Saturday, April 21, 2018
Denver
One character in the novel I often overlook is Denver. I think Denver is a really important character because in all of the household's rumination on their history, Denver remains separate from all of it. Her character brings up the question of whether or not the unawareness is a good thing. I think if she were to be previewed to the horror's of her family's past she might feel weighed down to the point where moving forward in life would prove a huge challnge, and she is really young for that. However, if she remains in the dark, she will be missing a major part of her family's history, which might make her an outcast, as she often feels
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I agree that Denver is a really interesting character that might sometimes be overlooked, especially regarding to her relationship to the past. As you said, she has no memories of slavery and lacks firsthand experience of what it was like, but slavery still hangs over her head with her family history, in how it has killed and separated members of her family. I think this is emphasized in how Denver is born while Sethe is escaping from slavery, so it is literally part of her from birth. In some ways, I think Denver's situation might be considered in the context of the experience of African Americans who have not directly experienced slavery, but for whom the past of slavery and present of racism still profoundly impacts.
I agree Denver is also very interesting. Like you guys said she is just the age where she did not experience slavery first hand, but still experiences and feels the pain from her family history. Denver is also an integral part of one of the most important scenes in the novel. When Denver asks about Sweet Home, Sethe describes Sweet Home and many of the horrors that she has experienced. Sethe says that her past still haunts her to this day. An interesting thing Sethe also points out about the importance of the past and history. Sethe says that even if Denver had never experienced any of the events that went on at Sweet Home and that even is every single thing there was completely destroyed, she would still feel the pain and horrors of Sweet Home if she ever walked by so she can never go there. As you can see Denver brings up many interesting points and conversations throughout the novel.
Nice points, y’all. Denver is such a complicated character in and of herself, which I think is one aspect that makes Morrison’s writing so compelling—each character has some good and some bad. For example, Denver clearly loves Baby Suggs and, I would say, Sethe; she’s also intelligent and has a thirst for knowledge. On the other hand, she can also be quite selfish—such as when she actively hates stories that aren’t about herself, or when she doesn’t tell Sethe that Beloved was the one strangling her, or when she doesn’t even mention the fact that Beloved is sleeping with Paul D (and that’s just all kinds of messed up).
Although it’s true Denver was never a slave, she was still heavily affected by it, as Bryce said. For one, she never knew her dad. Her brothers both ran away as an (indirect?) result of slavery, as Sethe felt she had to kill her children to keep them safe from it. The baby ghost, of course, has lived with her practically her whole life. Nobody speaks to her. She couldn’t even continue learning because of the question one boy asked her about her family’s past.
This post also makes me wonder if Denver ever thinks about what Sethe had to endure during her enslavement. She doesn’t like hearing stories that don’t concern her—is that really purely because she’s narcissistic, or could it partly be that she simply doesn’t want to hear stories that occur before her birth…stories that would have taken place while Sethe wasn’t considered free? Those are times Sethe herself doesn’t want to remember, either.
Whatever the case, I think another one of Denver’s roles is to be the proof of a mother’s love, as well as the negative impact slavery has on a mother’s relationship with her children. Denver’s relationship with her mother is often fraught with tension, partly because of what Sethe felt she had to do to keep her children safe from slavery.
Post a Comment