be made safe, first and foremost. They are the ones who can grow to have their milk stolen, their wombs defiled, their womanhood mocked.

When Beloved opens, nearly 18 years after Beloved's death, the home that was a sanctuary for Sethe and countless other displaced Africans is the desolate stomping ground for a wrathful "baby ghost," who is the daughter successfully sent to the other side. Sethe and Denver live alone with the "ghost," exiled from the community not because of fear, but because the community finds Sethe's show of love, similar to that of Suggs, too prideful and selfish. From the outset, a condemnation of the grounds of pride seems a stretch in Sethe's case. She is remembered as holding her head too high and carrying her neck too stiffly as the police led her away. It seems either the community is too judgmental or that Morrison is plying narrative control; however, from a Yoruba perspective, Sethe and Baby Suggs have trespassed a law of Aje that "one must not display wealth" (Opeola). The community, acting very much as a society of traditional African elders would, punishes Baby Suggs with silence after she celebrates her spiritual and material wealth with the magnificent feast. As a runaway slave, Sethe does not even own herself, let alone her children, by American standards. However, she dares to love and protect them with the only means at her disposal. By doing what no other communal member would conceive of doing to protect his or her wealth, Sethe's private work of protection becomes a grandiose display. Her knowledge of her wealth and power is made obvious in her refusal to weep or beg forgiveness for her deed. Showing no remorse and exuding an air of "serenity and tranquility" after her actions, she loses communal respect and consideration.