Introduce: In Beloved, the main character Sethe is presently living at 124 with her daughter Denver, however, she continue to relive the bad memories she endured as a slave at Sweet Home. Although, she tried to not mention the past to Denver, it would always come up through the daily activities of her life or when Beloved, her deceased daughter, would ask her to retell stories of her life. As for Beloved, she ignited Sethe’s bad feelings of the past, causing Sethe to feel depressed for the things she did that haunted her very conscious. Therefore, because Sethe was dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder from the harsh sufferings of slavery, Beloved used Sethe’s anguish to torment her even more. (I rarely use quotations from the text for my introduction)
Quote: One of the harsh sufferings Sethe went through, is when she was tied down at Sweet Home by men for her nursing (breast) milk. “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!” (Morrison 19-20)
Interpret: In this quote, the owners of Sweet Home hold down Sethe, so that they take her milk. As her milk was being stolen, the schoolteacher was taking notes of this as if she was a lab experiment. Furthermore, her husband, Halle, had to witness this while he could not do anything about it.
Analyze: When Sethe’s milk was stolen, she was violated. Sethe was helpless and there was nothing she could do because she belonged to the owner of Sweet Home. This traumatic scene played a negative effect to Sethe’s psyche, causing her to kill her daughter, Beloved, and attempt to kill her other children, Denver, Buglar, and Howard, to spare them of the harsh life of being a slave.
Apply: (1)“Growled when they (Sethe and Beloved) chose; sulked, explained demanded, strutted, cowered, cried and provoked each other to the edge of violence, then over. She had begun to notice that even when Beloved was quiet, dreamy, minding her own business, Sethe got her going again. Whispering, muttering some justification, some bit of clarifying information to Beloved to explain what it had been like, and why, and how come. It was as though Sethe didn’t really want forgiveness given; she wanted it refused. And Beloved helped her” (Morrison 296-297).
(2) “Denver thought she understood the connection between her mother and Beloved: Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw; Beloved was making her pay for it” (Morrison 295).
Beloved was angry for what Sethe did to her, so she brought her torment by constantly fighting between herself and Sethe. Also, Sethe could not forgive herself for killing Beloved, so Beloved feed into Sethe’s misery, causing Sethe to feel more miserable for killing her.
This method is great but I am unsure if I am doing this right. Am I supposed to be writing my draft of part 1 in the format of the five-step method? As for my rating of this method, I believe it is helping me to organize where and how to use the quotation in my essay. However, this method does not help you to formulate a thesis statement.
