Oh, Sixo.
I cried once during Beloved.
There was a lot to cry about, and yet amidst all the scenes of almost
clownish tragedy, the thing that really affected me was Sixo’s death.
Sixo wasn’t a very important character in the book, but he
was important to the thirty-mile woman. Just look at her name—thirty-mile
woman. That’s a testament to how much she meant to him. How? I don’t know. How
do people separated by thirty miles find each other? All I know is that somehow
he loved her. He walked thirty miles for her. If he didn’t love her he would
have just molested the cows. That sounds much easier.
Morrison is truly amazing in the way she slips into
different minds. She knows how people think, understands their view; understands
it even better than the people themselves. The way she described Sixo and the
30 mile woman together was phenomenal. “they clutch each other and whisper. She
is lit now with some glowing, some shining that comes from inside her. Before
when she knelt on creek pebbles with Paul D, she was nothing, a shape in the
dark” (265). Morrison captured the attraction between two people in words. Her
description makes perfect sense, even though it seems like it shouldn’t—you wouldn’t
think those words mean much. And yet, Morrison knew they would perfectly convey
the feeling.
That loving scene between Sixo and the thirty-mile woman was
what made me cry. When he was killed, she remained. I couldn’t stop thinking
about how valuable he had been to her. How rare and unlikely their love was.
Sixo was like a superhuman force. He walked thirty miles—thirty miles—to be with her. He risked it all, overcame all odds
and obstacles, and made it out unscathed. He was stupidly lucky; untouchable.
Then just like that, shot dead. How inglorious was that death? It didn’t seem
possible for Sixo to be killed that easily. Surely the force of his love, which
had sustained him for thirty miles and lit up a woman couldn’t be snuffed out
with that little fanfare? But just like that it was.
I cried as I thought about how his last free act was to push
his loved one away and lead schoolteacher away from her. It was selfless and
heartbreaking at the same time. I felt a sense of loss when Sixo died, which I
hadn’t felt for any other dead characters. His death was just made
exceptionally tragic by the painful love and broken hopes he left behind. Still,
I feel as though his death is symbolic of the racial struggle. He did not make
it out, but he laughed as he died because he knew that he had taken a step
towards beating the system. Part of him was set free through his son. The
struggle is marked with small victories among the shameful loss. Sixo’s death
broke my heart, but he represents hope. I know at least that Sixo will not come
back as a ghost. He was at peace.
I also found that scene incredibly sad. I think what really hit me hard was the fact that he had the future of a family with the Thirty Mile Woman and Seven-O. Sixo laughs with the thought of his son. As you said, he is at peace. I feel like this only makes me feel worse, knowing that Sixo accepted his fate of not watching his son grown up, but also better to know he won't be in the turmoil Beloved went through. It was overall just a emotional provoking scene.
ReplyDeleteI think Sixo is such a powerful character. He walks nineteen hours straight to see this woman for a single hour, and does it again and again because he loves her so much. You're right, there are a million things that could've happened to him on that 30-mile trek, yet his downfall came with a single bullet at a single moment. I find it so heartbreaking that he sort of just accepted that he wouldn't see his son grow up, that he sort of accepted his place for its pros and cons, and still got killed suddenly.
ReplyDeleteSIxo does end up with a place of honor within the narrative, as at the very end, in the deeply moving reunion scene with Sethe and Paul D, Paul suddenly thinks of Sixo's definition of love, which he'd tried to explain to Paul by describing his feelings for the Thirty-Mile Woman: "She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order" (321). This lovely and memorable formulation of love provides the title for the film about Morrison's life and career that we'll be watching in a couple of weeks, and Paul suddenly remembers this quote to understand his complex feelings about Sethe, and hers for him.
ReplyDeleteThis is dark, but I wonder if we can see Sixo's death as a sort of inversion of Sethe's attempt to kill her children. In both cases, we have a character going through something horrible, but thinking "I've got you Schoolteacher, I've won, my children won't see slavery and you can't do anything about it". But where Sixo has the chance to sacrifice himself for his son, Sethe can only try to keep her children out of Schoolteacher's hands.
ReplyDeleteI think part of what makes Sixo’s death so sad for me was his constant cheerfulness. He always seemed so positive about any situation that he was thrown into and would try to look on the bright side whenever he could. Every time he talked; it was in a way that would try to bring everyone’s spirits up. He seemed the least affected by the horrors of slavery, which is partly why the fact that he was one of the ones who ended up dying is so sad.
ReplyDeleteSixo's death really drives home the level of senseless cruelty inflicted by Schoolteacher, especially once you compare its circumstances to the brief look inside Schoolteacher's head. It's particularly painful to see how slave drivers like Schoolteacher dehumanize and commodify characters we've grown to love and care deeply about, and how all of Sixo's heart and personality is taken away in an instant because some ignorant bigot decided his life wasn't worth anything.
ReplyDeleteI thought one of the fascinating parts of sixos charachter was the fact he'd walk so far to meet the woman he met. At first the story seemed comical, but it came to mean a lot about SIxo, and paul later seemed to reflect on it/
ReplyDeleteSixo's death is one of those saddening moments in the narrative and definitely affected me as I was reading the book. As you mentioned, his love for the thirty mile woman was unrivaled. One thing that I thought was kind of interesting is the phrase that he cried out while being burned alive, "Seven-O!" Because 7 is after 6, I think that he is specifically referring to his soon-to-be child with the thirty mile woman and mocking schoolteacher by saying "You can't catch us all!" I also think that his specific use of "Seven-O" represents his future, that he will live on in the life of his child, carrying on his legacy. He is mocking them that even though he caught him, he still lives on in the life of his child.
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