fahima hossain – ENG 3407, Gothic Lit, Fall 2019

180 – last

The ending was shocking as who knew Beloved would actually leave the place. Not only that but also how Denver stood up for herself and made a choice where she had to leave her comfort zone and go look for a job to provide food for her mother and herself. If Beloved had not been in the picture none of this would’ve been possible. I feel like Tony Morrison deliberately wanted to show us that the presence of Beloved caused harm but more than that it helped Denver to make herself more independent. The society also came into one, helping Sethe, they were upset about not helping her that time when the schoolteacher had come to take her and her children as a slave. They regretted the idea that they kept quiet at that time, more of they felt in some way it would have never come to a point where Sethe had to kill her child if they had warned her or alerted her in the past.

Return of Beloved bought the community together and giving Denver a strength in becoming independent. It was also not so shocking when Beloved disappeared because it felt right, she was like a person sent by God to help Sethe and the others to come into place. It was like a mission, and once it was over she left. It was forgotten that Beloved returned from the other side but did leave an impact on Sethe. However, it is normal because she was still a mother and that is normal for a mother to feel down when a child is lost.

pages 180- 256 ch 23

This is a quote by Beloved “Three times I lost her: once with the flowers because of the noisy clouds of smoke; once when she went into the sea instead of smiling at me; once under the bridge when I went in to join her and she came toward me but did not smile. She whispered to me, chewed me, and swam away. Now I have found her in this house. She smiles at me and it is my own face smiling. I will not lose her again. She is mine.” This basically is saying that how she has lost her mother 3 times and as we have seen she only gets lost one by Sethe. Now if we think of Beloved being reincarnated and that she took birth again then it may have been that she had death before. It can also possibly mean that she had a life before which she lost and it was counted to be 3 times including when she was lost by Sethe.

She clearly says in the quote that once with the flowers which I could not make sense to and once under the bridge and once into the sea, which I am sure this is what is described in the book when Sethe had decided to send her children away and join them later at sea.

Also the author might just try to hint on history repeats itself and so Beloved had many same experiences that were constantly repeated. This can go both ways as it also can just be understood that there was past life too.

Sethe’s memories of trying to cross the river and her encounter with Amy (38-41)

“Down in the grass, like the snake she believed she was, Seth’s opened her mouth, and instead of fangs and a split tongue, out shot the truth.”(pg 39)

The starting of this scene gives us a chill where we see that Sethe wants to bite Amy as she thought Amy was a “whiteboy” who would try to harm her. When Sethe was hiding she had a whole plan she was going to follow of biting this person and eating it up. As soon as the person came close she realized it was a female and maybe Sethe got a little sympathetic. She seemed to be so strong and had strong hatred for a “whiteboy” but when she saw it was a white female she came out with the truth. This shows me the character of Sethe and her personality. It shows even though the era had a huge gap and discrimination in race she was still good at heart for other females,I would say. She could’ve probably harmed Amy but instead she spoke the truth.

This can also be a horror moment when she thought it was a male who has done so much harm to her family and she did not know what to expect so she had a reaction ready to be taken part.

Group 2 clue

The walls were—in available spaces—boldly sculptured into a spiral
band of heroic proportions; and displayed, despite the destructive weathering caused by the
openness of the spot, an artistic splendour far beyond anything we had encountered before. The
littered floor was quite heavily glaciated, and we fancied that the true bottom lay at a
considerably lower depth.page 60

This para can be compared to the fantastic hesitation as the author could not understand what this maybe. It can also be related to the uncanny as they know it is Ice but the way it is sculptured and presented is hard to tell if it really is or not. This can be related to the scene of The Falling House of Usher where the narrator sees the house and he knows it is the house but it seemed so off that he compared it with a human and their features. It’s like they know what it is but they could not exactly give it an explanation of why this might be that way. Obviously we know the house was haunted in the Falling House of Usher and so the narrator felt that way. When we think about this story we can also say the mountains maybe haunted but not by spirits or ghosts but by unknown mysteries creatures which can be related.

CLUE – GRPOP 2

“I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire…They could not approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter.”

In this para phrase we see that Welsing was using a holy Wafer which is considered to be holy and sacred in Christianity. Also we read that Van Welsing makes a “holy ring” in which the three vampire sisters can come in and Mina can’t leave. These symbolize more of Christianity and shows that yes it does really support Christian forgiveness. When we think about it Mina could have turned into a vampire right away and not have the God’s blessing as some may say. Instead we have Welsing taking care of her and not killing her as she does not truly turn yet. The story could have implicated that Mina had turned right away and she had to be killed but instead she was protected by the evil and then she turns normal in the end of the story.

The story could have also led a way in which the three sisters have taken Mina with them and she turned completely having no other way out but killing them and Mina. The story does not go that way either, Mina was safe and sound and Dracula was killed. This shows that the story follows the belief of Christianity forgiveness.

connect group 2 dracula , Fahima Hossain

“I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit.

The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!”

Here I would like to relate Lucy’s and Jonathan’s struggles or the connection they might have in different but similar situations. We know that in the early times girls were expected to marry a suitor early and they had duties to take care of which mostly included them looking after their husband and children. We see Lucy struggling to find a way out of the three proposals and she felt like a “prisoner” like Jonathan did in chapter 2. Lucy was not really a prisoner but the fact that she had to choose a man to marry and to have to reject and move on to the next is like a closed feeling trying to make a way out of it “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? … I know I would if I were free. ” chapter 5. Though Jonathan was not a prisoner either he was said to be a guest but seeing Dracula and his doors mostly locked and him being in a closed area made him feel so. These two events can be connected as per my understandings.

Lucy’s letter mentions:

“I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.” chapter 5.

We can see the use of Gothic terms Lucy is using. She uses the words “hallucination” we have learned in class that that the Gothic ideas came by imaginations and hallucination is can be like feeling something that is really not reality. This happens mostly in the Gothic related books like Dracula. Is Dracula a true story? No it really is not it’s more coming from imagination and not reality.

She uses the word “cruelty” which can be related to like evil can also be related to Gothic terms.

Lucy felt restless and started to sleep walk as Mina mentioned in her journal. It seems like Lucy’s father had the same problem but I think this was something more. The restlessness and the sleep walking suddenly shows that the author has more to the story. The point of view was hidden. This seems like Lucy is going to intrude into more of the Gothic themes. “At first she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally.” We see how Lucy was struggling in her sleep like she saw a ghost. This was like opening doors into a more Gothic theme like how the horror movies show us the first ideas of a change. ““His red eyes again! They are just the same.” She was definitely seeing something that was not a human.

group 2 Fahima Hossain Connect

‘The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created,…I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.”

This phrase or paragraph can be related to the idea of Freud in the article The “Uncanny”. In his article, he mentions that “uncanny” “the class of terrifying which leads back to something long known to us” as he had created something that probably took him a while to achieve. In other words as far as my understanding he most likely has tried to experiment this creation before which may have been a failure in the past. He clearly states he has been working on this for about two years. To get to this state of goals as any other scientists he has tried and failed to achieve his task. When we think of the definition that Freud has provided we also know that due to the reason of no such encounters in the past, Frankenstein might be afraid of what he is about to experience. He is not impressed with the monster he had created as he had a whole other picture in his head which turned out to be so hideous. Frankenstein created something that looked like death and that was what frightened him. He wanted something that could give him the feeling of life and instead he did the opposite. His mother died and as per his dream he saw that he held the corpse and it had worms which can mean it was decomposing and that can be related to the monster he made as we know he described it as hideous. Obviously Frankenstein knows what happens to a corpse after it’s death and he had to experience the live features of this and it was his creation.

Author: fahima hossain