In Beloved, Toni Morrison sets the novel after the end of the civil war where slaves were freed by Emancipation. There are several power relationships that Morrison links together to show the aftermath of the civil war from the black point of view. The key relationships Morrison focuses on are master, slave, and marriage. In every political and power relationship, there is one side that holds most of the power if not all. The same is true in the control relationships of Beloved. In the master and slave, relationship the master holds most of the power, but there is a difference how the authority is wielded.
             Mr. Garner and School teacher represent two different groups of whites, one who believes that slaves should be treated as human beings and the other sees slaves as inferior and should be treated like so. Morrison deliberately created both characters this way, Mr. Garner and Schoolteacher are opposites to reflect the different white masters of that time. Slavery presented by Morrison also shows how most people behave when they are given absolute power over other people. First, they start believing in their own superiority and justifying their decisions by it. This is obvious when Mr. Garner doesn't use violence to get his slaves to work instead he listens to them, allows them to use guns and calls them by name. This contrasts to schoolteacher who feels the need to demonstrate his power and separate himself as the superior and the slaves as the sub race. An example is when Schoolteacher tells his nephew to list Sethe's animal qualities on one side of the paper and her human qualities on the other. Schoolteacher represents the idea of the master race where there are physical differences between whites and blacks.
             The master's power over the slaves changes over to black men having more power than black women because the men at least had their strength that they could rent out to buy their freedom. Halle for examp
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