Story Style

There is something to be said of this way of telling a story. The ambiguity and the shifting perspectives allow for something a more straightforward (Beginning, then middle, then end) cannot. It allows the audience to decide when and where the parts of the story are and how they fit in a story structure. The way my english teacher called it was, "it hides its conclusion." For instance, if we were to take this story in chronological order, (Sethe at sweet home, Marries Halle, Raped, Escapes, Kill her Beloved, escapes to freedom, Beloved haunts her, then Paul D shows up to make her remember everything,) that places all of the importance on Sethe, and limits the focus and the meaning of the book. The turning point would be when she killed Beloved, the conclusion would be the rest of the story. But, the way the book is presented, all of these differing perspectives, the shifting, ambiguous narrative becomes something a little more exploratory. It's able to channel the force of the story, and present the story with more depth. Indeed, the climax of the story would be when Beloved, Sethe, and Denver speak in the same voice the same perspective, the past present and future coming together at once. The structure of the story lends itself to the meaning.

Beloved IV

Beloved

Final Response

Annie Kominek

The final chapter, chapter 28, I believe, is the one that captured me the most out of this reading.  We as readers have invested a great deal of time, energy and thought into the reading of this story, and here we are told it is “not a story to pass on” (Morrison 323). We are repeatedly told in this chapter that the story of Beloved, of Sethe, of Paul D and Denver, of Sweet Home, of Sixo and Halle – that it is not a story to be told; it is not a story to be heard, or read, or found. That perhaps sometimes, as Ella and Sethe tend to do with it, the past should remain there, quiet and alone.

Past regrets and sadness tend to have a way to swallow you up; eating you alive until you are nothing but skin, bones and an emptiness inside. This is the way it was with Beloved. She brought everything back. She brought Sethe’s great sadness back to her, swallowing Sethe up, eating her insides.

While never being extremely literal in her writing style, this last chapter goes back to the slightly more ambiguous style of previous chapters.

“Down by the stream in the back of 124 her footprints come and go, come and go. They are so familiar. Should a child, an adult place his feet in them, they will fit. Take them out and they disappear again as though nobody ever walked there” (Morrison 324). This passage describes to us the entirety of Beloved’s existence. She was once there, as a child, but someone else snuffed out her existence. She was there again, older, almost an adult, when someone else pushed her away again. The people smother her footprints time and again, child and adult alike, for her footprints were both sizes when she lived, and both sizes when she died. The people around 124 couldn’t remember her, and soon the people within 124 are not sure whether she was ever even there, just like a smothered footprint in the mud of a stream.

Kindred

In Kindred, the role of power between slave and slave master has been flipped very slightly. Though Rufus still holds the rank of master with the power over Dana to strip her of her freedom as well as forcing her into punishing situations, it is Dana who holds the power of life in her hands. She has the ability to decide whether to save Rufus or not when he puts his own life in danger. She may be hurt in Rufus’s time, but will be sent home at any point where her life is in danger. So ultimately it is Dana plays the role of master over Rufus’s life as she has the ability to decide his fate, whether he lives, or dies. Now the slaves look at Rufus with mixed emotions. On one hand they hate the man as the monster who denies them of their freedom and treats them as property. But on the other hand they respect him as the man that feeds them. This is how we typically imagine the emotions a slave may have toward his owner. They hate the man but respect the power he holds over them. I would argue that Rufus feels some of the same emotions toward Dana. On one hand he seems to feel some sort of hate or resentment toward her. She, a black woman, is smarter than him and more defiant toward him than the other slaves. She takes care of him but in return has a lesser fear of his power. Rufus can punish her as he pleases but does not have the same hold on her as the other slaves and lacks the ability to control her as his property. But on the other hand he respects her as some odd form of a guardian angel. She holds his life in her hands. She kept him in this world for all of these years and she is appropriately the one to take him out. 

Kindred Time

In the Chapter of Octavia Butler's "Kindred" Titled The Fall, There is a brief section where Dana attempts to explain to a young white son of a slave owner named Rufus that she and her white husband are from the future.  The idea of a black telling a white kid during slave times that he could not say the n word was un heard of.  Things like this and interracial couples are shown to be hard to fathom even by the young.  This is Butlers way of creating a scene showing how people of their time would react  once introduced to more equal times, regarding slaves.  Butler writes “I mean we come from a different time as well as a different place. I told you it was hard to understand,” in order to initiate the confusion.
This section and these ideas are greatly
 interesting because the young Rufus was earlier revealed as a very distant relative.  It is like she is teaching her elder to respect blacks, possibly resulting in his future companionship with one.  Though this may be revealed towards completion of the text, the tension it creates is very striking, and it provokes thoughts like Dana having knowledge of who he is, and knowledge of the past to assist her in being cautious.  Without knowledge and awareness she knows it could cost her her life.  A twist in this section was when she brought her husband with her to that time through touch, possibly relieving the ghastly nature of his wife disappearing, making the stories more believable.  
Butler, Octavia (2004-001). Kindred (Bluestreak) (p. 62). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

post #6

Out of the beginning of part 2, the three chapters representing the three women’s stream of consciousness (chapters 20-22) definitely stood out in comparison to other previous chapters.  All three chapters use very broken and jumbled dialog to help depict the confusion and anxiety expressed in each character’s mental state.  The chapter/ steam of consciousness I took most interest in and would like to speak on is that of Sethe.  Throughout chapter 20, Sethe goes between two main viewpoints; The first is primarily based around her reinsuring herself that the decisions made in the barn were for the better and out of pure love, and that she has been rewarded with the reincarnation off her murdered daughter.  In doing so, she is able to appreciate life again, and joys over the opportunity to relive her life with beloved.  This positive outlook is challenged however, by the repeated comparison of her own decisions as a mother and that of her mother, whom she feels once abandoned her as a child.  She feels that her care and love for her children completely overpowers that of her mothers for her as a child, which presents many more contradictions in her previous decisions.  To conclude the chapter, Sethe talks of how she can sleep in peace now that she has beloved back.

Response # 5

Sweet Home was the first place the Sweet Home men were treated as both men and slaves. Paul D recalls this before he attempts to tell Sethe what he had done with Beloved : "He grew up thinking that, of all the blacks in Kentucky, only the five of them were men. Allowed, encouraged to correct Garner, even defy them. To invent ways of doing things; to see what was needed and attack it without permission." (Morrison 147) The way Paul D describes his experiences makes it seem like Sweet Home was his first real experience as a slave. Sweet Home gave him the impression that everyone would see and treat him as a man, a real person. School teacher, as much as they seem to hate each other, tried to give them an idea of what it was like outside of Sweet Home: "It was Schoolteacher who taught them otherwise. A truth that waved like a scarecrow in rye : they were only Sweet Home men at Sweet Home. One step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race." (Morrison 148) While Garner, their master at Sweet Home, gave them a good life for a slave, he also hurt them by not warning them how they would be treated outside Sweet Home. Garner created an ideal way of thinking for them, which probably hurt them in the long run.

Beloved

When Stamp offers information on Sethe being jailed for Beloved's death to Paul D, he beings to realize the reality of everything that has been going on in that house. He doesn't want to believe that such a terrible thing would happen. Especially when a mother's duty is to love and care for her children. There is a lot of things going on at this moment in time, in which the truth begins to surface on such an important piece of information. Once Paul D confronts Sethe with the information from Stamp, she begins to break down. The trauma of her childs death begins to bring back horrid memories. Sethe was never fit to be a mother. There are responsibilities that come along with being a mother. One has to begin to devote their lives to another human being to make sure of it's survival. "If you ain't got nothing but milk to give em, well they don't do things so quick. Milk was all I ever had" (Morrison 187). This goes back to the fact that all she could be was something physical and nothing more.

Death Wish

What happens to someone who has nothing to look forward to in life because they have suffered so much that the only thing they want is death? “”We have to be steady. ‘ These things too will pass.’ What are you looking for a miracle?” asked Stamp Paid to Baby Suggs questioning what she was looking for in order for her to be happy. She responds “No … the back door.”(Morrison 179) But when the reader continues to the next sentence the reader discovers that she is actually literally talking about the back door of someone’s house. I interpreted this is a metaphor to her waning to seek peaceful refuge in death. In earlier chapters, Baby Suggs has admitted to having nothing to live for because her family was broken apart leaving her with nothing. Stamp Paid believes that these things will pass however, I Baby Suggs disagrees. How much time will take away the pain of her remembering what it is like to have all of her children dead or missing? People say that death is like sleeping you have no worries like you do when you are alive. Baby Suggs wants peace that she has never felt before. When someone suffers, they seek death to escape their reality. When you are dead, you do not have to worry about suffering like you did on earth. If your have a religious believe then you have the afterlife to look forward to. For example, if you believe in heaven, you can live there in utopia after you die discarding your horrific past. Death is an escape for people who have suffered. If Baby Suggs could erase her memories, would she still want to die? What does Baby Suggs have to live for? Stamp Paid was encouraging her to live on because Baby Suggs was the only real person that Denver had to keep her company. I am unsure that Baby Suggs felt the same way. Maybe she was too blinded by her own suffering or felt like she was to useless to be able to console and look after Denver. If Suggs had realized how much she was needed would she still have wished for death? Earlier on Baby Suggs was talking about her “exhausted marrow.” I linked it to phrases like “soaked to the bone or cold to the marrow” referencing a deep cold that goes deep inside oneself that you cannot shake. In Baby Suggs case, she is “exhausted to the Marrow” of her bones meaning that she is really tired maybe even to her soul. This also references how she is just plain tired of living. “So, in spite of his exhausted marrow, he kept on thought the voices and tried once more to knock on the door of 124,” shows that now Stamp Paid understands how Suggs feels tired of living and how he is willing to put off his “exhaustion” for the sake of Denver. Now he has someone to live for and help take care of.

post post

The interior monologue is a device used often by Morrison throughout “Beloved,” particularly in chapter 22, where the reader is allowed to experience Beloved’s own thoughts and desires. This stream of consciousness is Beloved’s thought process, the thought process of a ghost who’s perspective differs greatly from that of any other character in the book. Beloved’s stream of consciousness is characterized by lack of punctuation and reads very broken. “I am not dead   I sit  the sun close my eyes   when I open them I see the face I lost   Sethe’s is the face that left me   Sethe sees me see her and I see the smile   her smiling face is the place for me   it is the face I lost” While this passage is abstract, the reader is able to define it through context and understand the visual impressions Beloved’s fragmented thoughts create. Using stream of consciousness to characterize Beloved helps the reader associate with the feelings of an abstract personality, one that is distant and beyond our comprehension.

Beloved's Inner-Workings

“I am beloved and she is mine. I see her take flowers/ away from leaves/ she puts them in a round basket/ the leaves are not for her/ she fills the basket/ she opens the grass/ I would help her but the clouds are in the way/ how can I say things that are pictures/ I am not separate from her/ there is no place where I stop/ her face is my own and I want to be in the place where her face is and to be looking at it too/ a hot thing/”

In this passage from Beloved, by Toni Morrison on page 248, Beloved is speaking for the first time in the book through her own internal monologue. We as readers are finally opened up to her mind and its conscious stream of thought instead of just listening to her words narrated by another character in the story. In this passage itself, Beloved is speaking of the memory she has of Sethe’s mother in Africa and how she remembers her picking flowers away from leaves as if she is harvesting them, and putting them into a basket. Beloved’s writing style is very short and choppy, as if she is still a child mentally that has not developed a correctly formal and adult way of speaking, even if compared just beside Denver’s and Sethe’s way of speaking, but especially Denver’s since she is her sister and though Beloved is older than her, Denver still speaks better than Beloved. This is even furthered in the line where she says, “How can I say things that are pictures.” In this line she is showing that she does not yet have the mental capacity to describe in vivid detail what she is seeing because she has not yet developed that way of speaking, much like a child who cannot yet speak only sees in pictures, not words, because they have not yet learned them.

Through this passage, Morrison is developing Beloved’s character further from what we’ve just seen told through other characters, and through this passage we finally get a slight grasp on who Beloved is as a person, through her own mind. Without this entire chapter, we would not know first hand what Beloved’s inner workings entail, and through this passage we can understand her underdevelopment compared to her younger sister, Denver.

Moral Ambiguity

Morrison’s indictment of the black community in Sethe’s crime exemplifies the moral ambiguity that pervades Beloved. Like Baby Suggs, Morrison does not seem to “approve or condemn” Sethe’s act. Because Morrison centers the novel’s narrative around Sethe, and because she portrays Sethe as strong, sane, courageous, and a loving mother, we tend to sympathize with Sethe—even as she explains the circumstances of the murder. Let's not mince words here, Sethe is a baby-killer, no matter the circumstance. If we weren't so focused on Sethe and her struggles specifically we would also demonize Sethe. 

At the other extreme is the community, which completely shuns Sethe and her family after she murders her daughter. Thus, while Paul D’s initial, horrified reaction to Stamp Paid’s story is justified and understandable, it seems out of place to us because the text locates Sethe’s act outside the bounds of ethical evaluation in a way that the community does not. The text shifts the focus of the reader’s criticism from Sethe herself to the perverse circumstances that have worked upon her to transform her “too thick” motherly love into infanticide.

The book’s moral ambiguity extends beyond its central conflict to all aspects of the story. Good and evil are not split along a racial divide—we see whites performing good acts along with the bad and blacks performing bad acts along with the good. By complexly intertwining virtue and vice, Morrison makes her characters seem realistic and human, so that they rise above being simple allegorical figures. Even Beloved, the only expressly allegorical figure in the book, is an elusive character. The novel’s sole definitive moral judgment is its condemnation of all forms of slavery. Most prominently, the terror and despair slavery represents to Sethe is portrayed as the indirect cause of her act of infanticide. Even the “softer” form of slavery practiced by the Garners does not escape criticism.

Morrison Beloved response

     A passage in this reading that really interested me was Paul D's realization that he was practically defenseless and weak against Beloved's "hold" on the house. I found it interesting how, regardless of all he has been through, he cannot escape her influence. Morrison writes how Paul D has, "eaten raw meat barely dead, who under plum trees bursting with blossoms had crunched through a dove's breast before its heart stop beating." However, he can't bring himself to fight against Beloved's control over him. He tries to deny this at first, even begins to hate her as a result of his weakness. Beloved seems to have directly targeted Paul D for the sole reason that he may be the one to drive Sethe further away from her. Beloved is threatened by the thought of losing Sethe to this man, and so as a "counterattack," she gives him opportunities to leave the house, one step at a time. Finally Morrison writes, "and it was he, that man, who had walked from Georgia to Delaware, who could not go or stay put where he wanted to in I24-Shame." (Pg. 126) After reading this, I liked the fact that Paul D refuses to give in and chooses to fight instead of taking to the road again, like he has always seemed to do in the past.

Kindred to part 11 of "The Fight"

Race is a clear focus in Kindred, but Butler also seems to focus in on gender roles with the abuse of the female characters in the book. Dana faces discrimination when she travels back in time, of course, as she is seen as a slave. As a female slave she is not only subject to the physical punishment all slaves experience for “wrong doings” but is also at threat for sexual abuse. Sarah and Alice are both victims of such abuse as their masters have molested them both while they had absolutely no right to deny the men of their sexual desires. Dana has not yet faced such abuse but with the unstable nature of Rufe’s character and the fact that she resembles Alice, Rufe’s uncontrollable obsession, I wonder how long it will be before he tries to take advantage of their unique relationship. Kevin helps ease the issue of race for Dana as he ignores the discrimination from their families and chooses her over everyone else in his life, regardless of her skin color. But he pushes the issue of gender in part one of “The Fight”. He treats her as a sort of slave, expecting her to type all of his stories for him and got furious when she refused. All the women in this story are treated as if it is their duty to serve their man in any way he pleases. Even Margaret, Rufe’s mother, is subject to this as she is totally controlled by her husband and her child. Alice has it worst in my opinion. Even as a free woman she loses the right to choose her own husband and as result ends up beaten and sold into slavery. Life as a slave seems awful, but life as a female slave seems unbearable. 

Kindred-Inuyasha parallels

In the third section of the second chapter of Kindred by Octavia Butler, i have made a very unusual connection to a show that i liked to watch as a kid called Inuyasha.  The observation was made because, well, after Butler expanded the ideas of teleporting, in which she included time travel, it reminds me of Kagome, from The anime series Inuyasha,  and how she goes down a well and it takes her to ancient Japan. In Kindred,  Dana is summoned by a child when he is in danger to the past where slavery still exists, and which is also said to be far from where she stays.  Some more slightly similar characteristics between these two,  Kindred and Inuyasha is that when they are in the past, the present time goes by slow, so when they return, they pick up from where they left off.  Dana can teleport to Baltimore 1815 for hours, and still be seen as missing for a few minutes.  Kagome can be gone for months, but still only miss a few days of school.
       Ancestral elements are found in both as well.  Kagome found a lady who looked just like her, almost identical, and it was rumored that she could possibly be a descendant.  In kindred, Dana discovered that the child that she kept being summoned to rescue was her grandfather far down the line, she discovered that he was white as well.  She couldn't tell him, but she understood that she had to preserve his life in order to ensure that her family would survive.  (This E book does not have page numbers so i didn't quote, but i can if anyone is interested).

Beloved

Morrison's book beloved has been a hard book to read so far, because of the way she has it written as well as because she does not allow all of the information has not been given yet. i how ever i found that there is so much loss in the book Seethe the mother has seen so much loss between her family having to leave her and all the death that has happened around her. Even though she has her daughter Denver with her there is still this alone feeling with them. When they had new people coming around Denver was not to happy about it at first but then slowly started to change her mind which is a very child like thing to do.

Beloved

Morrison’s “Beloved” has so far been a story of a freed slave woman, Sethe, her living daughter Denver, Paul D, and the ghost of her first born child who was violently murdered.  Thus far, it’s been clear the lead character; Sethe has had many struggles in her life, including many deaths and fights to control her memories from the past.

            The story reveals and explores the various ways that Sethe, Baby Suggs, and Paul D all hide or deal with their pasts and memories, which all seem to be different.   Paul D for examples repeats to Sethe the “dangers for a n ex-slave to love anything too much” so that there be “enough love for the next person after the first is taken away.”  It is made clear that Paul D has gone through lots as a slave as well, and that he has chosen to deal with his emotions differently than Sethe, who later takes in the mysterious “beloved” and quickly grows fond of her.  Even Ella Denver, a white woman who helps Sethe escape and give birth, agrees with Paul D’s mind set of love and memory.      

The first sign of any hope and enjoyment from Sethe and Denver comes when Paul D takes them to the town carnival.  In these scenes, Denver is acknowledged as a normal girl among the other children, and is not outcast for living in a ghost house.  Paul D also makes it a point to help Sethe be more social as well.  As they walk home from the carnival, some foreshadowing is displayed with the overlaying shadows of Sethe and Paul D, which give her hope of good fortune in the future.  This hope is quickly questioned when “Beloved” is found laying out in front of their house.

Beloved

In Toni Morrison's "Beloved" the character of Beloved is complicated and unpredictable thus far in the novel. There are many signs that she is the reincarnation or the manifested ghost of the spiteful baby ghost that haunted the house but that Paul D was able to yell away. The most obvious sign is probably that she says her name is Beloved, but Sethe does not suspect anything distrustful about her, just that she is a lost young black girl in need of a home and food. Denver is absolutely enthralled by Beloved, and devotedly takes care of her while she was sick her first few days of staying at 124. Sethe is pleased that Denver enjoys Beloved presence so much because she knows how lonely Denver was.  Beloved has a strange and strong attachment to Sethe. Beloved's presence is not welcome by Paul D. He senses something isn't right about her and they both begin to want to drive the other away and compete for Sethe's attention. Conversations Beloved has with Denver reveal vague information that can be read as perhaps being a baby in a womb. When Denver asks what is was like in the place Beloved was before, she says, "'Dark,' said Beloved. 'I'm small in that place. I'm like this here.' She raised her head off the bed, lay down on her side and curled up"(Morrison 75). She also says that it was, "Hot. Nothing to breathe down there and no room to move in" (Morrison 75).  Yet it is still a mystery as to who exactly she is or why she has come to 124.

Response - Beloved 5-8

Response – Beloved 5-8

Annie Kominek

            While looking around on my Audible account, 12 credits in tow and so many ideas of what books I wanted to use them on, I found myself searching for Beloved before any other book. I bought it immediately after I saw that Toni Morrison herself was reading it, downloaded it to my phone, stuck in my headphones and headed off to work. I re-“read” the first four chapters, this time with Morrison’s voice soothing my ears, soft as cream. Through her voice, I was able to experience a depth to the story that I had not otherwise experienced. Her voice conveys a subdued energy; a pervasive sadness that comes from a core of strength. I will, from now on, be listening to Beloved as I read it.

            In these chapters, Beloved appears as an older woman. We also learn that Halle was broken when he witnessed the boys taking Sethe’s milk. Sethe has either assumed Halle was dead or resented him for leaving her, his children and his mother that he worked so hard to free. After finding out that Halle bore witness to Sethe’s torment and never stepped in to stop it, she was incredulous. I like how Paul D replies.

            “Hey! Hey! Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every god-damn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside (Morrison 81).” What Paul D said was that not every man is infallible – he can be broken, he can be hurt, he won’t always be the only sturdy thing in someone’s life. Many women took strength from their men for thousands of years, but a man can be emotional, too. Even a man has a breaking point, and Paul D was trying to get Sethe to understand that. To understand that it’s not because Halle didn’t want to. It’s not because Halle didn’t love her, or his children, or his mother. It’s because Halle, at the moment he watched, was frozen, and couldn’t move, and couldn’t reconcile himself with what he was observing. Perhaps he felt like a spectator, that it wasn’t real, or maybe he felt like jam, stuck and thick and slow.

            No matter the reason, what happened to Sethe was too much for Halle and it broke him, inside, deep where it counts. Halle had lived through so much, seen so much, and what happened to Sethe, it got to him. And he couldn’t’ chop it down or stop it, so he ended up eating butter, and in my mind’s eye I imagine he was weeping. Everyone has a breaking point; most of us will never reach ours, but Halle found his and never returned. Something he couldn’t reconcile, but Paul D explained his problem to Sethe better than I ever could; succinct and true. It is even good for us all to keep in mind. I know that sometimes I expect miracles from the man in my life, but I have to be reminded that he is just a man, no more.