Five-Step Method

As Sethe comes to realize that Beloved is her daughter, she wants to explain why she killed her. Sethe thinks, “How if I hadn’t killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her.” In other words, if Sethe had not killed her child she would’ve died  a slave, ad Sethe couldn’t bear to see that. This quotation shows that Sethe killing her child protected her from being captured by schoolteacher and taken to Sweet Home. Sethe’s love for her child is displayed in this quote. Killing her child was the only way to protect her from becoming a slave.

Sedition

Sedition

: the crime of saying, writing, or doing something that encourages people to disobey their government

:  incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority

Over there.

“And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe.”

When Sethe sees the schoolteacher approaching, all she could think about is no, no and no. She refuses to let the schoolteacher take everything that is precious to her away from her. She collected all the parts of her, Beloved, Denver, Howard, and Buglar and tried to keep them safe by bringing them to a place where the schoolteacher can no longer reach them.

Sethe says that her rationale for doing what she did was ‘simple’. As if it was the only rational and reasonable thing to do. To push them over to the other side where it is safe. The only safe and rational place to Sethe is death. Once her precious, beautiful, and fine children die, they cannot be harmed by the turmoil of slavery, abuse of the schoolteacher anymore. Outside of the story, outside of slavery, readers would think that no matter what killing your own children is crazy and inhumane but Sethe makes it simple and rational.

This quote gives readers an insight of how inexplicable slavery is and how it dehumanizes a person beyond belief whether it is the slave owners or the slaves. It makes people do unimaginable things such as killing your own children because you love them too much. In order to stop her children from experiencing the pain that she’s experienced, she’s will to kill them to bring them to a better place.

Beloved Quote Proj. 2

Introduce:

In the story beloved  the Character Paul D seems like a nice guy; and very charismatic.

Quote:

“{Not even trying, he had become the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry. Because with him, in his presence, they could. There was something blessed in his manner}. Women saw him and wanted to weep–to tell him that their chest hurt and their knees did too. Strong women and wise saw him and told him things they only told each other: that way past the Change of Life, desire in them had suddenly become enormous, greedy, more savage than when they were fifteen, and that it embarrassed them and made them sad; that secretly they longed to die–to be quit of it–that sleep was more precious to them than any waking day. Young girls sidled up to him to confess or describe how well-dressed the visitations were that had followed them straight from their dreams. Therefore, although he did not understand why this was so, he was not surprised when Denver dripped tears into the stovefire. Nor, fifteen minutes later, after telling him about her stolen milk, her mother wept as well. Behind her, bending down, his body an arc of kindness, he held her breasts in the palms of his hands. He rubbed his cheek on her back and learned that way her sorrow, the roots of it; its wide trunk and intricate branches. Raising his fingers to the hooks of her dress, he knew without seeing them or hearing any sigh that the tears were coming fast. And when the top of her dress was around her hips and he saw the sculpture her back had become, like the decorative work of an ironsmith too passionate for display, he could think but not say, “Aw, Lord, girl.” And he would tolerate no peace until he had touched every ridge and leaf of it with his mouth, none of which Sethe could feel because her back skin had been dead for years. What she knew was that the responsibility for her breasts, at last, was in somebody else’s hands”.

 

Interpret: Paul D from my understanding seems very courteous, patient, smart, humble or maybe just an handsome because he was really like by the female throughout his community.

Analyze: The author started of the paragraph with:

Not even trying, he had become the kind of man….

Paul D has change for better; at this point he understand his life have a value. He’s kind and sympathetic and for that Paul D is well liked.

Apply: In the Story  Beloved,  Paul D played an very important role for the woman of 124. After his freedom he was happy to find somewhere with someone that he knew; 124 was the place to be. Paul D has change for better; at this point he understand his life have a value. He’s kind and sympathetic and for that Paul D is well liked.

In the story beloved  the Character Paul D seems like a nice guy; and very charismatic.  After his freedom he was happy to find somewhere with someone that he knew; 124 was the place to be. Paul D has change for better; at this point he understand his life have a value. He’s kind and sympathetic and for that Paul D is well liked.

Five-Step Method for Quoting “Beloved” (Project #2)

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.

 

The plague has began; sorry Sethe

The introduction of Beloved was the most pivotal point of this story. Beloved character set the stage for the development of the story in a more in-depth and vivid way:

“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. It took her the whole of the next morning to lift herself from the ground and make her way through the woods past a giant temple of boxwood to the field and then the yard of the slate-gray house. Exhausted again, she sat down on the first handy place–a stump not far from the steps of 124. By then keeping her eyes open was less of an effort. She could manage it for a full two minutes or more. Her neck, its circumference no wider than a parlor-service saucer, kept bending and her chin brushed the bit of lace edging her dress”.

Beloved existence created new reality for Sethe old forsaken way; but however, Beloved goal was to drain Sethe to her death bed. Sethe should learns to understand to live for now and quit dwelling on the past. Beloved made it obvious that she was total destruction; especially when she complicate the situation more by forcing herself onto Paul D. Paul D became confuse and run away from 124. Furthermore, Denver observed how Beloved change and take over Sethe life,  causing her to loose her wage and becoming whom Beloved look when she first arrived at 124.

Home work

The pivotal scene of the Beloved is that Sethe’s murdering of her own daughter.  If she did not murder her child, the whole novel would lead to a different direction.  In other words, there would not be the baby ghost who haunted the house, Howard and Bugler would not run away, Sethe and Denver would not isolated in their own home, Paul D would not horrify and leave Sethe, and Sethe would not so obsess with Beloved. Sethe believed that the experience of being a slave is worse than the death. When Paul D argued her that her action was wrong to kill a child and there could be other way to protect her children. He also told her that the result of her action did not work because her two sons run away and one locked herself in the house. But she said that, “They ain’t at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain’t got em.” “It ain’t my job to know what’s worse. It’s my job to know what is and to keep them away from what I know is terrible. I did that. “That is why she chose to kill her child to protect them from brought them back to Sweet Home which she believed is worse than death.

reckon

Reckon (verb) : to think or suppose

(Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reckon)

From Beloved. (Red book page 311. Paragraph 4)

“Used to be voices all round that place. Quiet, now,” Stamp said. “I been past it a few times and I can’t hear a thing. Chastened, I reckon,…”

Stamp Paid said there used to be voices in the place but now it’s quiet. He reckons (thinks) it had been chastened.

example: Because of the traffic, he couldn’t make it to the meeting, I reckon

Resurrection

Resurrection- Noun- 1) the act of restoring a dead person, for example, to life.

2) The condition of having been restored to life.

The word “resurrection” is found on the end of chapter 9 or page123.

“Denver kept watch for the baby and withdrew from everything else. Until Paul D came. But the damage he did came undone with the miraculous resurrection of Beloved.”

The meaning of the word resurrection in this paragraph is that even though Paul D can stop the baby ghost from haunting the house but Denver knew and believed that he cannot stop the restoration of the baby ghost to life as Beloved.