The trees throughout Beloved evoke both pain and comfort to the characters involved in the scenes with them. The "tree" on Sethe's back was named so by the nurturing Amy Denver, who saved Sethe as a runaway and helped her deliver Denver. But it is also a constant reminder of her past humiliations at Sweet Home though the scars on her back have been long dead to any feeling. This tree reflects Sethe's present mental and emotional state; though she is dead to any feelings in the present, she cannot rid herself of the scars of the past. When Paul D. arrives, he attempts to ease the pain of this memory, gently touching the scars that make up the tree. But Sethe cannot feel this touch; in fact, Paul D. adds to the burden of memory of Sweet Home with his comments on Halle's witnessing Sethe's rape and violation by the nephews. Early in the novel, Sethe recalls the beautiful trees of Sweet Home and the image of her boys playing in them. But the memory of these trees is also tainted by her recollection later in the novel of the horrific consequences of the Sweet Home slaves' abortive attempt at escape. Sethe finds when she reaches for these images for the comfort of their beauty, they turn in her mind to reminders of pain and death. Thus, Sethe finds her only recourse is to turn away from all of it, beauty and pain alike, and become as deadened to life as the tree-like scars on her back. To Paul D., to Denver, to the community on Bluestone Rd., Sethe appears hardened and proud, incapable of shame, but is she really incapable of life and living? Until Beloved arrives....
Comment on one of the other imagery patterns and how it helps to clarify the feelings, mental state, or relationships of one or more of the characters in Beloved.
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3. songs
ReplyDeleteSongs seems to be almost everywhere in the story, but I've picked three special instances. When Baby Suggs preaches in the clearing, she leads everyone in song. The collective song unties the people and identifies them as part of their fraternity. All of them share togetherness and happiness. Sethe can't recognize Beloved by her physical features, but when she sings a song that Sethe sang only to her children, Beloved identifies herself as Sethe's daughter. Beloved's song mirrors her happiness and identifies her realtionship with Sethe. When Sixo is caught, he sings a wild, manic song that frightens his captors but ties himself to his African roots.He knows that he will die, so his song identifies himself with his ancestors as well as with his "Seven-O," who had managed to escape. All three songs somehow identify the singers, because names and ancestry are changeable and ambiguous.
My topic was on animals but a feel we have belabored that point to no end, especially in our discussion during the oral reading check, but Morrison does a nice job of reiterating her point numerous times throughout her novel because the idea that most whites only thought of slaves as something akin to animals is an idea that has been visibly from the very beginning of the novel when Morrison talks about how Mr. Garner called his slaves "men." Toward the end of the novel, when Sethe stops going to work and gives everything she has to Beloved, Denver even describes Beloved as a wil animal, which shows that this idea of blacks being nothing better than animals was drilled into their heads from the minutes they were born.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I want to comment on one thing said by Angelo and Kevin in class about the slave made items, specifically Paul D.'s tobacco tin for a "heart" One thing that I thought of an wish mention to follow up on Kevin's comments is that Morrison could have used any small container as Paul D.'s case for his emotions and memories, but she chooses a tobacco tin. I think this is significant because tobacco is something that the slvaes were exposed to during their labor and on top of that, they would never have been able to afford tobacco for smoking purposes so one would naturally think that a tobacco tin would be the last thing that Paul D. would choose to harbor his feelings. This goes along with never being able to get rid of their past no matter how they try.
I also had animals and I wanted to comment on a different aspect of it. People keep saying how blacks are treated as animals and don't have respect from whites, but I also think that the blacks sort of unknowing equate themselves with animals. They refernce it all the time, like the whole two feet not four thing and Denver as an antelope, but I wanted to specifically talk about two of the named animals. Paul D regarded Mister, the rooster at Sweet Home, almost as his firend and talked to him all the time. Here Boy, the other animal focused on in the novel, does the opposite of the characters. While the people regard themselves as animals, Here Boy expresses human qualities, specifically with Beloved. Here Boy is only present when the ghost is not, and seems to be the first one to figure out who Beloved actually is.
ReplyDeleteColors:
ReplyDeleteThere are many instances of color throughout the novel. Most of them involve Baby Suggs, and very few involve Sethe, except for one important one. Morrison states that Sethe did not miss color like Baby Suggs did. I believe that this is a direct parallel to Sethe killing baby Beloved. Baby Suggs came to the rescue (she maintained her composure/senses) and Sethe turned into an animal (loss of composure/senses).
(Nick G.)
I dont know if the tree or trees was a topic that we could cover but I thought of a good point involving trees, so here we go. I think that the tree described on Sethe's back may be a symbol for the tree and branches that are the relationships in her life. She has many relationships, like the branches on the tree on her back, however like the scars, all of her relationships are dead. Sethe's relationships with people such as Stamp Paid and even Denver have suffered and are somewhat dead. Part of this may be the isolation that 124 experiences after "the misery" but also because of Sethe's attitude after she kills Beloved. Even when Beloved returns, her relationship with her mother is a mere shell of what it could have or would have been. Sethe's does have a tree of relationships in her life, but like her scars, they are dead.
ReplyDelete(Jordan)
I also had the topic songs. Like Andrea said I think it is interesting that it takes a song from her past for Sethe to really understand that Beloved is her daughter. Sethe is happy her child has come back to her with no hard feelings. There is also a song Paul D sings that relates his working on the table and mending the thing he broke before to mending his future with Sethe and forgeting his past. He uses a song from working on the railroad, but in a somewhat happy spirit compared to how he used to sing it. I also wanted to make a comment on the topic of animals. The white people definately talk about slaves like they are animals. There was the one scene where Sethe was looking into a lesson the school teacher was doing and he was telling the boy to write about Sethe's human and animal chracteristics. It is a clear point that the school teacher saw Sethe and other slaves that way and was influencing the boys to think the same way.
ReplyDeleteThe enclosed spaces in the book (Denver's emerald closet, the shed where Sethe killed Beloved) represent almost different worlds. Denver's closet represents the normal world that she missed out on, the perfume she takes in there being the only symbol of it. The shed where Sethe attempted to kill all her children seems to be the parts of Sethe's own mind that she's tried to lock away. No one can seem to understand or justify what went on in there except for Sethe, and even she is too afraid to go back to it.
ReplyDeleteI also had colors in Beloved. For the most part, I feel that color is used to give further meaning to a situation. The most obvious example involves Sethe, and how the tree on her back was "pink." There are other examples of Sethe and color, most of them being red and containing bloodshed. I think that it interesting that Baby Suggs avoided color in her life until she is on her deathbed. To Suggs, color takes on a deeply spiritual meaning, yet she denied it through out her life. Of all the colors, Baby Suggs never thought about red or pink, so I found it ironic that she was buried under a pink headstone.
ReplyDeleteI had color as a topic, like both other Nicks. I found the color blue throughout the book to be associated with Baby Suggs and her happiness. The most relevant quote from the book describing this is when Baby is talking to Stamp Paid: "What world you talking about? Ain't nothing harmless down here."
ReplyDelete"Yes it is. Blue. That don't hurt nobody."
For Baby Suggs, this color represented serenity and freedom, as well as everything that slavery and oppression wasn't. Blue is on the opposite ennd of the color spectrum from red, and since red repeatedly was associated with blood and sadness, blue was associated with happiness and peace. Baby Suggs goes to her grave thinking about the color blue because she knew that it was the only thing left in the world that would not hurt her. This also further proves the point that Baby Suggs lived her life through color, and as she got closer and closer to death, less and less colors appeared around her.
I had metal as a topic, and I found that metal had conflicting images associated with it, especially for Paul D. The iron of his chains and the bars on his box in prison represents the bondage and suffering of enslaved people. However, when Beloved is trying to seduce him, he can resist her only by staring at the metal lard can. The can is his strength and a source of hope for him. The appearance of coins throughout the book, and Paul D's lack of understanding how they work represents the distance between the world of the freed slaves and the whitefolk. The coins represent the feeling that Sethe, Paul D, and the others have of not belonging, of there being something foreign in the world that they don't understand and cannot figure out.
ReplyDeleteI also had enclosed spaces as a topic. Going somewhat along with what Emily said about enclosed spaces symbolizing the real world and its assets that Denver missed out on, I think that these enclosed spaces, especially Denver's emerald closet, have almost an inverted sense of the real world. Normally, people think of enclosed spaces as a trap: something that is keeping you away from something else. In Beloved, however, the enclosed spaces symbolize an escape: an escape from the artificial, isolated world of 124 and its inhabitants.
ReplyDeleteMy topic was numbers. Something that I find interesting about the use of numbers is how, like animal references, numbers are used to dehumanize slaves. It's ironic that Sixo is named after a number and has a girl-friend he refers to as his thirty-five mile woman and his son as Seven-O. When slaves were sold they were never sold as a name, but rather a number and bid on by how much they were worth, a money amount. This is just one example in which Morrison uses numbers to connect with slavery and the dehumanzing effect it had on society, both whites on the distributing side and blacks on the recieving end.
ReplyDeleteMy topic was numbers as well and I found the emphasis on numbers helped to establish a sense of community among the slaves. When Paul D escapes from slavery, he doesn't do it alone but with 45 other men chained together. Ella doesn't arrive at 124 by herself but with a group of 30 women. The numbers in Beloved show the kind of bond those who shared the experience of slavery had with each other: one that is lost over time as we drift further from the memory of atrocities.
ReplyDeletei liked the numbers theme as well, and it is well represented in 124. In this set of numbers, the number three is left out, which is also the number of Sethe's children that Beloved was. This shows how Beloved was kept out of Sethe's ;ife at first by her slaughter. But now she has returned and takes her rightful spot back in the family.
ReplyDeleteI had the commodities made by slaves theme. It seemed like throughout the whole story, the characters used these commodities to repress harmful or shameful memories of their past lives as slaves and shortly after their escape. Paul D. seems to be the best example out of all the characters to choose from to present this theme. He uses his tobacco tin heart to store all his memories of slavery, jail and the war of which he is ashamed and horrified. However, these commodities do not last forever, and neither does Paul D's tobacco tin. I found it kind of ironic that the characters used slave products to repress their memories of slavery.
ReplyDeleteWater, one of the many symbols in Beloved, is used primarily to portray freedom and birth.
ReplyDeleteFreedom
When Sethe arrives at the river, Stamp Paid ferries her across. This river crossing is from slavery to freedom.
Birth/Rebirth
Denver was thought to be dead until Sethe reached the river, a large body of water. Denver is actually born in the water because the boat that Sethe was in was filled up with water.
“It looked like home to her, and the baby (not dead in the least) must have thought so too. As soon as Sethe got close to the river her own water broke loose to join it. The break, followed by the redundant announcement of labor, arched her back” (p. 83).
Beloved also crosses water to get from one existence to another. She describes being on a bridge as she travels from the world of the dead to the world of the living. She comes out of the water in the stream when she arrives, because, like her mother, she has had to cross water to reach her true existence.
“The woman gulped water from a speckled tin cup and held it out for more. Four times Denver filled it, and four times the woman drank as though she had crossed a desert” (p. 51).
Water is necessary for life, and Beloved needed to replenish her body after being reborn.