Thesis: In Beloved, Toni Morrison talks about family life, mother-daughter relationships and the psychological impact of slavery. The psychological impact on the slaves in this book was horrific, mainly because of the abuse, discrimination, humiliation, sexual assault, rape, and embarrassment that their owners inflicted on them. The abuse, assault, humiliation and rape were the worst, forty-six people from the chain gang were offered to eat the guards' sperm for breakfast (Parker). Beloved's slaves were treated like animals, white people in the cities dehumanized black people and now they look at black people like animals, they had no value, no purpose (Heffernan). A school teacher, the slave owner viewed blacks as something far less than human, he looked at them and talked about mating them with each other or anyone who wanted to "mate" with them, he didn't care, none of them cared (Heffernan) The abuse, the rapes, the humiliation, the embarrassment, the assaults and all the other things that accompanied slavery scarred and frightened Sethe so much that a Once freed, she attempted to kill her four children, because she was so afraid that they would live a slave's life like she did (Heffernan). When Sethe was a slave, the teacher's nephews held Sethe down and stole her breast milk, as if she were a cow. Sethe was taken away from her mother at a very young age and she doesn't remember her at all, many other families have also been broken up in the same way (Spargo). There were slave owners who were sometimes kind to slaves, like Mr. and Mrs. Garner who were kind until they found themselves behind closed doors, they treated their slaves as if they were wild animals who were trying to invade their property. Sethe and her family l...... middle of paper ......b. January 14, 2014.Heffernan, Teresa. “‘Beloved’ and the problem of mourning. » Studies in the Novel 30.4 (1998): 558. Gale Literary Resources. Internet. January 14, 2014Jesser, Nancy. “Violence, Home and Community in Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’.” African American Review 33.2 (1999): 325+. Gale Literary Resources. Internet. January 14, 2014. Parker, Emma. “A New Hysteria: History and Hysteria in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Twentieth Century Literature 47.1 (2001): 1. Gale Literary Resources. Internet. January 14, 2014. Spargo, R. Clifton. “Trauma and the Specters of E-Slavery in Morrison’s Beloved.” Mosaic [Winnipeg] 35.1 (2002): 113+. Gale Literary Resources. Internet. January 14, 2014. Vickroy, Laurie. “Outer Strength/Inner Strength: Maternal Love and Regenerative Spaces in Sula and Beloved.” Obsidian II 8.2 (1993): 28+. Gale Literary Resources. Internet. January 14. 2014.