1. Warming up with either a redaction or a mini metacognitive of a page from Part 3
- Which words and phrases carried the most weight for you?
- What threshold is Denver crossing here? From what to what?
- What has been the nature of Denver's struggles throughout the book? To what extent is this moment resolving her conflicts?
3. Wrapping up out loud with epiphanies, kudos, and lingering questions
HW:
1. For next TUESDAY, FEB 18:
Finish reading Beloved and compose your final reading ticket (ever)! This will be an important discussion and our final Socratic, so please make it a priority to complete the reading this weekend.
2. For THURSDAY, FEB 20: Share with me your poetry thesis (along with any outlining you have) or your project plan.
3. For FRIDAY, FEB 21: Finish your Big Question Blog on Beloved BEFORE class. We will be using them for an in-class activity, so make sure they're posted. You will have your in-class writing on Beloved the following Monday.
4. Ongoing: Remember your Serial Reading book?
Please feel free today to revisit earlier parts of the novel as well. Was there anything else from Part 1 or 2 that you'd like to talk about or that you have a new understanding of? Are there any larger patterns that you'd like to take some space to analyze? Feel free! And of course, I invite you to delve into Part 3 as well. Use Silent Socratic to talk about what you need to talk about.
ReplyDeleteOkay this is a very basic level one question, but why was Lady Jones sent to the "colored" school? I was just confused why hat was brought up so much...
ReplyDeleteThis on page 291
DeleteLady Jones is mixed race, so because she is not all white/white passing she got sent to the black school.
Deletethis was what I focused on for my reading ticket. it was very interesting that her kids were even sent to seperate schools because of their race. she had "wanted" and "unwanted" kids. she was sent to the colored school because she is married to the "blackest man she could find" and because of that she "belongs" at a colored school
DeleteIt says she was light-skinned and she was sent to the normal coloredgirls' school for that reason. She recognized the unfairness of this and devoted her life to teaching the kids that weren't picked for this opportunity (i.e. the darker-skinned kids).
DeleteI was interested in the description of Lady Jones's mixed racial background as well, especially the fact that she "married the blackest man she could find" and then saved "her real affection for the unpicked children of Cincinnati" (291). In college I did an independent study on the "mulatto characters" of early 20th century literature, and I remember that there was a great deal of white fear at the time of black people "passing" (that's what it was called) as white people because their skin was so light. People of mixed colors sometime faced discrimination from both sides and were sometimes ostracized from both the white and black communities. Perhaps this is what makes her the right character to be the first one to empathize with Denver and help her journey back into the community?
DeleteHow is Beloved described as a vampire? What does this say about her relationship with others/ her motives for returning to 124?
ReplyDelete“but it’s also about things other than literal vampirism: selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to respect the autonomy of other people” (Foster 16)
DeleteShe sucks her family dry. Food, emotions, etc. She craves their attention and devotion. However, Sethe gives it to her willingly. Vampires prey on vulnerabilities usually. Beloved preys on Sethe's guilt and desire to heal her past.
DeleteIve been trying to think of this for a while too, and theres no real concrete discriptions of it (atleast to me). A few ideas:
DeleteWhen she assaults(?) Paul D--> Whether she was intentionally doing it or not, Beloved was pushing him out of the house- something that drained him of his own integrity and vitality. With him out of the house, she could have Sethe's attention for herself. The scene in the shed seemed to me like a final strike against Paul D, to 'suck the blood' out of him if you will. Having been overpowered by a young, small woman he can no longer confidently assert his integrity or manhood
One of the clearest depictions of Beloved's "vampirism" is on page 295 where Beloved is described as "her belly protruding like a winning watermelon" because "Beloved ate up her (Sethe's) life" and before that, Morrison goes says that "the bigger Beloved got, the smaller Sethe became". Pages 294-5 are full of allusions to Beloved taking away from Sethe and growing with what she takes. This indicates that in her relationships Beloved is always taking and never giving to anyone. From the moment she enters Sethe and Denver's lives she instantly begins taking from them and never once helping them out. My first thoughts about her behavior patterns were that Beloved might be trying to take from Sethe what she believes Sethe took from her when she took her life, hence Beloved growing so large just as Sethe shrinks.
Delete^ that is Sophie, my computer won't log me in
DeleteI wanted to go back and ask some clarifying questions
ReplyDeleteabout Stamp Paid's past, specifically his relationship with Vashti. Were they married? And later when he is talking to Paul D, did he actually snap someone's neck?
What I think happened is that Stamp was married to Vashti, but then the slave master's son who owned them had sex with her? I wasn't exactly sure what was happening either. I think Stamp almost killed someone but before he did, he left and ran away.
DeleteThe way I read this section, they were 'married' but it almost seemed like Vashti had no idea what was happening. Do you have page numbers so I can go back and read that again?
DeleteStamp Paid and Vashti were married, but slave marriages were not recognized by law since slaves were considered property (their births and deaths were not counted, either). Their slavemaster continually raped Vashti, insisting that she wear this black collar/necklace thing around her neck when he sent for her (definitely a motif going on here with things around people's necks). Stamp Paid felt helpless and deprived of his manhood by this situation, and at one point, he contemplated breaking Vashti's own neck, perhaps thinking that death might be preferable to slavery (which, of course, is what Sethe also believed). He didn't actually go through with it, but he did change his name to "Stamp Paid," figuring whatever debts he owed to anybody, he paid them off and then some by having to endure this situation.
DeleteI believe the page that is on is 274 and 275
DeleteThe point of Stamp Paid also feeling that murder was a favour for someone enslaved is kind of a point of relief for me, because throughout the whole book Sethe is sort of resented for that, and I never once had that thought whilst reading. I think that she was totally justifiable in her actions, and I think Stamp Paid is a really morally upright character, so for him not only to have witnessed the murder and still interact with the inhabitants of 124 but also to have had similar intentions is simply an affirmation of that.
DeleteI had a hard time fully grasping at the point of Stamps Paid's character. But, it seems that his being is supposed to represent some kind of hero warped by slavery. In this case he is a figure of salvation in a way, despite the fact that salvation was only through murder (or at least the redeeming thought of it). Why did Morison include this minor character for this reason?
DeleteWhile reading about Sethe's interactions with her community, I was reminded of The Odyssey, especially when we talked about Gods, Heroes, Humans, and Monsters. What happens when characters cross these boundaries in "Beloved"? Where does each character fall on the Monster-God hierarchy and how does crossing those thresholds affect them?
ReplyDeleteWould you consider Beloved to be a monster or a Goddess of sorts?
DeleteI feel like you can make a case either way
I feel like it would be the norm to say that Beloved is a monster, but I don't feel that way. I feel like Beloved is almost a God given the fact she has so much divine power over Sethe and the men in the novel. Gods always have some sort of purpose, and I believe Beloved's purpose is to inflict pain on Sethe as a spiritual punishment of what she did to the innocent. Gods can be really vengeful, especially in Greek Mythology and the Bible (not knocking on religious values) by inflicting pain on their subjects to teach them a lesson and make them stronger as a whole.
DeleteI would consider Beloved a monster, but it is interesting to think of her as a goddess because of the way she can manipulate those around her (think of her interactions with Sethe and the way she moved Paul D from room to room), but because of the ultimate doom she causes to everyone she interacts with, I think monster is more fitting.
DeleteBaby Suggs is also interesting to think of as a hero, because she is titled as 'holy', but is stripped of this after the huge feast she had. I believe the community's reaction to her pridefulness represents a hero who tried and failed to become a God and was put in her place, whether that was Suggs' intention or not
Agreed, and the definition of "god/goddess" is extremely broad based on different interpretations of what they stand for. You bring up the really important point of the Gods in Greek myth being very vengeful, jealous, and impulsive. I believe Beloved embodies that idea of divinity- it being just pure, uncontained power/influence over humans and the world
DeleteIts also a little ironic, because in some views those same qualities make up the monsters of our more contemporary culture. It becomes a loop; vengeance= god= monster= vengeance
Matthew, couldn't a vengeful god/goddess react impulsively to the actions of mortals (think Poseidon v Oddyseus) and spell out their ultimate doom?
DeleteDaniel, I see your point about manipulation and Gods, but I feel like Beloved's purpose is to 'feed' on Sethe. It isn't really the same dynamic as a God would have to a mortal. Beloved can also be considered a ghost, or a spirit, which feels more like a monster to me. Have you considered God being the 'god' in this hierarchy?
DeleteAs in God from christianity? If I took that perspective, it can still get weird in the mix of technicalities, but for the most part itd iron things out.
DeleteIf we took that perspective, we would assume that any divine vengeance is wholey justified, as you would see in the old testament (depending on perspective of course). But I agree, the idea of Beloved "feeding" feels very out of place with that.
Sorry, hope that makes sense
The part of Beloved that really got to me was the part where they describe Beloved as this growing power. But as she. grows, she takes from Sethe. While Thomas C Foster might refer to it as vampirism, I see it as a parasite dynamic. It is something that really stands out to me because it represents how trauma and pain can inflict itself on someone with very little yet noticeable effects.
ReplyDeleteI think vampirism is largely parasitic, because a parasite is something that cannot live on its own, and requires a host, similar to how a vampire relies on its prey. Beloved is often described as on the brink of physically falling apart when Sethe is absent from 124. I find it fascinating that Beloved's main reason to return (Sethe) is what she ends up destroying. Is Beloved aware of what she's doing?
DeleteI agree with Lily here because I never really understood the reason for the relation to vampirism. I think that is just another way to label a character that is hard to read and not understandable. The way Beloved was described with the growing power shows how she is taking from others in order to achieve something. She is growing her power to show others how she feels because of how she felt she has been treated.
DeleteI definitely think Beloved is unaware of what she is doing. Much like how kids don't realize how much their mothers went through for their children until they are adults and experience it on their own. Its honestly really complicated too because part of me also thinks she is aware in a way, especially when she tries to choke her and stuff.
DeleteThat's really interesting that you said "Beloved is unaware" because at the ery end of the book, it said she was forgotten almost like she wasn't there at all, and from my perspective, I think Beloved could have been a figure of Sethe's mind. Like definitely she's a spirit and everyone could see what she was doing, but I kind of saw it as Sethe's own guilt took physical form and decided to wreak havoc on her life, and so there was total awareness of her doing.
DeleteWhy do you think Beloved drastically progresses into a dark, manipulative character by the end of the assigned reading? (Page 310)
ReplyDeleteI think Morrison displays the sheer influence of the past through Beloved's darkness. When you confine yourself to your history and let it define you, it takes over. It will consume you. Beloved physically begins to consume the house, robbing Sethe of any future or present.
DeleteI have always read Beloved as dark. Even upon her arrival on the tree stump, she was in a black dress. How do Beloved's clothes change throughout the book and what does that say about her?
Delete-Before Beloved's arrival, the white dress... but when she is physically present it is black.
-Carnival clothes
-3 ice skates
To me, some of Beloved's terrible behavior is a clear indication of her "age", much like her loosing a tooth or the mentions of a teething child (page294). Beloved acting out and having uncalled for tantrums makes her seem very childlike, which could be related to how she is trying to make Sethe regret what she did. Part of me wonders if Beloved would rest if Sethe just admitted that she now regrets killing Beloved and if Beloved's spirit is only so restless because Sethe doesn't see the horror of what she did, because she is blinded by the horror of her present.
Delete- sophie
This may be obvious, but I believe this relates to the entire plot development of Beloved's parasitic deluding of Sethe into thinking that she had forgiven her, before beginning to extract a painful recompense for her murder all those years ago.
DeleteTo that end, I have to wonder what Morrison intended with all this. How should we read the dynamic surrounding Beloved? Should we accept Beloved (who, really, has every right to be enraged at her mother- if enraged she truly is; maybe she's just coldly executing her purpose) and, by extension, the concept of agonizing punishment? Or should we overlook Sethe's wrongs, instead adopting the assertion by Ella (I think? Maybe it was Lady Jones) that "what's fair ain't necessarily right?"
Why is Beloved described as 'pregnant'? Why would Morrison employ that imagery?
ReplyDeleteKinda a tag along question, but do we think she was actually pregnant? I think the image of a mother is usually a very calming and powerful one, but with Beloved it just stands out so vividly that it is wrong. Like the juxtaposition between are caring mother and Beloved's cruel ways help paint the picture of what she has become: a parasite.
DeleteThe thing that comes to mind for me (and this is very much a stretch) is the idea of the birth of the 'antichrist'
DeleteUsually it involves a woman becoming pregnant and giving birth to the devils son. Very weird stuff.
That being said, I dont know that its reasonable to assume Beloved is quite literally carrying the devil's child or anything, but I see it as symbolism for that idea of vampirism and feeding off of Sethe and the others' life force- feeding off of them to support the growth of something (anger, resentment, evil?) deep inside her
I was wondering this too. The line of think of when she is described as pregnant is "she might walk around the house naked or wrapped in a sheet, her belly protruding like a winning watermelon.". This is such a weird line because it really makes you picture beloved so pregnant that her belly is the size of a watermelon.
DeleteI found this aspect very interesting as well, I think Morrison is using the image of Beloved growing but only from her middle as a parallel to who she is, the same reason that her breath is described as smelling like milk, earlier in the book. Although the imagery is switched here, their roles have always stayed the same, Sethe giving while beloved takes.
DeleteIts really interesting, because in other sections such as "Beloved bending over Sethe looked the mother, Sethe the teething child" (294) also gives Beloved the role of a mother. I am not sure what the implications of it are at all though. It seems maybe it is almost a cruel twisted way of Beloved to make Sethe feel pain as a child, not understanding of why she was being treated that way.
DeleteI believe Beloved is described this way in context to all of the food she has been consuming since arriving at 124. Her relentless desire for sweets and constant eating habits led to her figure to become wider, or 'pregnant.' However, I believe Morrison uses this imagery in regards to Beloved's character as a way to show how time progressed (since she has been at 124 for quite some time now) and to show Beloved's growing strength/power gained from all of Sethe's attention and love.
DeleteI think this portrayal is convenient in a number of ways. Firstly, it helps in that all of her gluttony/parasitism being concentrated in her stomach serves as a convenience for Sethe to overlook those bad parts of her, and to only see the rest of her, which seems relatively unchanged.
DeleteSecondly, I believe that it acts as a "reversing" sort of vengeance on Sethe. Great emphasis is placed on Sethe's pregnancy and one could even argue that pregnancy is a motif in this book. Because Sethe is so closely associated with pregnancy (and since Beloved came from a pregnancy that was "robbed," so to speak, in that Sethe killed her so early in her life), Beloved's gradual inflation into the form of a pregnant woman is an ideal reversal of this tragedy, sucking the life Sethe robbed out of Sethe and back into Beloved. It's like Beloved is forcibly reclaiming all the life she was deprived of, and pregnancy may be the ideal tool for this due to its pertinence to other events in the book.
I view the pregnant imagery of Beloved also serves as further manipulation by Beloved towards Sethe. Sethe loves her children (emphasized by her drastic actions with Beloved as a baby). She consistently feels the need to justify herself as a mother to Beloved as well. Her longing for justified motherhood is almost mocked by Beloved's appearnace. Beloved exploits her vulnerability and almost utilizes it to consistently remind Sethe of her mistakes and past.
DeleteI'm not quite sure if she's pregnant, or she's a parasite, but I get the feeling whatever she's swollen with...it's not good. On a literal level, she could be pregnant with Paul D's baby. However, I don't find that interpretation super helpful, so I'm thinking her pregnancy may be a symbol of Sethe's misplaced guilt / affection / "too thick love"? A ghost should not be pregnant, and if we're looking at Beloved as a representative of an overly powering past, perhaps her pregnancy suggests that Sethe is feeding the wrong child. She should be feeding, nuturting, loving Denver, who has a future. Instead she is feeding her guilt from the past.
DeleteThis is fascinating to me to. Is she literally pregnant with Paul D's baby? Is she pseudopregnant with Sethe? Does she want to be seen as a mother or caretaker? Is she trying to reclaim the youth that was taken from her? Also bizarre to me is that neither Sethe nor Denver mention/ address this, even though they [presumably] don't know about what Beloved did to Paul D. I also wonder if she would have given birth to herself as a child, if that makes sense. As in, she's taking and taking from Sethe in order to return to a version of the past- she's demanding Sethe return, over and over again, to the moment that Sethe gave up everything. And by taking that youth and vitality- and forcing Sethe to continually revisit the image of Beloved as a real, young daughter- Beloved can sort of reclaim a version of the past she wanted.
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Pregnant vs Parasite makes me think of ticks (literal vampires swollen to multiple times their size by drinking blood- life force- from other animals)
DeleteWhy does Denver refuse to go to Paul D for help? Her resentment toward him stemmed in stealing away her mother and Beloved, but now that she has neither and it is not his fault, why does she still not trust him? What about Stamp Paid?
ReplyDeleteStamp Paid thinks very well of Denver, earlier when learning about his backstory is shows he felt very strongly for her, and was the one who saved her from Sethe in the shed. Denver does not feel the same way and doesn't go for help. She seems to visit all the women in the town, and I think this is partly because this is how she grew up, with only Sethe and Baby Suggs as her role models
DeleteDenver likely does not go to Paul D because she has no way of finding him, as he left without informing her or Sethe of where he intends to go after moving out. Stamp Paid, however, found where Paul D was and attempted to bring him back to 124 and fix the problems created with Sethe (as well as possibly send Beloved away once and for all?).
DeleteWhat are we as readers supposed to think of Sethe? Should we sympathize with her, or view her as deranged or overly prideful or something else, or some combination of all these possibilities?
ReplyDeleteWhat does Morrison want us to take from the entire story of a mother killing her infant daughter? I don't think the real question is whether Sethe was justified; she's portrayed as a lonely lunatic, so I guess Morrison wants us to agree that she was wrong in killing her child. For that reason, I feel there must be some greater underlying question that we are supposed to ask and glean possible answers from using the book.
Personally I don't feel any need to sympathize with Sethe because her actions killing Beloved as a child are the reason she suffers now even with her bonds of slavery being broken. I think what Morrison wants us to take away is that life can never be difficult enough to prompt us to kill new life because that life will haunt us for the rest of our life even if there are not a physical burden anymore.
DeleteSethe exists to show how truly brutal the slave expierence was. Under all of the symbolism and supernatural, "Beloved" is a story about slavery. Sethe's impossible choice (let her kids become slaves forever or kill them) was a dramatic one, but also based off of a true and painful story. By putting Sethe in such an indescribable situation, Morrison was able to depict how truly terrible it was to be a slave. I'm not sure what we're supposed to think of Sethe, but I believe that she is less of a symbol for a mothers love and more of a painfully accurate example of slavery.
DeleteIt's interesting to me that you describe Sethe as a "lonely lunatic." I think Morrison's portrayal of Sethe is very sympathetic- while I haven't counted, I'm pretty sure that more of Beloved is told from her perspective than anyone else's. Sethe murdering her daughter was a terrible act of terrible violence- her "crime was staggering and her pride outstripped even that" (303). But she isn't hateful, and until Denver's chapter, we don't get any hint that she might still be dangerous. She is not remorseful, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't regret the 'necessity' of her actions- her children are 'her one good thing' (or something along those lines- I didn't save the page number)- and she valued saving their virtue/integrity/individuality about their lives.
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^ sophie again, sorry
DeleteI have sympathised with Sethe the whole time, and I don't think that Toni Morrison intended for us to sympathise or not. Especially in the context of Stamp Paid who also wanted to kill his wife to save her from abuse, I think this is pretty common in that era, and you can choose whether or not to believe the actions were justifiable. I think they are, simply considering the horrors of life as a slave.
DeleteSethe has the key feature of finding salvation through murder similar to that of Stamps Paid, except she actually goes through with it. It's sometimes hard to sympathize with her, but I think that we're supposed to at least be understanding of her. Much like Stamps, Sethe didn't want her child to experience the horrors she had to endure her whole life. But, as far as her being a "lonely lunatic" I think it's in some ways, her own doing. Sethe lives *in* the past and fails to reach for a future living *with* the past. By willingly letting her past literally walk into her front door numerous times, Sethe single handedly isolated herself and her family.
DeleteMorrison is trying to get us to realize that one person isn't just one thing. As I was reading "Beloved", I thought many different things about Sethe: she's a killer but also a loving mother, she's also ignorant of people and sometimmes their intentions, but she's also gone through so much from her past that it's hard for her to trust people, etc.. Sethe is many things and it's almost a segue into racism. One person is not just a killer, just as one person is not just white, or black, etc.. People are a combination of things and you can't just see them as one thing, you can't just see them as one color.
DeleteOn page 290, Lady Jones describes Denver with "the unmistakeable love call that shimmered around children until they learned better."
ReplyDelete- Does Denver project love? Or does she beg for it? Love call could imply both, but I feel like we've primarily seen Denver reaching out, looking for connection, with both the baby ghost and Beloved the girl
- The piece about "until they learned better"- Denver seems to have sort of an unorthodox naivety, in that she believes people are capable of incredible evil (her continued wariness of Sethe), but she is still cloistered almost entirely from the outside world- she has the benefit of neither trust nor experience.
[this is Delia- my browser is not letting me log in]
DeleteI don't think Denver begs for love because she doesn't recognize her need for it. However, that is the beauty of the end of the most recent section. The community recognizes her silent hunger for affection and belonging. I think this shows that humans are not blind to those in need. No one has to suffer in silence. The community reaches out to Denver, and eventually, Sethe.
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DeleteThis doesn't exactly answer your question, but I just thought of this quotation from East of Eden: "When a child first catches adults out—when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just—his world falls into panic desolation."
DeleteAs you may all know I have been trying to dissect this idea about the motif of a circle and what beloved has to do with the circle.
ReplyDeleteVery late last night my mind was wandering as I was creating my ticket and something came to me. The circle is a black hole. Black Holes are a region in space where there is not real sense of reality and so intense that nothing can escape and whatever goes in disappears without a trace. I believe that Beloved is the midpoint of the "black hole" and is the central force that pulls everything around her into the misery that the black hole signifys. As a whole the hole signifies the entrapment of slavery and struggle and makes sure that each character cannot escape the horizon even though it is visible.
Here is where it gets interesting though...
Black Holes are created when the center of a very massive star collapses.
Therefore, I believe that Sethe is the creator of the black hole that has entrapped her because when she killed her daughter, an extension of her heart, she also killed herself on the inside and collapsed upon herself.
I think that's an awesome comparison. I would wonder whether Morrison had black holes specifically in mind, but it's entirely plausible, and, regardless, the work sometimes speaks for itself without the precise knowing of the author.
DeleteThis observation raises the question of what Sethe's mental state is. Is she truly prideful, as Ella believes? Does she actually think she was justified in killing Beloved all those years ago, and, if so, would she do it to her children again? Or, is she just insane?
I totally see what you mean. Honestly, I don't believe you can blame Beloved for all the harm she's caused. Sethe's fault lay in her inability to recover. This fault grants a vulnerability for Beloved to strike. Morrison even describes Sethe's continuous need to justify her actions to Beloved. Sethe keeps Beloved around, allowing her to feed off of them, because she feels a certain guilt as a mother. I think she genuinely believes she deserves all the harm and pain Beloved arrives with.
DeleteCan we talk about the statue Denver as she was leaving the Bodwin's house? This is on page 300. Why do we think Ella would own something like this? What is the authorial intent of including it? Why specifically does it say 'At Yo Service'?
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really important little moment. The Bodwins have been consistently portrayed as "good whites"--they're abolitionists, they employ and house free blacks, and they generally seem kind. However, even they have this racist artifact in their house (remember Ethnic Notions?). I think Morrison is asking us to face our own prejudices that we carry in the deepest parts of ourselves and to acknowledge race as a deeply ingrained social construction.
DeleteMaybe this relates to the video we watched about how slaves were depicted through art and statues during the 1900s, as these forms of "art" built biases around slavery and slaves in general. While the Bodwins are considerably kind and generous people, including this detail with the statue reminds the reader about how these biases and stereotypes still existed in the past.
DeleteI thought that was a real person trying to make money... Did I read that wrong?
DeleteI think this part was really interesting, especially what Mrs. Leclaire commented about facing your own prejudices. I think in a way that's why Morrison wrote the book, is because she wants us to not only take in the facts and stories and heartbreak, but to really reflect our own beliefs on it in the simple ways of maybe things you don't notice, like statues or songs or phrases. Although someone may believe in something doesn't mean they really look into helping or fixing it, and especially learning from it.
DeleteI think the comunity is a big part of the book, especially towards the end. The community has never really been on Sethe's side, and so for most of her life, she's just been alone taking care of people with this lingering guilt of her murder. I think when Beloved showed up in the book, Sethe saw her as a form or redemption for herself, that if this was her baby, then she had to take care of it in order to move on. But at the end, when the women in the community gather towards 124, and Sethe thinks she sees Schoolteacher and attacks him, we see the community help her and stop her from the damage. In this moment, she got the help she needed (the women in the community), instead of the help she thought she wanted (Beloved). I think that's partly why Beloved disappears in that moment because as long as the community is supporting Sethe, then there is no need for her there.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the community was not only helping Sethe, but helping themselves by ridding Beloved as a parllel to ridding slavery as a whole? Because if Beloved is supposed to represent the past, it's like the community is cleansing themselves of her and all their past sorrows of slavery altogether.
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