Sethe kills her baby at an impulse. A decision she made at the sight of a hat. Schoolteacher's hat was the trigger of Sethe's action because she knew what horrors lied ahead if she did not take matters into her own hands. These horrors included the rest of the "four horsemen" as Morrison describes them as " schoolteacher, one nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff"(Morrison 174). Morrison's use of the phrase "four horsemen" is obviously a direct allusion to the Biblical story of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It is not surprising for Morrison to be making such a clear biblical reference as she has made the reader accept Beloved's existence as a ghost. The question lies in the reference itself and its role in Sethe's actions that forced the rest of the 124 community to shun her.
Sethe justifies her decision to try to kill her kids by telling Paul D that she could never allow her nor her children to endure slavery as it would immediately make them less than human which is a life not worth living. She loved her children so much that being alive was not important if it meant they would have to submit themselves to being treated as animals in slavery. Paul D disagrees and thinks that death was not the way to for Sethe to retain her and her children's humanity. But, Sethe is resilient in her justification and continues to feel like her action was the right one if it meant choosing between slavery and freedom. It was a very black and white decision that. Humanity or not.
Morrison uses the phrase "four horsemen" in one of the first descriptions of the day Sethe killed her baby to preface Sethe's justification for her actions. For Sethe, death was not the end of the world. Her loss of freedom was. Her loss of humanity was. That decision to kill her children and herself was her exercising her agency to conclude what freedom meant to her. To Sethe, the end of her world was letting her children endure the animal like life that she felt at Sweet Home. Morrison makes this biblical reference obvious because she wants the reader understand the parallels between Sethe's situation and John's revelations in the Bible. John revealed the truth in the ultimate victory of good over evil and Sethe's victory is one that is very black and white just like her decision. Not allowing Schoolteacher and his nephew to treat her like an animal ever again was clear victory of good over evil.
I thought of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when I read that line too! I know very little about the Bible, so it was very interesting and informative to read your comparison between getting captured and the Apocalypse. That point of view makes sense to me, and makes Sethe's violent actions more understandable.
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