ENG 3407, Gothic Lit, Fall 2019

“”I made that song up,” said Sethe. “I made it up and sang it to my children. Nobody knows that song but me and my children.” Beloved turned at Sethe. “I know it,” she said” (207, Morrison)

Beloved humming Sethe’s song is a confirmation that Beloved is in fact Sethe’s baby girl that she killed many years ago. At Beloved’s funeral, Sethe only caught two words that the pastor spoke “Dearly Beloved”, which coincidentally is the name of Beloved now. It is still a bit of a mystery how Beloved could have survived Sethe’s heinous murder but the fact that Beloved knew the song that Sethe sang only between herself and her children, shows the readers that Beloved is one of Sethe’s baby beyond the grave and act. Perhaps when Beloved was over at the other side of the “bridge”, she watched Sethe’s way of living, coping and her children. This could be seen as a form of protection but also a form of admiration. Sethe believes that the reason why she killed Beloved was to save her the life of being enslaved from the salve-catchers and so on. In a way Beloved admires and understands her mother’s wrong doings but still is emotionally and physical hurt by her actions. Beloved again and again recalls memories and items of Sethe’s past, for example the earrings and now the song. Beloved does massive efforts to make it know to Sethe and Denver, as well, that she is their family, and they are hers.

“Beloved is my sister. I swallowed her blood right along with my mother’s milk. The first thing I heard after not hearing anything was the sound of her crawling up the stairs”.

I take this as Denver’s feeling very close to Beloved as she drank her blood along with her milk. This is such a religious action of Christianity. Jesus says that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, otherwise we have no life in us. I think Toni Morrison deliberately added this into her writing to show a sign of unity between Beloved and Denver. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” I think Beloved was symbolized as something very much superior that of God himself. However, I feel as if Denver and Beloved would always be connected to each in a way more than Sethe and Beloved would ever be. It was almost an act of  salvation between Denver as she was trying to have a connection with her dead sister Beloved. This act was an significance of the sisterly relationship between Denver and Beloved. In theory, as her mother Sethe robbed her of the relation she could’ve had with Beloved.

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.

“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.

“Beloved, she my daughter. She mine. See. She come back to me of her own free will and i don’t have to explain a thing. i didn’t have time to explain before because it had to be done quick.” page 236

Sethe is remorseful yet happy that Beloved came back into her life to fill the gap that once was lost. She thinks its best to talk with Beloved about why she killed her and what would have happened if she didn’t.

I would refer this part of the passage with the abject of “primal repression” that Julia Kristeva uses as an example in one of her writings “Power”.

Sethe, for years had to live with the trauma of losing her daughter  by killing her or saving her from slavery. One which, Sethe thought Beloved would not survive if she was captured by school teacher and his team. During such act Sethe had to decide the best way to save her kids from enduring what she went through. Now Beloved is back, Sethe feels obligated to express the reasons why she had to killed her children. This is a form of suppression and repression. Whereby she had been dragging for years that without realizing she was suppressed of her doings. Sethe has been carrying a empy feeling for years of that of the death of her children. She wants to show express the love that she has for Beloved before she killed and now that Beloved is back.

For years, Sethe wanted to give up knowing that she killed three of her Kids, but she knew she had to persevere dispite her circumstances.

“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.

When he turned his head, aiming for a last look at Brother, turned it as much as the rope that connected his neck to the axle of a buckboard allowed…they fastened the iron around his ankles and clamped the wrists as well, there was no outward sign of trembling at all. Nor eighteen days after that when he saw the ditches…door of bars that you could lift on hinges like a cage… He was sent there after trying to kill Brandywine, the man schoolteacher sold him to.

Based on this, I think the man is either a prisoner or slave. However, at the last part we see that he attempted to kill his new owner. This means the man is both a slave and a prisoner. Later on in the story, he stops trembling when he realizes he is being led into a line of other people chained together. The man was most likely fearing for his life, but is comforted to see others in a similar if not the same predicament. This type of fear is relatable, as we have all done something that we knew not to do. Not having concern over possible consequences is costly and actions will come back to bite you.