I read it a long time ago, but iirc I didn't ask myself who was justified and who wasn't. i read more in a mindset of "this happened and I'm being told about it".
Books
I don't think the point of Beloved is to ask whether Sethe is justified, but whether it's understandable that she >!kills her own child.!< In fact, I think the point might be to force readers to ask themselves whether they can still have compassion for a person who does that, if that person's circumstances are desperate enough.
That is basically the question I was getting at
I think that focusing on whether Sethe was justified or not takes attention away from considering the evil that put both of them in that position in the first place.
I remember this question on a take home exam from school. It’s really directed at how you perceive and experience the book from your own standpoint.
What I remember about this book is what I assume was an intentional detail: the house numbers correspond to the children… 1 (brother) 2 (brother) and 4 (Denver). The crawling-already baby (3) is missing.
That is super interesting!