Katie Lynch – ENG 3407, Gothic Lit, Fall 2019

BELOVED PAGES 180-256

“Paul D convinced me there was a world out there and that I could live in it. Should have known better. Did you better. Whatever is going on outside my door ain’t for me. The world is in this room. This here’s all there is and all there needs to be.”(page 215)

We see throughout this telling of history how Slaves are trying to free themselves from the prison of the white people. The white people put them in shackles or close them into cold sheds to stay. Making them stay there until they see fit to bring them out into the light. This light on to be used for them to see all the work the white people want them to do. They rip everything away from them. Yet Paul D finds his way back to Sethe, trying to make a free life. But when his eyes are opened to a worse horror than slavery has been to him, he runs scared. Perhaps he is haunted by the fear that Sethe would do the same to him or worse to a child they may have together. This quote shows how Sethe is a prisoner to her own mind, casting away any hope Paul D tried to give her and Denver. Like with the slavery there were things she knew better than to do. As in this part of her story she feels she should have known better than to hope for the future. Believing there is no future outside the locked house she is in with Denver and Beloved. Sethe would rather be trapped in 124 and in her mind than go out into the world and be imprisoned by someone else’s slavery. If anyone is going to enslave her, it will be herself.

BLOG POST

“He would tell Sethe about the last three weeks: catch her alone coming from work at the beer garden she called a restaurant and tell it all”

For some time Beloved had been trying to push Paul D out in order to have Sethe to herself. Now we come to find out that he has been having sex with Beloved? That is the way it comes off to me, she has been using these actions to push Paul D out. It starts with having him sleep in a rocking chair, then in a cold shed like place and basically anywhere to keep him out of Sethe’s bed. But later on in the passage we find him blurting out he wants a baby? That’s in a way similar to Beloved’s goal of having Sethe to herself. If Sethe has his child then he won’t have to leave. All of this seems to lead me to the conclusion Beloved is a metaphor for still being enslaved, never really able to be free from all their ghosts.

-Sethe’s, Denver’s, and Paul D’s trip to the local fair (56-59)

“They were not holding hands, but their shadows were”(Page 56). This particular passage shows the characters want for being a normal family that goes to carnivals and holds hands, having fun. This brings light to the character Sethe being hopeful, wanting nothing more than to be free to be in love and showing her child Denver there is more to life than slavery. But seeing as though it comes across as the want to hold hands it shows fear of not being allowed to hold hands. Slavery makes these characters unable to do the things in life that whites in this novel do. To me this shows the haunting of no future and being afraid to not only not have a future but perhaps to have it torn away from Sethe like some of her children were.

blog group 3-Connect

“The fact that they covered their vertically inhumed dead with five-pointed inscribed mounds set up thoughts in Danforth and me which made a fresh pause and recuperation necessary after the sculptures revealed it. The beings multiplied by means of spores—like vegetable pteridophytes, as Lake had suspected—but, owing to their prodigious toughness and longevity, and consequent lack of replacement needs, they did not encourage the large-scale development of new prothallia except when they had new regions to colonize”

What is the significance of the five-pointed shape?

This five pointed shape signifies protection and strength. With these long sharp spikes if anyone decided to attack them it is likely impalement would follow. The life form uses this shape to keep out all those that may come trying to conquer the life and world they have built. This also shifts the point of view from being one of taking over a civilization to being frightened of this civilization because they will not go down without a fight, they are prepared to fight to the death. In fact it shows these travelers that their attempt to take over will not be easy, actually it will not be possible. This discovery that the narrator and his Colleagues thought would be as simple as planting a flag and taking over has been met with spikes that could end their very existence.

One reading that I believe this connects to is Dracula. The count takes over a ship draining it’s sailors one by one on his way to the new land he hopes to build his growing civilization. But he is met with warriors who are ready to fight him to the death. Van Helsing, Jonathan, Mina and Quincy meet him at his destination in order to stop him from hurting anymore people. The threat on their civilization like that of the life form in The Mountains of Madness become one in the same. They are not willing to just let someone come along and plant a flag. They do not believe in letting The Count destroy everything that has been built with the hands of this community. Using not only themselves as a symbol of this but also the knife that is used to aide in ending The Count’s life. Therefore ending the threat of a hostile take over.

TV/MOVIE GROUP:Katie, Fahima, Afeisha, Christina

Fahima and I had talked briefly about what to pick for our assignment, she suggested American Horror Story. which made my mind immediately go to the season with the Hotel and Lady Gaga. I think we could do a great project on this. Also we can use this as our discussion forum.

GROUP 3 Clue

“What is the significance of a letter found in a letter in the pocket of the book?”

To me the significance is that there is a story of a secret to be told. The letter is a blackmail letter from the sister of the second archdeacon, saying that she “knows what happened” and to pay her forty pounds. But this letter from what I can tell was never sent. It’s a look into the darkness of greedy, both financially and morally. The finacial aspect is wanting to be paid off for a secret that she has no proof of, which to me it hinted towards knowing there was a murder and by telling the secret people would be disgraced. The moral aspect is this is a church, a holy place where you are supposed to “love one another”, referring to the commandment, “Love thy neighbor”. The significance is also “God is always watching, or even “all you do you will be judged for”. Later on in the story we find the second archdeacon has suffered a similar fate as the first. Which can be interpreted as “practice what you preach” and “what you give is what you get”. Finally I believe the letter signifies that the truth has a way of coming out whether it is from someone’s words or a person’s reaction to the threat of those words.

BLOG GROUP 3 CREATE: Katie Lynch

The Roderick Usher Painting I will be referencing is “The Girl Who Knew Too Much”. The narrator speaks of Roderick’s ever downward spiraling mind. The loss of his sister is too much for him to bare and he starts believing he sees her and that she is coming for him. The painting “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” creates the parallel of both Roderick’s delusions and his sisters knowledge of just how cursed the family is. In “The Fall of the House of Usher we see this when the Narrator says“Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours,
many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many days ago—yet I dared not—I dared not speak! “. The quote makes you see the picture of Roderick looking around speaking of the cries or noises of his sister, believing that she has been buried alive and has come back to get him. His painting “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” shows a girl that seems to be coming out of the wall determined to be heard, perhaps a lonely girl in search of companionship from her brother, her best friend. Calling out to the person she needs to listen to her, to save her. But also I see it as a warning to Roderick, that he needs to be very careful because he too is cursed to have this same fate crumbling into non existence.

Author: Katie Lynch