Monthly Archives: May 2013

Is Beloved a ghost?

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In the story Beloved there were many obstracles showed Beloved was a ghost. First, in the beginning its obvious that there was a ghost inside the house and that was Beloved’s spirit. But after Paul D showed up and shout at the cockroach, the house became silent because at the same time Paul D shout away the ghost as well.

Then later in the story, Beloved showed up as a physical person. They met her at the carnival and she was thirsty, so they took her home and feed her. Paul D against their decision, and dislike Beloved because he know she was pretending infront of Sethe and Denver as disability person when she has to hold something in order to stand up straight. Paul D told Sethe, he and Denver saw Beloved was not weak, but when Sethe asked Denver she denied. Ever since that, Paul D was very careful with Beloved. Denver know Beloved was not a human too but she refused to accept that because she want to keep Beloved as company to play with her, and thats why she denied anything that against Beloved. Also, Beloved knew everything that happen on them, such as the crystal earring Sethe had and the song Sethe only sang to her children. There were many times, Sethe believed Beloved was her dead baby girl and now she came back for her.

Thesis Statement

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There are many obstacles that take place in “Beloved” which would’ve completely changed the plot of the story if it hadn’t taken place. “Beloved” which was written by Toni Morrison has many key points which portray these events. I believe the story of “Beloved” would have never taken place the way it did if Beloved’s throat was never slit, more importantly there wouldn’t be any ghost. In “Beloved” we acknowledge many changes with the ghost’s behavior as it gets more aggressive throughout the story. Therefore in my understanding it is important to discuss what would have occurred if the ghosts never existed throughout the story and all the many changes with the ghost’s behavior.

What Some Women Think Men Expect From Them

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 What Some Women Think Men Expect From Them

Techy

Malda met Mr. ford at the calceolaria, a place where highly thoughtful musicians and highly musical thinker would gather to eat.  Mathews was an ex-newspaper man and a future book writer.  He was a passionate man who enjoyed music, and he also like the little place we lived in. Moreover, he liked our company and so did I. Mathews have friends in very high places. However, Most evening he would come and sit on our balcony and we would chat and sometimes we would go hiking during the day. And sometimes he would invite us for an afternoon tea, made on gipsy fire where he organized his workshop.

Malda was a great artist. She designed and did embroidery. She was very talented and her works were extremely attractive.  She made drawings from flowers, leaves, and things about her.   She was very passionate about her works because that was the thing that completed her.  She likes music, nature and every little admirable thing about it. When Malda an I sit and talked about our environment, she would tell me how she sees up here as a place where she gained all the little beautiful things she had desire and all the big things that put joy and confidence in one’s life and can push you to accomplish great and splendid works. Malda and I shared the beautiful and peaceful cottagette.  We were happy of the vast size of the view and did not have to worry about anything except when the soft musical thrill of the gong stole through the tree, and we hurried off to the calceolaria.

One thing Malda, Mathews and I had in common was that we were all into music. In fact, I was a pianist, a really good one, and Malda enjoyed watching me played. I was quite older than Malda. Nevertheless, I appeared younger than my actual age.

I have noticed that everyday malda was getting closer and closer to Mr. Ford. She was starting to fall for him. It was clear to me that she was in love with Mathews but I did not think she knew it herself.

“You beginning to love Ford Mathews –do you know it “? I asked her.

Yes, she replied with little doubts.

“Does he love you?” I asked

‘’ It is early to predict. She told me “

It was cleared that she did not know how Mr. Ford Mathews really felt about her. Malda and I had a really good relationship. We trusted and liked each other. Therefore, I felt like I was responsible for her.  ‘Men would fall for anything’. “They like music, romantic talk and beauty”. Moreover, They will fall for your beauty and your dreams but in the end what they really care about is domesticity. They want to marry someone who can do housework, especially someone who knows her way around the kitchen.  ”Trust me it is the truth”. I have been married before, long ago when I was just a girl. It was not the type of marriage a young girl would hope for. There was no happiness. Jerome was a bit older than I was when we got married. Unlike Mr. ford, he was neither into music nor the romantic type. He’s passion was work and spending time at the town local bar. I was more like a servant than a wife to him and sometimes I think that’s what kept him around during the time we spent together. I would cook, wash dishes, do laundries and iron his clothes.  All I get in return was nothing. No love, it was plain agony and I have learned from it all.

To have a home, one must have a kitchen. That’s the ideal of a home to me. My mother has taught me how to be a good homemaker. I knew how to cook very well and do other housework. Malda was in love with Mr. Ford Mathews, and a perfect way to get a man to marry you, is to show him you are a good homemaker since all the really care about is domesticity. Therefore, I insisted that we get kitchen in order for Malda to please Mr. Ford Mathews and win his heart.

 

 

 

 

I have chosen a part of the story “the cottagette” to retell. The narrative style used in the story is the first person narration, which mean the story is focus on one person’s perspective. I have kept the same narrative style, but change the main narrator to another. In the story Malda is a young woman who is attracted to a man name Mr. ford Mathews and her friends Lois is advising her on what she thinks men want in women and what women should do to keep a man happy. Although in the original story the narrator tried to express her point of view in a very understanding way, in the retelling story you get a clearer understanding and a slightly change in Lois thoughts because she is now controlling her thoughts as the narrator instead of having Malda.

Having Lois as the narrator brings more life to her point of view rather than having Malda telling her story. Lois thoughts are slightly different now because she is the one directing her feelings to us now.  If we look at the second paragraph of the new version of the story, and from lines 8 to 11 in the original story, there is a minor change in expression in the way Malda described her works and views on things than the way Lois described them in the retelling version. Lois is Malda best friend and roommate; therefore, one can say they are pretty close. Lois sees Malda works in a more profound way than Malda sees them. She is able to realize than Malda works is one thing that put joy in her life and that she was very passionate about what she did. For example, Lois mentioned that Malda works were extremely attractive. Moreover, she likes music, nature, and every little admirable thing that relate to nature. Therefore, one can tell that Lois really admired Malda works, and as a friend, she pays good attention to her friend.

Another good approach on Lois focuses as a narrator as oppose to malda is how she is able to quickly notice her friend falling for Mr. Ford and how she relates things together. In paragraph 3 in the new version, Lois explains how Malda, Mr. ford and herself are all passionate about music, and it is one thing that connected them together. We can conclude that music played a major role in their life as individual and as friends.  Lois played the piano really good and Malda really liked to listen to her piece, and Mr. Ford Mathews was someone who enjoyed music a lot. In addition, Lois was able to rapidly draw a conclusion that Malda was falling for Mr. Ford because of how close the two couple have gotten to each other due to a lot of time they have spent together. In the original story Malda mentioned “You beginning to fall for Mr. Ford and you cannot even see it said Lois”. However, there weren’t enough details that showed us how she noticed such thing because as Malda the narrator, she does not have a lot of access to Lois thoughts. Fortunately, the new version provides that information because as Lois the narrator, we get full access in her thoughts.  Malda and Mr. Ford would see each other more than often. They would go places together and he was always in the house. As a result, she has gotten very close with him and it lead to her falling for him. Therefore, having Lois as the narrator help us understand her point of view much better than having Malda as the narrator.

In the retelling story, we get more out of Lois’s perspective on what men desire in women and on what she has been through in her past than it is detailed in the original story. Her point of view is more expressive now because she is the one directing to us her thoughts and experience. In the original story, Malda mentioned, “ of course man would fall in love, “but what they want to marry is a home maker, said Lois”. However, it doesn’t say how Lois came up with such conclusion. In the new version Lois state “trust me I know”; I have been unhappily married long before when I was a young girl. As a result, that is the reason why Lois thinks that without a kitchen you cannot call your place a home. Moreover, in order to get a man to marry you, being able to perform housework is a must.  Lois have learned a lot from the past and gained a lot of experience. We can assume that being a homemaker was a major key in Lois’s relationship back then and that the reason why she keep on rejecting every man who revealed his feelings for her

With Lois as the narrator, it is easier to comprehend her feelings and to be able to see how her past experiences has affected her life as an individual.  In the retelling story, Lois mentioned, “I was treated more as a servant than a wife”. In her case, domesticity was the key to the relationship. They had nothing in common. She was trapped in his world back then as she is now for thinking being a homemaker will make Malda wins Mr. FORD’S heart.  In the original story malda pointed out Lois’s point of view but gave little details because she doesn’t have that access Lois has when she is the one narrating the part. Therefore, having Lois as the narrator gives us a clearer meaning of her perspective toward Malda and Mr. Ford relationship.

 

A Night That Changed Everything

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A Night That Changed Everything

heyheihey123

As Faith opened the door for her husband, Goodman Brown, he looked outside and then started crossing the threshold. He turned back and gave her a parting kiss. Faith, the name was aptly named. She thrust her head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons on her cap.

“Dearest heart”, whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, “pr’ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night”. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she is afeard of herself, sometimes. “My dear husband, stay here with me tonight”, said Faith.

“My love and my Faith,” he replied, “of all night in the years, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done ‘twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!”

“Then God bless you!” she said, “And may you find all well, when you come back.”

“Amen!” he cried. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.”

So they parted; and she saw the shadow of Goodman Brown is fading away and the tears on her face dropped. Then she walked back in to the house and closed the door. The house seemed empty and lonely. She walked into her room with a worried face she sensed that something bad was going to happen to Goodman Brown. She paced to the window and looked outside, “Please my lord, bless on him all the way until he is back home safe.”

There was a tremendous thunder as Goodman Brown was walking toward the ceremony. It was dark in the night, a murder of crows were flying above him. Faith saw her husband walking. She couldn’t see anything except darkness and Goodman’s shadow as he is walking toward the forest. “Faith, Faith….Help me!” screamed Goodman Brown. Faith saw her husband’s back fading away from her sight.

She woke up and realized it was a nightmare. She cried on her bed. It was raining outside and then she fell back to sleep. She dreamed again. She saw her husband in the forest walking alone. While walking himself alone, she sees that Goodman’s mouth was moving like he was talking to someone, but she saw nobody next to him. Then she saw that he picked a staff that looked evil. The staff bore the likeness of a great black snake that it almost seemed to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. “My love!” she screamed in her dream. She thought Goodman could hear her because she saw that he looked startled when she called his name. She saw that he screamed but she couldn’t hear what he said. Then she saw him disappeared in the forest.

She woke up again; it was the next morning. She was thinking about what the dream was signified. She couldn’t figure out the meaning of the dream. “Was that really my husband in the dream?” she whispered to herself. She got up from her bed and went to wash her face and then prepare the breakfast for Goodman Brown because he is coming back home.

She walked to the street, seeing her husband walking toward the village. She looked happy. But as he came by near her, he looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting. She wondered what happened to her husband, and she was worried. From that day on, he barely spoke to her. He didn’t trust her anymore. On the Sabbath-day, he refused to listen, and thought the people in town all became evil. “He doesn’t love me anymore,” she cried to herself. For the rest of her life, she lived her life as if she was alone. And even after Goodman Brown died, she will never know what happened in the forest that night; the night that changed him forever.

 

 

 

 

The original story of “Young Goodman Brown” was a third-person limited narration short story. In the story, the narrator was mainly focused on Goodman Brown. It was a limited narration because we didn’t know what happen to his wife Faith while Goodman Brown was attending to the ceremony. In my new version story, “A Night that Changed Everything,” it was also a third-person limited narration but this time the narrator was focused on the wife Faith. Both stories were limited narration but focused on different characters. In this essay, I will compare both stories that will change the way the reader see things differently.

In the story “Young Goodman Brown”, he was a Christian and he is going to attend the evil ceremony. He left his wife Faith in the house alone for that night. In the story the narrator mostly focused on Goodman Brown so he knows what he does, sees, says and hears. While he was in the forest, he met a man. “But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake…like a living serpent”. This describes the man he met in the forest was holding an evil-like staff. The man also said he knows Goodman’s father and grandfather. As they nearly getting close to the ceremony, Goodman Brown heard the voice of his wife Faith. He screamed her name out loud in the forest and then he saw the pink ribbon that belongs to Faith flew down from the sky. He took the staff that the man gave him, and it dragged him faster to the ceremony like flying. Once he was in the ceremony, he didn’t see Faith. Goodman saw one of the converts was Faith and he told her to resist the devil. Then suddenly he realized he was alone in the forest. The next morning he returned to Salem Village and as he see his wife Faith. “But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.” At the end he didn’t want to trust anyone even his family and thought they all became evil.

In the new version story, the narrator focused on Faith. In the story, Faith opened the door for her husband to go to an evil ceremony and he has to leave her in the house alone for a night. She requested him to not to go because she worried about him but Goodman Brown insist he must go. As they were apart, Faith went back to her room and prayed that her husband will be back to town safely. At night, she had nightmares that she saw her husband. She saw that he was in the forest alone walking in the rain and murders of crows were flying above him. And she heard he screamed for help from her. In her second dream, she saw him again walking alone and as he was walking, he spoke to himself. She saw Goodman picked up the staff that almost seemed like a living serpent. Then she screamed “My love!” and she saw him startled. She woke up and it was the next morning. She cooked for her husband and knowing that he is coming back home today. As she saw him walking toward the village, he passed by and looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting. And for the rest of her life, he barely spoke to her. Until the day Goodman Brown died, she still didn’t know what happened to him that night in the forest; the night that changed him forever.

In comparison, both stories were 3rd person limited narration. Both stories started and ended with same plot that Goodman Brown went off to his journey to the evil ceremony and ended with trusting no one in the town. From the original story, “But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake…like a living serpent” and new story, “Then she saw that he picked a staff that looked evil. The staff bore the likeness of a great black snake that it almost seemed to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent”, both stories happened to showed that Goodman Brown saw a staff that looked like an evil living serpent. In the new story, when Faith screamed “My love!” she saw Goodman startled and in the original story, Goodman Brown heard Faith’s voice in the forest and he screamed her name. This shows that Goodman Brown really did heard Faith’s voice. Also in the end of both stories, Goodman Brown went back to town and looked sternly and sadly into Faith’s face, and passed on without a greeting. And after that night in the forest, he didn’t want to trust anyone in the town or even his family.

One difference in both stories is that in the original story, Goodman Brown thought Faith was in the ceremony because he saw her for a while then he found out himself alone in the forest, but in the new version of the story, Faith was at home alone and she had nightmares that night which hardly for her to sleep. This gives the reader a sense of thinking it might be Goodman Brown who had gone crazy while he was at the ceremony. If the reader didn’t read the original story but read the new version of my story, they might think that he had gone crazy instead of believing the whole town of people and his wife turned into devil. Even though we know that he died later in his life, but his wife still don’t know what happened in the forest; the night that changed him forever.

thesis statement workshop

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The realities of life and death are portrayed through Beloved in hurt and pain as it is felt by the main characters.–more of a middle sentence in the introduction

It is entirely within reason to conclude that had Paul D not inadvertently banished the ghost of Beloved from Sethe’s house at the start of the book, the story would not have played out the way it did, namely Beloved would not have come back and the other characters would not have had to negotiate her presence.

One of the most crucial moments in the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison comes after Paul D’s arrival in Sethe’s house after 18 years of separation from Sweet Home. Sethe was reclusive after she committed grave sin of killing her baby, and had adapted to the baby’s ghost haunting her house.The situation would not have changed much in Sethe and Denver’s life if Paul D had not come into their life and drove off the baby’s ghost, since Beloved would not have come back and the other characters would not have had to negotiate her presence.

Instructions for contributing to our anthology

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To finalize our work on the anthology we started making in March, please share your great work via our site. To do so, please write a post, following these instructions:

  • Include the title of your story as the title of your post
  • To include your writing and preserve your word-processing formatting, please click on the button that looks like a clipboard with a W on it. Use ctrl-V (or command-V on a Mac) to paste your work there
  • Your post should include the title of your story, then your name (OpenLab display name or your real name—it’s your decision), then the story, then three blank lines, then your essay
  • Please run spell-check in your word-processing program before adding your materials
  • Choose the category Anthology, and then also the category that corresponds to the title of the story you’re writing about (without that second category, I won’t be able to organize your work according to the story you’re working with!)
  • Add any tags you find appropriate—you can create your own, or use ones already created on our site
  • Don’t be alarmed if I need to make some minor changes to your work if I’ve forgotten something—I might ask you to make the change or I might just make it myself
  • Don’t be alarmed when you see the full-text stories being added to our site—it’s the only way for me to get that text into our anthology
  • If you’re interested to know more about how we’re making this anthology, look at information about Anthologize, a free, open-source, WordPress-based platform for publishing, at Anthologize.org

I’m excited to be able to produce this anthology to share our work in a new way, and to give you each the opportunity to share your work with your friends and families.

essay 2 passage

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“Paul D made a few acquaintances; spoke to them about what work he might
find. Sethe returned the smiles she got. Denver was swaying with delight. And
on the way home, although leading them now, the shadows of three people still
held hands.
A FULLY DRESSED woman walked out of the water. She barely gained the dry
bank of the stream before she sat down and leaned against a mulberry tree. All
day and all night she sat there, her head resting on the trunk in a position
abandoned enough to crack the brim in her straw hat. Everything hurt but her
lungs most of all.
Sopping wet and breathing shallow she spent those hours trying to
negotiate the weight of her eyelids. The day breeze blew her dress dry; the
night wind wrinkled it. Nobody saw her emerge or came accidentally by. If they
had, chances are they would have hesitated before approaching her. Not because
she was wet, or dozing or had what sounded like asthma, but because amid all
that she was smiling……
“You from around here?” Sethe asked her.
She shook her head no and reached down to take off her shoes.
She pulled her dress up to the knees and rolled down her stockings.
When the hosiery was tucked into the shoes, Sethe saw that her feet were
like her hands, soft and new. She must have hitched a wagon ride, thought
Sethe. Probably one of those West Virginia girls looking for something to beat
a life of tobacco and sorghum. Sethe bent to pick up the shoes.
“What might your name be?” asked Paul D.
“Beloved,” she said, and her voice was so low and rough each one looked
at the other two. They heard the voice first–later the name.
“Beloved. You use a last name, Beloved?” Paul D asked her.
“Last?” She seemed puzzled. Then “No,” and she spelled it for them,
slowly as though the letters were being formed as she spoke them.
Sethe dropped the shoes; Denver sat down and Paul D smiled.
He recognized the careful enunciation of letters by those, like himself,
who could not read but had memorized the letters of their name. He was about to
ask who her people were but thought better of it. A young coloredwoman drifting
was drifting from ruin. He had been in Rochester four years ago and seen five
women arriving with fourteen female children. All their men–brothers, uncles,
fathers, husbands, sons–had been picked off one by one by one. They had a
single piece of paper directing them to a preacher on DeVore Street.
The War had been over four or five years then, but nobody white or black
seemed to know it. Odd clusters and strays of Negroes wandered the back roads
and cowpaths from Schenectady to Jackson.
Dazed but insistent, they searched each other out for word of a cousin,
an aunt, a friend who once said, “Call on me. Anytime you get near Chicago,
just call on me.” Some of them were running from family that could not support
them, some to family; some were running from dead crops, dead kin, life
threats, and took-over land. Boys younger than Buglar and Howard;
configurations and blends of families of women and children, while elsewhere,
solitary, hunted and hunting for, were men, men, men. Forbidden public
transportation, chased by debt and filthy “talking sheets,” they followed
secondary routes, scanned the horizon for signs and counted heavily on each
other. Silent, except for social courtesies, when they met one another they
neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to
another. The whites didn’t bear speaking on. Everybody knew.
So he did not press the young woman with the broken hat about where from
or how come.” (Morrison pg 28) (online version)

i think a significant part in the story where is starts picking up to climax is where they first meet beloved and a few sentences before denver was actually starting to get used to pual d’s presence, but all of that changes when beloved shows up

My BHS Experience

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The trip to BHS was not only informative but also eye opening, I never expected such detailed work to be preserved over such a long time.  Its not common these day to encounter such old artifacts right off the streets of Brooklyn.  The design of the hallways and rooms held a story of its own.  It gave off the feel of the past without seeing cheesy or fake so It made sense when the guides told us the place was used to shoot a show based on the 1920s.   During the first visit we were given an inside look of the older days in Brooklyn through images and text (Only The Dead Know Brooklyn).  For our second visit, we were presented with a journal kept by a slave owner and newspaper ads for runaway slaves.  All in all it was a great learning experience that most NYers should experience.  I would definitely return to BHS on my own time to look through their archive.

Essay2-passage

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Death of Mr. Garner was the turning point in the story “Beloved”. Schoolteacher took over the Sweet Home after Mr. Garner died. Sufferings started as the days of schoolteacher started at sweet home. His torcher and misconduct lead the whole change in the scenario of the story. Sethe had to ran from the sweet home.

“Mr. Garner was dead and his wife had a lump in her neck the size of a sweet potato and unable to speak to anyone. She leaned as close to the fire as her pregnant belly allowed and told him, Paul D, the last of the Sweet Home men. There had been six of them who belonged to the farm, Sethe the only female. Mrs. Garner, crying like a baby, had sold his brother to pay off the debts that surfaced the minute she was widowed. Then schoolteacher arrived to put things in order. But what he did broke three more Sweet Home men and punched the glittering iron out of Sethe’s eyes, leaving two open wells that did not reflect firelight.” (Page 5, online version)

Passage that is central to the novel

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“She knew Paul D was adding something to her life – something she wanted to count on but was scared to. Now he had added more: new pictures and old rememorizes that broke her heart. Into the empty space of not knowing about Halle–a space sometimes colored with righteous resentment at what would have been his cowardice, or stupidity or bad luck–that empty place of no definite news was filled now with brand-new sorrow and who could tell how many more on the way. Years ago–when 124 was alive–she had women friends, men friends from all around to share grief with. Then there was no one, for they would not visit her while the baby ghost filled the house, and she returned their disapproval with the potent pride of the mistreated. But now there was someone to share it, and he had beat the spirit away the very day he entered her house and no sign of it since. A blessing, but in its place he brought another kind of haunting: Halle’s face smeared with butter and the clabber too; hos won mouth jammed full of iron, and lord knows what else he could tell her if he wanted to.”  Page 112, 3rd para.

Passage for Essay 2

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“Good for you. More it hurt more better it is. Can’t nothing heal without
pain, you know. What you wiggling for?”
Sethe raised up on her elbows. Lying on her back so long had raised a
ruckus between her shoulder blades. The fire in her feet and the fire on her
back made her sweat.
“My back hurt me,” she said.
“Your back? Gal, you a mess. Turn over here and let me see.”
In an effort so great it made her sick to her stomach, Sethe turned onto
her right side. Amy unfastened the back of her dress and said, “Come here,
Jesus,” when she saw. Sethe guessed it must be bad because after that call to
Jesus Amy didn’t speak for a while. In the silence of an Amy struck dumb for a
change, Sethe felt the fingers of those good hands lightly touch her back. She
could hear her breathing but still the whitegirl said nothing. Sethe could not
move. She couldn’t lie on her stomach or her back, and to keep on her side
meant pressure on her screaming feet. Amy spoke at last in her dreamwalker’s
voice.
“It’s a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. See, here’s the trunk–it’s red and
split wide open, full of sap, and this here’s the parting for the branches. You
got a mighty lot of branches. Leaves, too, look like, and dern if these ain’t
blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as white. Your back got a whole

The past can never be known in its entirety (BHS experience)

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Visiting the brooklyn historical society gave me a clear and factual perspective of how slaves were treated in this society. It allowed me to understand a lot about this wonderful community’s past and its significance to the country as a whole.

There were some surprising revelation during our discussions with the staff of the library. The fact that some streets were still named after slave owners even though this act was seen as barbaric and in human. I felt a kind of betrayal to the slaves, if these kinds of people are still remembered after these “evil” act.

I’ve always been curious about the names of some streets close to library. They are named after fruits(cranberry, pineapple,etc). I thought I could get answers at this library but unfortunately could not. The staff said they have tried to get those answers but all to no avail. This made me to make the conclusion that a society’s past can never be known in its entirety and sometimes the only things we know about the past are those things that the very few who were powerful wants the future generation to know.

essay 2

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Now she rolled the dough out with a wooden pin. “Anybody could smell me
long before he saw me. And when he saw me he’d see the drops of it on the front
of my dress. Nothing I could do about that. All I knew was I had to get my milk
to my baby girl. Nobody was going to nurse her like me. Nobody was going to get
it to her fast enough, or take it away when she had enough and didn’t know it.
Nobody knew that she couldn’t pass her air if you held her up on your shoulder,
only if she was lying on my knees. Nobody knew that but me and nobody had her
milk but me. I told that to the women in the wagon. Told them to put sugar
water in cloth to suck from so when I got there in a few days she wouldn’t have
forgot me. The milk would be there and I would be there with it.”
“Men don’t know nothing much,” said Paul D, tucking his pouch back into
his vest pocket, “but they do know a suckling can’t be away from its mother for
long.”
“Then they know what it’s like to send your children off when your
breasts are full.”
“We was talking ’bout a tree, Sethe.”
“After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk.
That’s what they came in there for. Held me down and took it. I told Mrs.
Garner on em. She had that lump and couldn’t speak but her eyes rolled out
tears. Them boys found out I told on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my
back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still.”
“They used cowhide on you?”
“And they took my milk.”
“They beat you and you was pregnant?”
“And they took my milk!”

Passage for Essay #2

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“But this ain’t her mouth,” Paul D said. “This ain’t it at all.”

Stamp Paid looked at him. He was going to tell him about how restless Baby Suggs was that morning, how she had a listening way about her; how she kept looking down past the corn to the stream so much he looked too. In between ax swings, he watched where Baby was watching. Which is why they both missed it: they were looking the wrong way–toward water–and all the while it was coming down the road. Four. Riding close together, bunched-up like, and righteous. He was going to tell him that, because he thought it was important: why he and Baby Suggs both missed it. And about the party too, because that explained why nobody ran on ahead; why nobody sent a fleet-footed son to cut ‘cross a field soon as they saw the four horses in town hitched for watering while the riders asked questions. Not Ella, not John, not anybody ran down or to Bluestone Road, to say some new whitefolks with the Look just rode in. The righteous Look every Negro learned to recognize along with his ma’am’s tit. Like a flag hoisted, this righteousness telegraphed and announced the faggot, the whip, the fist, the lie, long before it went public. Nobody warned them, and he’d always believed it wasn’t the exhaustion from a long day’s gorging that dulled them, but some other thing–like, well, like meanness–that let them stand aside, or not pay attention, or tell themselves somebody else was probably bearing the news already to the house on Bluestone Road where a pretty woman had been living for almost a month. Young and deft with four children one of which she delivered herself the day before she got there and who now had the full benefit of Baby Suggs’ bounty and her big old heart. Maybe they just wanted to know if Baby really was special, blessed in some way they were not. He was going to tell him that, but Paul D was laughing, saying, “Uh uh. No way. A little semblance round the forehead maybe, but this ain’t her mouth.”

So Stamp Paid did not tell him how she flew, snatching up her children like a hawk on the wing; how her face beaked, how her hands worked like claws, how she collected them every which way: one on her shoulder, one under her arm, one by the hand, the other shouted forward into the woodshed filled with just sunlight and shavings now because there wasn’t any wood. The party had used it all, which is why he was chopping some. Nothing was in that shed, he knew, having been there early that morning. Nothing but sunlight.

Sunlight, shavings, a shovel. The ax he himself took out. Nothing else was in there except the shovel–and of course the saw.

“You forgetting I knew her before,” Paul D was saying. “Back in Kentucky. When she was a girl. I didn’t just make her acquaintance a few months ago. I been knowing her a long time. And I can tell you for sure: this ain’t her mouth. May look like it, but it ain’t.”

So Stamp Paid didn’t say it all. Instead he took a breath and leaned toward the mouth that was not hers and slowly read out the words Paul D couldn’t. And when he finished, Paul D said with a vigor fresher than the first time, “I’m sorry, Stamp. It’s a mistake somewhere ’cause that ain’t her mouth.”

Stamp looked into Paul D’s eyes and the sweet conviction in them almost made him wonder if it had happened at all, eighteen years ago, that while he and Baby Suggs were looking the wrong way, a pretty little slavegirl had recognized a hat, and split to the woodshed to kill her children.

Passage of Essay#2

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“What might your name be?” asked Paul D.”Beloved,” she said, and her voice was so low and rough each one looked at the other two. They heard the voice first-later the name.”Beloved. You use a last name, Beloved?” Paul D asked her.”Last?” She seemed puzzled. Then “No,” and she spelled it for them, slowly as though the letters were being formed as she spoke them.

Sethe dropped the shoes; Denver sat down and Paul D smiled. He recognized the careful enunciation of letters by those, like himself, who could not read but had memorized the letters of their name. He was about to ask who her people were but thought better of it. A young coloredwoman drifting was drifting from ruin. He had been in Rochester four years ago and seen five women arriving with fourteen female children. All their men-brothers, uncles, fathers, husbands, sons-had been picked off one by one by one. They had a single piece of paper directing them to a preacher on DeVore Street. The War had been over four or five years then, but nobody white or black seemed to know it. Odd clusters and strays of Negroes wandered the back roads and cowpaths from Schenectady to Jackson. Dazed but insistent, they searched each other out for word of a cousin, an aunt, a friend who once said, “Call on me. Anytime you get near Chicago, just call on me.” Some of them were running from family that could not support them, some to family; some were running from dead crops, dead kin, life threats, and took-over land. Boys younger than Buglar and Howard; configurations and blends of families of women and children, while elsewhere, solitary, hunted and hunting for, were men, men, men. Forbidden public transportation, chased by debt and filthy “talking sheets,” they followed secondary routes, scanned the horizon for signs and counted heavily on each other. Silent, except for social courtesies, when they met one another they neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to another. The whites didn’t bear speaking on. Everybody knew.