In Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, a white woman named Amy finds a black woman in the woods about to give birth. Sethe, a runaway slave on her way to Ohio, is not sure at first whether to trust her.
Certainly Amy shares her culture's view that Sethe, as a black woman, is inferior to her in intelligence. But the kindness in Amy overrules all else and instead of doing what the law requires—turn her in—she lifts up Sethe's swollen feet and begins to tenderly massage them. Sethe begins to cry.
“It’s gonna hurt, now,” said Amy. “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.”
“A truth for all times,” the story’s narrator observes.
Certainly Amy shares her culture's view that Sethe, as a black woman, is inferior to her in intelligence. But the kindness in Amy overrules all else and instead of doing what the law requires—turn her in—she lifts up Sethe's swollen feet and begins to tenderly massage them. Sethe begins to cry.
“It’s gonna hurt, now,” said Amy. “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.”
“A truth for all times,” the story’s narrator observes.
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