The Impact of Slavery on the Individual Exposed in Beloved In her novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison conveys her strong feelings about slavery. One of the main themes of the book is the impact slavery has on the individual. Morrison uses the characters Mr. Garner and Teacher to illustrate how slavery affects everyone differently. Although Morrison portrays Mr. Garner as the more humane master, he is actually no different from Teacher, because in the end they are both slave owners. Morrison includes the character, Mr. Garner, to show that even if you allow your slaves to perform certain activities, you are still an unpleasant human being because you are a slave owner. Garner allowed his slaves to choose wives, handle weapons, learn to read, and even purchase a mother's freedom. Garner let Halle buy the freedom of her mother, Baby Suggs, but as Halle points out to Sethe, his wife, "If he hadn't, she would have fallen into his stove... I'm paying him for his last years and in return he got you, me, and three others" (Morrison, 195-96). Garner granted freedom to a slave, but received stronger, younger slaves in her place, which in his mind made him the winner of the deal. The teacher on the other hand treated his slaves without any respect because he believed they didn't deserve any. He measured them with string as if they were animals and asked them stupid questions to conduct research. He also involved his nephews in these dehumanizing acts by convincing them to physically abuse the slaves, while he watched. At one point in the book, the narrator discusses the teacher's view of how Garner ran the plantation, "the ruining of these p... middle of paper... the degree of trust and respect he still had as an owner of slaves and this had definite effects on his slaves. Yes, the master had a more devastating effect on his slaves because he had absolutely no respect or compassion for any of his slaves, but these two characters were not very different What they say is the same loud or soft” (Morrison, 195). Halle sums it up perfectly, it didn't matter that they treated their slaves differently, because at the end of the day they both owned people. And those people were permanently affected by being possessed and by what their owners, nice or not, did to them. Works Cited Kubitschek, M.D. Toni Morrison: A Critical Companion London: Greenwood Press, 1998. Morrison, Tony Beloved, 1987.