Thursday, March 16, 2017
Beloved is Mine
One of the most important themes in Beloved by Toni Morrison is the wrongness of people possessing other people. Therefore, there are many references to possession in more ways that just the most evident example of slavery. For instance, in the love triangle between Beloved, Sethe, and Denver, Denver feels she possesses Beloved, but Beloved feels that she is controlled by Sethe. When Paul D debates whether to knock on their door or not, he hears the hasty voices of what we later know are dead slaves and other African-Americans who have suffered. The only word that he can distinguish is "mine" which obviously shows possession and proves that these voices are blacks who have suffered because they were bought and sold through slavery.
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4 comments:
I agree with Joseph because each character is almost defined by what they posses or if another character posses them. Serge is defined by her children and being a mother, whereas the children are defined by other means like Denver being defined by Beloved as Joseph said. This is obviously an important theme since the whole story is surrounding slavery. In slavery, people are possessed by other people and are usually defined by their masters like Paul Garner and the Garners. It's safe to say that no one has their own identity because they are so caught up in each other and nobody can be their own person.
The whole thing with the voices is creepy. The fact that they utter "mine" is even creepier. I would think the dead slaves would want better for the living, but apparently not. They are still bitter, which is understandable. Slaves were owned their whole life; all they know is possession. It makes sense to me that they are defined by possession and therefore need to posses something/someone else.
I really think the novel does a good job of dismissing any idea that slavery "wasn't that bad". Regardless of how kind slaveowners were, the act of being owned by another person is a terrible thing to experience.
Possession is a significant theme in Morrison's novel. Denver tries to possess Beloved and is territorial over her. Also, the slaves are controlled their masters and whites. She emphasizes these relationships through her narrative.
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