Saturday, April 13, 2019
Beloved and Unburying the Past
In class on Friday, we discussed the power that Beloved has over Paul D, as she literally moves him throughout the house and has a level of indescribable control over him. She also causes Sethe to recall old times on Sweet Home, despite the fact that all her memories involve tragedy and pain (recall the quotes on pg. 69). These elements tie into the idea of Beloved as an emblem of the past, as despite all their efforts, she simply has a hold on their lives in the present. This strange way of Beloved mirrors the way in which our past experiences shape and bleed into present moments and decisions.
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3 comments:
I love the title of your post and it really got me thinking. Not only is the past being unburied through Beloved in a metaphorical sense, but she was also literally unburied from the earth. When we, the reader, are first introduced to Beloved, she rises mysteriously form the river. She resurfaces from the earth she was once buried in, and her emergence from the water is similar from a baby exiting the womb, leading back to the motif of motherhood, and maybe even a reference to "mother earth".
Bennett’s post:
Wow, Alana, you bring up a great point about the past and the concept of time. Much like we saw earlier this year with “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” time and memory are important themes in “Beloved.” I clearly see that Toni Morrison was influenced by Jesmyn Ward in writing her novel, as both heavily focus on slavery and how those memories are never dead. The past is the present. It’s funny that you write about this, as I read “Slaughterhouse-Five” for my independent study. Perhaps as much as anything we have read in a English thus far, this novel focuses a lot on the passage of time. Vonnegut, the author, make a point to show how the past never dies.
This is a really great point! Its definitely interesting way to think of how our past actions, no matter how hard we try to suppress them, always find a way to come back to us. The fact that the past literally comes back as a physical manifestation to "haunt" Paul D is just another implication of the woes of our past.
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