Beloved

1
Beloved

• Pages 24-59

2
Consequences of Intimacy

• Sethes Insecurity
• hoping he wouldnt mind the fact that she was
  not prepared that though she could remember
  desire, she had forgotten how it worked (24)

3
Consequences of Intimacy

• Paul D Looks For A Way Out
• And the wrought-iron maze he had explored in the
  kitchen like a gold miner pawing through pay dirt
  was in fact a revolting clump of scars. (25)
• Does familiarity breed revulsion in a man?
• Does familiarity breed fear in a man?

4
What Is A Man

• Baby Suggs said A man aint nothing but a
  manBut a son? Well now, thats somebody. (27)
• A man is useless (?) unless he is your child.

5
The Role of Mother Woman

• Baby Suggs
• Pages 27-28
• Horrific story
• and then God gave her Halle who gave her
  freedom when it didnt mean a thing. (28)

6
The Role of Mother Woman

• Sethe
• Page 28
• A blessing she was reckless enough to take for
  granted, lean on, as though Sweet Home really was
  oneA bigger fool never lived. (28)

7
Memories of Halle

• When Sethe asked Mrs. Garner if there would be a
  wedding, Mrs. Garner put down her cooking spoon.
  Laughing a little, she touched Sethe on the head
  saying, You are one sweet child. And then no
  more. (31)
• Sethe didnt understand the reality of her
  existence

8
The Power of the Senses

• Baby Suggs
• Sight
• Desire for color
• Denver
• Smell
• DENVERS SECRETS were sweet. Accompanied every
  time by wild veronica until she discovered
  cologne. (34)
• Significance of senses?

9
Denvers Refuge

• First a playroom (where the silence was softer),
  then a refuge (from her brothers fright), soon
  the place became the point. In that bower, closed
  off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denvers
  imagination produced its own hunger and its own
  food, which she badly needed because loneliness
  wore her out. Wore her out. Veiled and protected
  by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear,
  and salvation was as easy as a wish. (35)

10
Denvers Refuge

• Repetition of Style
• Again she wished for the baby ghostits anger
  thrilling her now where it used to wear her out.
  Wear her out. (15)
• Purpose
• The presence of the ghost (which, arguably,
  alleviates Denvers loneliness) and loneliness
  both wear her out.

11
The Appearance of the Ghost

• House as character
• Shivering, Denver approached the house,
  regarding it, as she always did, as a person
  rather than a structure. A person that wept,
  sighed, trembled and fell into fits. (35)

12
The Appearance of the Ghost

• The ghost wears a white dress, kneels down next
  to Sethe and has its arm around Sethes waist.
• The dress and her mother together looked like
  two friendly grown-up womenone (the dress)
  helping out the other. (35-36)
• Interestingly, Sethe is the one who is
  unknowingly being supported.

13
Denvers Birth

• Willing to defend herself and her unborn baby
  against a white man
• Suddenly she was eager for his eyes, to bite
  into them to gnaw his cheek. (38)
• Im gonna eat his feet offLike a snake. All
  jaws and hungry. (38)
• Violent
• Animalistic
• Primitive
• Mother

14
Death

• Amy massages Sethes feet and legs
• Its gonna hurt, now, said Amy. Anything dead
  coming back to life hurts. (42)
• A truth for all times, thought Denver. Maybe the
  white dress holding its arm around her mothers
  waist was in pain. If so, it could mean the baby
  ghost had plans. (42)

15
Rememory

• I used to think it was my rememory. You know.
  Some things you forget. Other things you never
  do. But its not. Places, place are still there.
  If a house burns down, its gone, but the
  placethe picture of itstays, and not just in my
  rememory, but out there, in the worldI mean,
  even if I dont think it, even if I die, the
  picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still
  out there. Right in the place where it happened.
  (43)

16
Rememory

• Collective consciousness?
• Memories are never forgotten.
• Memories never die.

17
Rememory Sweet Home

• if you go there and stand in the place where it
  was, it will happen again it will be there for
  you, waiting for you. So, Denver, you cant never
  go there. Never. Because even though its all
  overover and done withits going to always be
  there waiting for you. Thats how come I had to
  get all my children out. No matter what. (44)

18
Rememory Death

• Denver picked at her fingernails. If its still
  there, waiting, that must mean that nothing ever
  dies.
• Sethe looked right in Denvers face. Nothing
  ever does, she said. (44)
• Predictions?

19
The Plans of the Ghost

• The Pleasure of Enchantment
• Men
• Her brothers had known, but it scared them (45)
• Women
• Grandma Baby knew, but it saddened her. (45)

20
The Plans of the Ghost

• Whatever they were or might have been, Paul D
  messed them up for good. With a table and a loud
  male voice he had rid 124 of its claim to local
  fame. (45)
• Is this a good thing
• Notice emphasis on male voice.

21
New Hope?

• Before and since, all her effort was directed
  not on avoiding pain but on getting through it as
  quickly as possible. The one set of plans she had
  madegetting away from Sweet Homewent awry so
  completely she never dared life by making more.
  (46)
• Would it be all right? Would it be all right to
  go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on
  something? (46)

22
Sethe and Color

• Baby Suggs desires color
• Sethe does not miss color
• It was as though she saw red baby blood, another
  day the pink gravestone chips, and that was the
  last of it. (47)

23
A New Family?

• Should Paul D stay?
• Gimme back my shoes gimme back my hat (49)
• he had shut down a generous portion of his
  head (49)
• The closed portion of his head opened like a
  greased lock. (49)

24
A New Family?

• Denver
• Shes got a waiting way about her. Something
  shes expecting and it aint me Paul DWell,
  whatever it is, she believes Im interrupting
  it.(50)

25
A New Family?

• Denver is charmed
• Oh, no. I wasnt going back there. I dont care
  who found who. Any life but not that one. I went
  to jail instead. Denver just a baby so she went
  right along with me. Rats bit everything in there
  but her. (50-51)
• Why jail?

26
A New Family?

• A Choice?
• Im not asking you to choose. Nobody would. I
  thoughtwell, I thought you couldthere was some
  space for me. (55)

27
A New Family?

• Support from Paul D
• He asks Sethe how she is on the inside and Sethe
  replies with I dont go inside. (55)
• Too much pain
• Go as far inside as you need to, Ill hold your
  ankles. Make sure you get back outI knew it
  wasnt the place I was heading toward it was
  you. We can make a life, girl. A life. (55)

28
A New Family?

• Support from Paul D
• Leave it to me. (55)
• Sethe responds with Wellsome of it. (55)

29
Past and Future

• To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the
  past at bay. The better life she believed she
  and Denver were living was simply not that other
  oneAs for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping
  her from the past that was still waiting for her
  was all that mattered. (51)
• A mother protects the future of her child by
  keeping the past away.

30
Protective Mother

• Ill protect her while Im live and Ill protect
  her when I aint. (54)
• A mothers love transcends death

31
The Carnival--Imagery

• The crickets were screaming (56)
• white hot (56)
• old roses were dying (57)
• The closer the roses got to death, the louder
  their scent (57)

32
The Carnival--Imagery

• Purpose of imagery?
• Foreshadowing?
• Ironic that this death and decay imagery is
  present when the tone of the passage is so
  pleasant.

33
The Carnival--Imagery

• Shadows
• The shadows were holding hands
• Unity?
• And on the way home, although leading them now,
  the shadows of three people still held hands.
  (59)
• Shadows in front symbolize the future?
• Hope?