MARGARET GARNER
The comparison between her life and
Sethe in “Beloved” .
PHOTO TAKEN FROM AN OPERA BASED
ON HER TRAGIC STORY
MARGARET GARNER
Margaret Garner, slave, in late January 1856, together with 16
other slaves from neighboring parts of Kentucky, formed an
escape plan. The weather was cold, the Ohio River frozen. On a
Sunday night, with two horses stolen from their respective slaveowners, they hitched up a sled to carry them from Kentucky to
Freedom.
—Sethe Garner escapes pregnant and alone, but three of
her children already reside with Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-inlaw.
The 17 crossed the frozen Ohio River on foot. Their
crossing was from Covington, Kentucky to Ohio. Once across,
they thought it best to split up, it being daylight Monday
morning. Simon, Mary, their son Robert, together with his
wife Margaret, and their four children (two boys, two baby
girls) went the dangerous route to a Mr. Kite's cabin in Mill
Creek. Mr. Kite was the son of one Joe Kite. The son had
been bought out of slavery by his father. The route via
Kite's house was dangerous because white residents might
see them pass. The 9 other escapees, who had taken a
different route, made it to Canada.
MARGARET GARNER’S
STORY
FACTUAL INFORMATION
Sethe has 4 children: two boys, two
baby girls. Sethe crosses from
Kentucky to Ohio. The real Robert
would become the mythic Halle, and
the returning Paul D.
It is not difficult to
understand why Robert's mother
Mary might become Grandma Baby
Suggs, holy. No other name lends
itself to her role so easily.
The critic moment of the
murdering of the child.
Margaret seized a butcher's
knife, and cut her youngest
girl's throat "with one
stroke". "The throat of her
little daughter”, "whom
probably she loved the
best." She immediately tried
to kill herself, and the rest
of
the children.
• Sethe kills her second youngest
daughter Beloved with a saw.
Sethe's near strangulation is the
dead daughter's psychic
revenge. Margaret's one day of
freedom becomes Sethe's
"twenty-eight days," from her
child's "pure clear stream of
spit" to "her oily blood"
GARNER’S TRIAL
William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator of March 11, 1856
recounted that the sinking Lewis, the ship carrying Margaret
and her baby in arms, was badly shaken by a ship coming to its
rescue. Margaret and her child were hurled into the river by
the shock of the collision. A Black man and the cook of the
Lewis leaped to save them, but only succeeded in saving
Margaret, the baby was drowned. Margaret "displayed
frantic joy" on hearing the news, and indicated her intention
“to drown herself" before ever returning to slavery.
Beloved, in some ways is a composite of both of
Margaret's girl children. She comes out of the water, and
seems to have lived in a watery limbo beneath a
bridge. Denver is born on a boat. Sethe at one time
feels she herself is “voiding all the waters of the
world”. Water symbolism in Beloved is largely and clearly
related to Garner’s life and the fate of her children. One
of her daughters was killed by her and the other one was
drown in the waters of the river.
A Cincinnati Chronicle article, reprinted in the
Philadelphia Press, March 14, 1870, stated that Robert
and Margaret had worked in New Orleans, and then had
been sold to one Judge Bonham, for forced plantation
labor, at Tennessee Landing, Mississippi. Robert
reported to the Chronicle that Margaret had died in
1858 of typhoid fever. Her last words to him had been
that he should never again marry in slavery, but “live in
the hope of Freedom”.
Margaret's and Sethe's stories coincide,
though not completely. Margaret's story,
however, should always be
remembered. Like her, Toni Morrison
adjures us to "live in the hope of Freedom."
The major deviations from the story of Margaret are:
the solo flight of Sethe;
 the introduction of Amy Denver;
 the disappearance of the adult males of the Margaret Garner group,
both father-in-law and Robert, with only Stamp Paid remaining to
remind us of Kite;
 the uniting of traits of Margaret's two hopeless daughters in the
figure of Beloved
the downplaying of the legalistic white world, in fact of the white
world altogether;
 the maturing of Denver as a promise for tomorrow.
Conclusions:
A knowledge of Margaret Garner's history and fate helps us
appreciate better the vision of Toni Morrison's Beloved. While
Margaret's life was one of unremitting misery, Sethe's offers some
hopes for the future—founded on endurance of women. While the
unforgiving past must always haunt us—as Beloved haunts 124. This
two black women share the same story of misery. Even though
Morrison's story is based on a true story it is touched deeply by the
artistic hand of the author. No book can show completely the cruel
reality in which Margaret Garner had to live and surely many women
are still living. Maybe the manner, the form has changed but slavery
still exists and nothing seems to prevent or stop it.