Daily Archives: April 6, 2013

Meaning of Memory: based on Beloved

Posted on by
2

The definition of memory is the store of things learned and retained from an organism’s activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition . Through out reading Beloved by Toni Morrison, memory has a meaning of negativity and sense of remorse.Ā The beginning on the story starts off with the recap of Sethe’s family history. For example, Baby Sugg’s death and Beloved’s death. In page 4 of the book, the narrator describes her life as “intorable [..] since she knew death was anything for forgetfulness […].” Sethe and her daughter, Denver, kept bringing up the fact that they felt a haunting presence in the house that they were living in. When Paul D came back for a visit, after 18 years, they tell him about the haunted vibes, and say, “It’s not evil, just sad. Come on. Just step through.” While reading that, I had a feeling that they had a deep pain in them that they can’t let go of. They feel a presence but they aren’t afraid, but they also aren’t ready to approach it because it would open up memories of things that they aren’t ready to cope with. Just like Paul D began to tell Sethe about Mister. He explainsĀ to her that he felt like he was less than an animal: simply not human. Paul D told Sethe that, “Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But [he] wasn’t allowed to be and stay what [he] was.” He doesn’t want to relive the past.Ā  Another example is when Beloved comes back into the house later on in the book, Denver is the only one who seems to notice who it is during their talk and it’s a dark conversation, and the only light memory comes afterwards when she asks Denver about the story of her birth. I personally think that the fact that they had such a rough past and the negativity and rejection colored people had gotten affected them from thinking positive over negative. Memory, based on this book, is defined by your past and how you were effected by it.

Remembering the past makes us relive it

Posted on by
4

Memory is that process which information is encoded within oneā€™s brain, stored and retrieved at some point. It might be pleasant or unpleasant, voluntary or involuntary. In ā€œBelovedā€ the memory of the characters is what the story is narrated on. For example, Setheā€™s memory of her past hunts her because it reminds her of those times that life had no meaning. When she and her fellow colored people were controlled like properties. Her memory reminded her of the abuse she and her family had received from their owners. Even worse for her was that, her memory makes her think about when she had to cut the throat of her daughter all in the name of protecting her. Sethe said that, “I was talking about time. It’s so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it’s not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place–the picture of it–stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don’t 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.” This clearly tells what Setheā€™s belief of time was. To her there was no such thing as time because whatever one remembers at any point is that which one lives at that moment. To remember something about the past makes you to relive the past. You go through the pains you went through again and again; sometimes the pain in the present is much worse than those of the past. Like Sethe her memory makes time to have no meaning. As she remembers the past that pain, agony and fear resurfaces and transforms her ā€œbeingā€ into what she was and makes her not much better than she used to be.

 

Beloved

Posted on by
2

“Ten minutes for seven letters. With another ten could she have gotten
“Dearly” too? She had not thought to ask him and it bothered her still that it
might have been possible–that for twenty minutes, a half hour, say, she could
have had the whole thing, every word she heard the preacher say at the funeral
(and all there was to say, surely) engraved on her baby’s headstone: Dearly
Beloved. But what she got, settled for, was the one word that mattered. She
thought it would be enough, rutting among the headstones with the engraver, his
young son looking on, the anger in his face so old; the appetite in it quite
new. That should certainly be enough. Enough to answer one more preacher, one
more abolitionist and a town full of disgust.
Counting on the stillness of her own soul, she had forgotten the other
one: the soul of her baby girl. Who would have thought that a little old baby
could harbor so much rage? Rutting among the stones under the eyes of the
engraver’s son was not enough. Not only did she have to live out her years in a
house palsied by the baby’s fury at having its throat cut, but those ten
minutes she spent pressed up against dawn-colored stone studded with star
chips, her knees wide open as the grave, were longer than life, more alive,
more pulsating than the baby blood that soaked her fingers like oil.”

This passage says a lot about memory. It talks about her very little memory that she remembers of Ā her last baby, called Beloved. This memory was good and bad,it was good because she got to say her goodbyes and carve her stone headstone with her words and bad because she had to say goodbye. In this memory Sethe is fulfilling her yearning of her daughter by remembering the little time she had with her. Most of the time Sethe is thinking about all her memories with her children, which shows how she cared for about them more than herself and would do anything for them. For Sethe, everything that is going on in the present is a struggle because of her past and how her memories keep reliving.

“You lucky. You got three left.Three pulling at your skirts and just one raising hell from the other side. Be thankful, why don’t you? I had eight. Every one of them gone away from me. Four taken, four chased, and all, I expect, worrying somebody’s house into evil.” Baby Suggs rubbed her eyebrows.” In these sentences, it shows how their memory is the only thing they have left of most of their children, but for Baby Suggs, all 8 of them, which is why memory is so important to them.

“You forgetting how little it is,” said her mother. “She wasn’t even two
years old when she died. Too little to understand. Too little to talk much
even.” – this passage helps me understand that the memory seems very clear to Sethe as if her baby is still in the house living with them. Also, how she misses her baby so much and is angry so she keep the memory there to comfort her.

 

Spiteful in 1873

Posted on by
1

ā€œBeloved by Toni Morrisonā€, the story is based on an unexpected hardship faced by slave mother and their four children. Ā The women were more prone to abusers. They suffer twice as men did during the slavery period.

In the first chapter, Toni Morrison describes the characters in the story by starting with Sethe and her three children. It took place in Cincinnati, Ohio. Baby Suggsā€™s tells her daughter-in-law that she remembers all her eight children gone away. ā€œMy first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that?Ā  Eight children and thatā€™s all I remember.ā€ P5. Baby Suggs died after two songs Howard and Buglar ran away leaving Sethe and Denver behind.

Paul D came to Setheā€™s house after eight years. Denver felt that the house is haunted. She started crying before Paul D to share her sorrows. She said she has no friends after her brothers left their house and nobody comes by to talk to them. Everyone seemed avoiding them. But her mother Seethe never want to leave the place after much suffering in the past.

Sethe told Paul D the pass events that made her run away from the slave owner. Paul D remembers her at Sweet home. ā€œHe had never seen her hair Kentucky. Although her face was eighteen years older than when last he saw her, it was softer now.ā€ P10.

She was pregnant when two white boys abused her by milking from her breast and later whipped her for complaining about it. ā€œThey used cowhide on you?ā€ ā€œThey beat you and you was pregnantā€ p20 Paul D rubbed his cheek on her back to share the sorrow. He could feel her tears rushing down without looking at it. Later, Paul D tried to drive away the ghost that seemed to haunt the house.

 

First blog posts on Beloved

Posted on by
Reply

Thank you to the six volunteers to get us started. For these posts, find a passage fromĀ Beloved that addresses memory. Use the text hereĀ to include the passage for your classmates. Then, in 300 words or so, write about what the passage says about memory, what it tells you about the character, and what you understand aboutĀ Beloved from that passage. Make note of particular words or phrases that stand out to you or help you understand what the passage is saying about memory.

Commenters should write 100-150 words in response to one of the posts, offering additional observations about the passage, the words or phrases your classmate identified as particularly important, or the connection of that passage to the novel overall.

Be sure to keep up with the reading. We agreed that you should read through page 100 if you’re reading the red-covered edition and page 85 if you’re reading the copy that I had. If you’re reading the online text (remember, you need to have a copy with you in class!), the section ends with “Real pretty.” — the next section after that begins with “It was time to lay it all down.”

Happy reading and blogging!