n. When the reader faces Sethe's actions with speechlessness, the pressure to structure some kind of narrative around them is impossible to ignore. The pressure to judge them in some way weighs heavy on the reader's mind. The black Cincinnati community reacts much in the same way to Sethe's killing of her child. Their own pasts often include similar actions, and judging Sethe allows them to displace the guilt for their own past transgressions. Most of the reader responses that try to moralize about Sethe's actions are stilted and clumsy. The community's judgment against Sethe results in an eighteen year stand off. It is as though the pressure to judge comes from a need to exorcise the haunting effect of the novel. Perhaps the reader should postpone judgment and stand the discomfort of speechlessness at Sethe's actions. He or she may have the smallest idea what it was like for a former slave to create a narrative from the past, forging an identity that salvaged some scrap of humanity from utterly dehumanizing experiences....
