In Beloved everything seems to come back to one thing: Sethe's time at, and escape from Sweet Home. She doesn't enjoy the memories she has from her time there. She certainly doesn't want them to dictate her life, but her rememory will not let her forget the trauma. Throughout the course of Beloved, characters cannot seem to shake their past, and it all plays into a larger metaphor for the effects of slavery on American society.
The most obvious instance of this, besides Sethe's time at sweet home. Is the death and murder of her baby, which has literally manifested itself in her life as a ghost haunting her. Beloved the character is quite probably Sethe's murdered child, an even more glaring instance of the past never truly going away. Sethe buys into the idea that "nothing ever dies" and even though sweet home is long gone, she will never let Denver return, because of the power she believes it holds.
Paul D is similarly haunted by his time at Sweet Home, but also his time on a chain gang, during which he was brutally treated, and had to perform a daring escape along with the rest of his inmates.
Again, in Beloved nothing ever dies. In my opinion, Morrison is trying to say, that the effects slavery will never die no matter how hard you try to shake them.
The most obvious instance of this, besides Sethe's time at sweet home. Is the death and murder of her baby, which has literally manifested itself in her life as a ghost haunting her. Beloved the character is quite probably Sethe's murdered child, an even more glaring instance of the past never truly going away. Sethe buys into the idea that "nothing ever dies" and even though sweet home is long gone, she will never let Denver return, because of the power she believes it holds.
Paul D is similarly haunted by his time at Sweet Home, but also his time on a chain gang, during which he was brutally treated, and had to perform a daring escape along with the rest of his inmates.
Again, in Beloved nothing ever dies. In my opinion, Morrison is trying to say, that the effects slavery will never die no matter how hard you try to shake them.
I absolutely agree. Another moment that reminded me of the effect s of slavery was the moment when we saw the 'at yo service' doll. We see Denver working and moving on with her life, but there is still this physical indication of the lasting impacts of slavery. Even though the Bodwins, who Denver is working for, are supposed to be these progressive white people that advocate for Black people, they have this racist piece of memorabilia that Denver, the next generation after slavery, sees.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion and I feel like this is the main message of Morrison's novel, Beloved. Almost all characters are haunted by their past. They all have traumatic experiences and at the root at all of these problems is slavery. Slavery is the reason why there is so much suffering in the characters' lives. And to go off of Joanna's point, slavery will continue to impact the lives of those who have had to deal with the ramifications of slavery. Denver is now apart of the generation after slavery but still has to deal with the impact of slavery that is lingering in the background, kind of like Beloved at the end of the book.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting about Sethe and Paul D is how differently they deal with their trauma. Though they have both experienced comparable levels of trauma, Sethe seems to be less able at handling it. She sees death as a better alternative to slavery, and is extremely traumatized by her experiences at Sweet Home, to the point where she has regular and uncontrollable flashbacks. Paul D, on the other hand, would rather be alive even if he is enslaved. He has more hope as a character, because he always believes that there is a way out. Paul D also does not seem to have rememory, and is coping with the trauma by constantly wandering, seeing it as a way to avoid ever getting taken anywhere against his will ever again. I don't really have a point here, I just think it's really interesting and important to see Sethe and Paul D's coping methods, and how their lives in slavery have impacted their personalities.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s interesting that Sethe is so obsessed with Sweet Home, and Denver’s relationship with it. Everything she does has to do with keeping Denver from having to experience the horrors of Sweet Home, and she forbids Denver from doing anything that Sethe would associate with Sweet Home. She even avoids talking about it with Denver and seems terrified whenever she seems a white person that they will somehow bring the horrors of her former home to Denver. Even after Sweet Home is gone, Sethe’s obsession with it continues to shape Denver’s life, to the point where Sethe is the only thing keeping the horrors of Sweet Home alive.
ReplyDeleteSethe refuses to go back to sweet home. Sethe refuses to let her kids go back to sweet home. When she encounters schoolteacher she tries to kill them so that they don't go back, so that they never do. Not gonna lie thats pretty freaky. Its interesting how almost all of the characters have some sort of connection to sweet home as that place they'd never go back to, but shapes their entire lives ahead of them.
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