Written nearly two hundred years apart, William Godwin's Caleb Williams and Toni Morrison's Beloved convey stories in which characters attempt to find freedom by fleeing unjust oppression and the remnants disturbing of oppression. Caleb Williams, the main protagonist of Godwin's novel, attempts to escape the persecution of his cruel master, Falkland, while Sethe, the protagonist of Beloved, successfully escapes from the captivity of slavery. It is important to note, however, that Caleb's persecution by the Falklands, while unjust, was based on Caleb's individual actions and could have been avoided. Ultimately, he is able to use legal action to free himself and escape the fate he once considered inevitable and ends up haunted by nothing more than a guilty conscience. Sethe, on the other hand, was born into her oppression, and even after escaping slavery she is still haunted, figuratively, by the negative perceptions of her race that pervade the nation, even in the free North, and literally by the ghostly reincarnation of daughter he killed to save from a life of slavery. Even if Sethe manages to escape the literal haunting when the ghost is banished, she and her family will not be able to escape the lingering effects of racism in their lives. The comparison between the two texts highlights the additional difficulty in the lives of African Americans, particularly in Sethe's time period. Although Caleb and Sethe faced similar scenarios, Caleb was oppressed as an individual and by an individual, and had no system working against him, while Sethe is trapped in a system that harms her even without the abuse of slavery. He can't afford the luxury of running away. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While Caleb and Sethe find themselves in similar situations, Caleb makes it clear that he found himself in the situation because of his own actions. Even though his persecution is unjust and seemingly inevitable, he could have avoided it by acting differently. When Caleb begins to speculate about the possibility that his master might be a murderer, he writes: "Doing what is forbidden has always had its charm... The fact that there was danger in the work served to give it a biting allure... .The further I went, the more irresistible the feeling was” (Godwin 112-3). Although he obviously does not work with the goal of being slandered and persecuted throughout the country, he explicitly recognizes and states that the task he has set for himself, whose only goal is to appease his curiosity, he persists even after Falkland warns him, "Be gone and fear that you will have to pay for the temerity you have already committed" (123). dealing with Falkland's extreme reaction, he finds himself in this situation by inappropriately prying into the details of someone else's private life when he realizes there may be consequences. For Caleb, the onslaught of the seemingly inevitable force of Falkland's wrath was perfectly avoidable . Sethe, on the other hand, is helpless in the face of her inevitable fate. As a black woman born to slaves in the American South, she could do nothing to avoid becoming a slave. It was a role she was assigned at birth, due to the harmful negative perceptions that white society at the time had towards blacks. As Stamp Paid puts it, “white people believed that, whatever one's manners, beneath every damp skin there was a jungle… But it was not the jungle that black people brought with them to this place from another (livable) place.” They were the whites of the jungle therethey had planted. And he grew up. It spread” (234). Here he states that while there is nothing inherently savage about blacks, whites at the time appear that way because they have forced blacks, through slavery, into a situation where they are not allowed to appear in any way.conventionally considered civilized. Even though she manages to escape the slave plantation itself, Sethe is never able to escape these negative perceptions. They follow her and her family to the free north and even come from characters who would otherwise seem friendly. Even Amy, the white girl who kindly assists Sethe as she flees the plantation, pregnant, is not free from racist feelings, and some of her comments, perhaps inadvertently, deny Sethe's individuality. While talking to her, Amy says, “We had an old nigger come to our house. She knows nothing…she can barely put two words together. She knows nothing, just like you. You don't know anything. Ending up dead, that's what” (94). Amy unthinkingly pairs her with another black woman she knows, and even though she knows next to nothing about Sethe, she puts them on the same level and automatically assigns them both a lower level of intelligence, apparently due only to race, judging by the ease with which the girl threw out the racial insult. As Sethe's daughter Denver later considers in the book, “any white man could take his all for anything he could think of. Not just work you, kill you, or maim you, but get you dirty. You got yourself so dirty that you couldn't like yourself anymore… you forgot who you were and couldn't think about it” (295). It recognizes the negative psychological effects that racism can cause, but also recognizes its other more serious effects, such as mutilation, death and at the hands of extremist racists. Stamp Paid considers “entire cities cleansed of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in a single year in Kentucky; four black schools burned to the ground… black women raped… property stolen, necks broken,” horrific examples of what racism could lead to. Because of the color of their skin, Sethe and other black characters are unable to escape the racist forces of social constructions that exist throughout the country, both in free regions and those where slaves are held. Caleb Williams, although pursued, is able to momentarily confound the seemingly inevitable wrath that pursues him by disguising himself. Before attempting to leave the country for the first time, he realizes that his description has been circulated so that Falkland can locate him, so he "has adopted along with [his] beggar's attire a peculiar slouching, clownish gait to use at all times that something was needed. they seem to have the slightest possibility of being observed, along with an Irish accent that [he] had the opportunity to study in prison” (247). In London he writes “the appearance I was now induced to assume was that of a Jew” (263). In both cases, his disguise fails only due to an embarrassing coincidence or the extreme diligence of the Falklands agents. However, he manages, for a while, to remove him from the attention of most of those who see him and who would otherwise recognize him based on the descriptions, because although he is successfully disguised he does not match the description of the individual being searched for. Sethe, however, does not have this option. Even though she is able to disguise herself enough to appear as someone different, she will still appear as a black woman, and while this may help her escape the teacher, an authority figure on her old Sweet Home plantation, and the slave catchers, it does not will do. otherwise be more free. Because of the system of racism that she is forced to face and to which Caleb is not subjected,)” (201)..