Finding freedom in the beloved and secrets and liesWhat is freedom? Freedom is the ability for each individual to have total control over their life, the ability to make their own decisions. From the time an individual wakes up in the morning to the time they go back to sleep at night, thousands, if not millions, of choices have been made. Some of these choices had negative consequences, others had positive consequences, but whatever the outcome, the freedom of choice remained. Too often, everyone's freedoms are encroached upon by someone or something else. This encroachment can be both physical and emotional. Such circumstances can be very difficult to deal with and often result in difficulty and emotional trauma. Sometimes it takes an outside force or personality to come forward and help one survive such situations. Such a scenario exists in both Toni Morrison's novel Beloved and the film Secrets and Lies. In both stories there is a family disturbed by past circumstances and in response a character "from the past" returns and helps to repair the dark situation, helps to free them from the past. In Beloved, a slave named Sethe escapes with her children from the dark and gloomy environment of plantation life to the bright and carefree environment of freedom. From being chained and torn from her family, to having her breasts sucked by white plantation owners, Sethe has survived too many horrible situations and witnessed too many inhumane acts towards her fellow human beings. To cope with such pain and the resulting bitterness, she tries to forget, tries to hide the memories deep within herself. Sethe calls them “memories.” Living on a plantation and being a slave, Sethe had experienced first-hand what it was like to be deprived of almost all freedoms. Deprived of the ability to make her own choices and decisions, as well as the deprivation of love, it seems that the only thing Sethe was not deprived of was bitterness and hatred. So after escaping captivity, the only life she had ever known, freedom was pure heaven. For twenty-eight days, she and her four children lived in a state of happiness. Unfortunately for them, this freedom was short-lived. On that twenty-eighth day, while Sethe and her children were working in the yard, the white plantation owner, known as the schoolmaster, approached Sethe's house looking for his lost slaves..