Did you know that there’s a new system that replaces eSIMS that you’ll use for registration, accessing your grades, and more? It’s called CUNYFirst, and you’ll need to learn how to use it before registration starts in May. There will be workshops, so keep your eyes open for information around campus letting you know when you can attend a CUNYFirst workshop.
Blogging Assignment
Throughout the story in āBelovedā by Toni Morrison memory seems to be a major theme. Ā Ā Ā As Baby Suggs (Setheās mother-in-law) preaches to the children and their mothers about the hardships slavery has done to her. As sheās talking to everyone in attendance she makes a very powerful statement as she says “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love itā(Morrison, 88).
Baby Suggs gives an insight of what happens in slavery, as you will be working daily, when you do something wrong; you will be beaten but at the end of the day you will have to love yourself in order to survive. Even if you scream, your voice will not be heard. Baby Suggs memories are a reminder of those bad times. As she says earlier that she had lost everything, except for her heart. Without her heart, she would have nothing left of herself.
Narration in Beloved
From reading the story “Beloved” it’s hard to understand what kind of narration the story is and somehow difficult to know who is the narrator. From my point of view, I think the story uses a third-person narrator. In the story, the narrator describes the action and thoughts of other people from using “they, he, she”. But sometimes it can considered as omniscient narration because there are some narrations that describe the character’s action and what they thinking. For example the quote from the story “Now Halle’s face between the butter press and the churn swelled larger and larger, crowding her eyes and making her head hurt,” the words “making her head hurt” show us that the narrator describes Halle’s feeling. The narration change from character to character throughout the story trying to lead us to understanding of each character deeper. And the narration switch to lead us to ones character’s memories and thoughts. Another example from page 7, “Again she wished for the baby ghost”, the narrator describes what Denver is thinking.
Changing the point of view in the story can help us understand each character more clearly. Most plots in the story is a flashback of the character’s memories, so it’s quite important for us to understand every character instead of just focusing on one.
Blogging for Wednesday, 4/10, and more!
Everyone knows that we will not be visiting the Brooklyn Historical Society on 4/10 as was initially planned–instead, we’ll be going on 4/15 and 4/22.
For Wednesday’s class, please read the next four sections. In my copy, that ends on page 124. It ends with “She is smiling again.” The next section that we’ll begin with for the next set of readings begins “The last of the Sweet Home men”–we’ll read from there through the end of Part One for Monday’s class, plus some additional reading I’ll provide.
For those of you blogging by Tuesday at 5:00 so the rest of us can comment by 10:00am Wednesday, you have a few choices. You can blog about a topic of your own choosing, or you can blog about memory–but only if the passage you’re writing about is from our most recent section of reading–or you can use this new topic. We spent so much time thinking about narrators in the first half of our course, but we haven’t spent much time thinking about our narrator inĀ Beloved. Write about the narrator in your blog post by considering a moment in the text when it isn’t clear who the narrator is, or who the focalizer is–remember we discussed what a focalizer is in the beginning of the semester–or when that narrator or focalizer shifts unexpectedly or in an unclear way. Incorporate a passage that exemplifies the issue you’re writing about.
As usual, make sure your post is 300 words and proofread. Comments should be 150 words and also proofread. Also, please post the comment you worked on in class today–that’s in addition to the comment you need to post in response to this next round of blogging!
Perfunctory
Perfunctory: Adjective : Lacking interest of enthusiasm.
From the novel Ā “Beloved”,”Together they waged a perfunctory battle against the outrageous behavior of that place; against turned-over slop jars, smacks on the behind, gusts of sour air”.(Page 4)
Now i understand that they have given up on taking care of the place.
Eluded
Eluded;Ā transitive verb;Ā to escape the perception, understanding, or grasp of.
From “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, pg 77.
“Denver stopped and sighed. This was the part of the story she loved. She
was coming to it now, and she loved it because it was all about herself; but
she hated it too because it made her feel like a bill was owing somewhere and she, Denver, had to pay it. But who she owed or what to pay it with eluded her.”
After researching this word, I comprehended that what Denver was talking about, the bill that she felt like she owed somewhere, but did not know who she owed or what to pay it with was out of her understanding. Denver did not understand this whole concept of owing someone out there that she did not know or either what she was supposed to pay it with.
The Significance of Memory in “Beloved”
“She had good hands, she said. The whitegirl, she said, had thin little
arms but good hands. She saw that right away, she said. Hair enough for five
heads and good hands, she said. I guess the hands made her think she could do
it: get us both across the river. But the mouth was what kept her from being
scared. She said there ain’t nothing to go by with whitepeople. You don’t know
how they’ll jump. Say one thing, do another. But if you looked at the mouth
sometimes you could tell by that. She said this girl talked a storm, but there
wasn’t no meanness around her mouth. She took Ma’am to that lean-to and rubbed
her feet for her, so that was one thing.
And Ma’am believed she wasn’t going to turn her over. You could get money
if you turned a runaway over, and she wasn’t sure this girl Amy didn’t need
money more than anything, especially since all she talked about was getting
hold of some velvet.” (Morrison, 77)
In this passage of āBelovedā by Toni Morrison, we read about a memory of Setheās past when she was running away, six months pregnant with her daughter Denver, and she encounters a little white girl in the hills, who helps her along her path, and also helps her deliver her baby. Taking into consideration the time period in which the novel is written, during the years of slavery-and afterwards- we get a sense of what kind of character the little white girl Amy is. It says here that during that time period, anyone who turned in a runaway slave could get money for it, but Sethe did not believe that Amy was going to turn her in. Even though the little girl was of white lineage, she had knowledge of what a negroe slave was, and knew that someone was looking for her, she still did not turn her in or made the effort to belittle the African women that she found in the hills, badly hurt and pregnant. Instead, she took the time to make her as comfortable as she possibly could, and cured her of her illnesses.
āShe said the girl talked like a storm, but there wasnāt no meanness around her mouth,ā were the words of Sethe. From this quote I got the understanding that Amy, although having knowledge of what slaves where, was still a bond person and had the courage to help another in need. If it may have been another white person that would have found Sethe in the hills, they most likely would have turned her in to receive a monetary reward for it.
From this passage specifically, although we donāt receive much information about what live as a slave was, we can interpret from āBelovedā that it was not an easy task for the slaves to run away. There were many hardships that made running away very difficult. We can also interpret that there were still people with kind hearts like Amy, which without receiving nothing in return, still helped a black woman in need. This, like many other memories of her past, was one that Sethe didnāt like to recall because it reminded her of the troubles that she went through as a slave. Throughout what we have read so far in “Beloved,” the reader gets a pretty good insight of Setheās memories, that help piece together parts of the story that are scattered around.
Meaning of Memory: based on Beloved
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
Memory is that process which information is encoded within oneās brain, stored and retrieved at some point. It might be pleasant or unpleasant, voluntary or involuntary. In āBelovedā the memory of the characters is what the story is narrated on. For example, Setheās 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 Setheās 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 ābeingā into what she was and makes her not much better than she used to be.
Beloved
“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
āBeloved 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 Suggsās tells her daughter-in-law that she remembers all her eight children gone away. āMy 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 thatās 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 Setheās 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. āHe 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. āThey used cowhide on you?ā āThey 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
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!
spiteful
Spiteful: adjective, full of spite, Ā petty ill will or hatred with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart
Beloved by Toni Morrison: “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did theĀ children.”
From this word i came to know that there was allĀ painfulĀ things going on around that place 124.
Reading schedule for Beloved
With the midterm behind us, we can begin looking forward to Spring Break. With Spring Break, we can begin to think aboutĀ Beloved! Remember to get your copy: ISBN 978-1400033416. We have several weeks devoted to our discussion of Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel, and we’ll use the time to consider how our study of fiction can apply to a longer text, how we can bring research into our examination of the novel, and how we can consider film within our study of narratives–all really exciting opportunities!
We meet again on Wednesday, April 3rd. By then, please read pages 2-64. For the following Monday, April 8th, please read through page 98. We’ll check in then to see how the reading is going. We want to be sure to get through this section of the novel before we go to the Brooklyn Historical Society on April 10th and 15th, where we’ll have the chance to look at slave indentures and runaway slave advertisements, to put some of what we read inĀ Beloved into context.
I’m looking for 10 bloggers to write posts during Spring Break–by end of the day on April 1st, and for everyone else to comment on those posts. Please reach out to me if you want to volunteer–otherwise, I might reach out to you to ask you to volunteer.
Enjoy readingĀ Beloved, and have a rewarding break.
Additional midterm-exam information
Some of you have asked about the short-answer portion of the midterm exam. Here’s a description: there will be a list of terms from “Elements of Fiction” (don’t forget to look at all the sections of the site, not just the home page!) and from the list I posted on the blog (there is a lot of overlap, but some terms are only in one place or the other). There will also be a list of passages from our readings this semester. You will have to identify which term is an appropriate label for that passage AND explain why in a sentence or two. There might be more than one right answer, for example, if a passage is an example of first-person narration and setting–either would be correct in that case. You will not get credit, though, if you do not provide an explanation of why it is the appropriate label, since I won’t know if you know the terms or are just guessing.
Bonus points for correctly identifying the source of the passage!
Also, I added a new poll to the sidebar–I’m curious to know your interests for the essay topics. You can choose up to three in the poll.