Prompt:

Reflect on what you, personally, have learned from Beloved so far as the result of reading it through your particular lens, and how that connects (or does not connect) with your own previous knowledge or beliefs.

While reading Beloved I couldn't help but notice what Sethe and all the other characters had to go through, which was piece by piece revealed throughout the whole book.  All  because of their social class.  Being a slave or even a  free African American in that time, there was still present danger that they faced, from being raped and beaten, to not having equal legal rights such as not being able to have a wedding.  I noticed more and more that what I knew about class separation was true, only the upper class get the proper and “equal” treatment.  Although they might have been free, their color is what made them "different" and somehow less deserving of fair treatment.  I knew about slavery and the whole idea of  it and how extreme it was, but this book made me see the depth of it in society.  I knew slaves didn't have any rights as free people, but Beloved showed their personal struggles as individuals not just as a whole group. I saw what the broad theme and establishment of slavery, but the story also talked individually about each character and what they went through personally in an in depth psychological view.  Now I am able to see that there was a huge gap between those two social classes, which changed how each group saw each other and how each individual saw themselves.  My current beliefs are very biased because of the fact that I live in this day and age where there is not as much class separation or segregation. I know people that are wealthier than others and that barrier has slowly started to disappear and there still is a separation, but not as bad as it once was.  People of every class and race are able to find help when we need it and be treated more fairly. Even though it was difficult to change what was so popular and seemed permanent back then, it now seems  insane that something like that could happened.  It can't be said that there is no longer that separation of class, because there definitely is, but it has improved drastically.  It was difficult to read, because of all the brutal and violent things that occurred but  through the book I had a different set of eyes while reading, and what this did was illustrate things that would happen to a slave, because they weren't considered people, they weren't treated like people.  This is never a healthy state of mind  to put on someone else, that they are lesser than someone because of their social class. It is inhumane and everyone should be treated with the same respect and fairness.  Although the Marxist lens talks about the separation of class, the social class of one person does not make them more or less than another.