Monthly Archives: April 2015

Homework, Week 11

Quoting from Beloved

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One scene that I found quite powerful was when Paul D tells Sethe that Halle saw the men steal her milk. She comes to realize so many things in one moment. Not only was she angry because Halle didn’t do anything to help save her, but she also learns that he went crazy, and that watching that scene  unfold broke him and that’s why he didn’t join her in their planned escaped. If he hadn’t seen that maybe things would have turned out differently. After she finds out she sits with her newfound realization and is angry because her mind allows her to harbor another painful memory when she has had her fill of pain and suffering. She also realizes that she didn’t have the choice that Halle had to go crazy, even though she thinks to herself what a nice option that would have been to just let go and not carry on. She realizes that she never had that choice because her children were waiting for her and that she had to go on.

“Other people went crazy, why couldn’t she? Other people’s brains stopped , turned around and went on to something new, which is what must have happened to Halle. And how sweet that would have been: the two of them back by the milk shed, squatting by the churn, smashing cold, lumpy butter into their faces with not care in the world. Feeling it slippery, sticky – rubbing it in their hair, watching it squeeze through their fingers. What a relief to stop right there. Close. Shut. Squeeze the butter. But her three children were chewing sugar teat under a blanket on their way to Ohio and no butter play would change that.”

In this quote she is clearly saying that it would have been just as easy or better to have given into weakness. She to could have given up and let go, but she knew that her children would in turn suffer and that giving up was not an option for her.

I think this passage is reflective go how much Sethe has endured. How she feels like she has been left by those that she loves. Halle, Baby Suggs, her mother and even in some way Beloved, because though she killed her, she still laments her loss. She is filled with painful memories, and this revelation is another to add. She keeps going forward even though she is filled to the brim with pain, her love for her children keeps her going. Her will to live, whether she recognizes it, is stronger than her pain.

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Homework, Week 10

Pivotal Scene in “Beloved”

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One scene that I found to be pivotal was Sethe killing her child. In my opinion, this is what held the book together. The reason behind Sethe’s murder was a good intention. She wanted to protect her children and herself from schoolteacher and the rest of the men. She feared they would’ve taken her along with her children back to the slave life she didn’t want her kids to experience. This action actually showed the amount of love she had for her children.

“I didn’t have time to explain before because it had to be done quick. Quick. She had to be safe and I put her where she would be. But my love was tough and she back now.”

“How if I hadn’t killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her. When I explain it she’ll understand, because she understands everything already. I’ll tend her as no mother ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children.”

After Sethe comes to realize that Beloved is her daughter, she wanted to explain to Beloved why she killed her. She knew that her daughter would’ve died anyway at the hands of someone else, and couldn’t handle the sight of that. Now that she has her daughter back, she wants to make up for those lost years. Sethe claims that nobody except her children will ever get her milk. All of this shows the amount of love she has for her children, which is why she ended up killing her daughter.

Also, the baby ghost that haunted 124 would not have been there if Sethe hadn’t killed her daughter. This caused Sethe and Denver to live in isolation because no one visited them. The years of isolation kept Denver inside of 124, until she was forced to get out after her mother lost her job.

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Glossary

Infanticide

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Infanticide(noun)-

(1) the act of killing an infant.
(2) the practice of killing newborn infants.
(3) a person who kills an infant.

 

These vocabulary words was written in towards the ending of chapter twenty six of “Beloved” by Toni Morrison.

The Society managed to turn infanticide and the cry of savagery around, and build a further case for abolishing slavery.

After splitting the word into two, you are able to figure the definition of the word. The first part of the word in “infant” which means baby. The second part of the word “icide” which can be related to suicide which means killing. You can come to the conclusion that the vocabulary word means killing an infant.

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/infanticide?s=t

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Glossary

Vacant

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Vacant(adj.)- having no contents; empty; void

This vocabulary word was written in chapter twenty six of “Beloved” by Toni Morrison.

Saw Sethe’s eyes bright but dead, alert but vacant, paying attention to everything about Beloved–her lineless palms, her forehead, the smile under her jaw, crooked and much too long–everything except her basket-fat stomach.

In other words, Sethe was not showing any emotion in her eyes, however she was aware of her surroundings.

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vacant?s=t

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Homework Instructions, Week 11

Quoting Beloved effectively

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In our most recent class, we talked about using quotations more effectively. For homework, and to help you develop your next project, please use the method below to discuss one quotation you plan to use for Project #2. In your post, rather than writing this as a paragraph as you will in your project, break your work into each of the five steps, identifying each part so you can see what goes where, and so we can identify each part in each other’s responses.

Also include a response to using this method: what does it offer you that you didn’t already have in your writing tool-kit? What might it restrict you from doing?

Using Prof. Rebecca Devers’s IQIAA Method, with minor revisions, we’ll call this the five-step method for incorporating quotations:

Introduce: Use transitional phrases to inform your readers that you’re about to use someone else’s words.

Quote: When you quote someone, you are obligated to represent their words accurately. This means avoiding typos and mistakes, and it means providing accurate citations that tell your reader what source provided the words or images.

Interpret: If a quotation can stand on its own without interpretation, then your readers don’t need to read your project or essay. After including a quotation, explain it to your readers. Put that quotation into your own words, or into a language or discourse that your audience can better understand. To get comfortable doing this, consider starting sentences after quotations with phrases like, “In other words, . . . .”

Analyze: Interpretation translates the original author’s words into a language your audience will understand. Analysis tells your readers why that quotation is so important. It highlights the significance of an author’s word choice, argument, example, or logic. Analysis goes beyond the obvious, telling the reader what they may have missed if they didn’t read as carefully as you are.

Apply: Each time you use a quotation, make it clear to your reader how it supports your argument. You can do that by applying your analysis to your thesis statement. Remind your readers of your purpose for writing, and tell them how this quotation, and your analysis of it, helps you support your argument.

As you follow this method to construct a paragraph (or to write your broken-apart paragraph here), you may want to “quote the quote,” pointing to specific words or phrases within the quoted passage that carry meaning or deserve attention.

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Homework, Week 10

Beloved, Week 10

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I think that if Sethe never went to the Garners house after Baby Suggs had passed away the story would be much different then how it is now.

“Paul D smiled then, remembering the bedding dress. Sethe was thirteen when she came to Sweet Home and already iron-eyed. She was a timely present for Mrs. Garner who had lost Baby Suggs to her husband’s high principles. The five Sweet Home men looked at the new girl and decided to let her be. They were young and so sick with the absence of women they had taken to calves. Yet they let the iron-eyed girl be, so she could choose in spite of the fact that each one would have beaten the others to mush to have her. It took her a year to choose–a long, tough year of thrashing on pallets eaten up with dreams of her. A year of yearning, when rape seemed the solitary gift of life. The restraint they had exercised possible only because they were Sweet Home men–the ones Mr. Garner bragged about while other farmers
shook their heads in warning at the phrase.”

This scene is one example of the story changing if Sethe did not go to the Garners house because Sethe would have never met with the five men that also lived in the Garner house. If Sethe did not go to the Garner house after Baby Suggs had passed away then she would not have met Halle who becomes her husband or met Paul D who she loves in the story when she is living with her daughter Denver. Sethe would also not have given birth to Denever or would she would have to give up on her first child if she did not go to the Garner house.

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.”

This is another scene that would also have not took place if she did not go to the Garner house. This scene has a great importance because if Sethe did not get her milk stolen by force then she would not have be traumatized so much. She would also not have to live with the fact that she was forced to do something that would scar her life.

Sethe living in the Garner house in her early teens years is what really gets the story going to how it is. By meeting the people she met at the early age and the events that happen to her on those early years plays a big role in what she ends up doing and how she lives it out. She gets married to Halle, gets raped, gives birth to children and so on is the result of what happens to her after she lives in the Garner house.

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Homework, Week 9

Beloved, Week 9

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“Paul D smiled then, remembering the bedding dress. Sethe was thirteen when she came to Sweet Home and already iron-eyed. She was a timely present for Mrs. Garner who had lost Baby Suggs to her husband’s high principles. The five Sweet Home men looked at the new girl and decided to let her be. They were young and so sick with the absence of women they had taken to calves. Yet they let the iron-eyed girl be, so she could choose in spite of the fact that each one would have beaten the others to mush to have her. It took her a year to choose–a long, tough year of thrashing on pallets eaten up with dreams of her. A year of yearning, when rape seemed the solitary gift of life. The restraint they had exercised possible only because they were Sweet Home men–the ones Mr. Garner bragged about while other farmers shook their heads in warning at the phrase.”

The passage that i picked is in chapter one where Paul D is remembering when Sethe first came to live with Mr. and Mrs. Garner after Baby Suggs has passed away.

The passage talks about how Sethe first came to live in the farm with the Garner family after Baby Suggs has passed away. The passage also talks about how the five men that also lived with the Garner which included Paul D first though of Sethe when they saw her for the first time. Since those five lived without the presence of any other female beside Mrs.Garner they did not know how to act towards Sethe, so they just let her do what she wanted. The five men also did not want to fight over who would fight over Sethe but instead waited till Sethe picked one of them on her own.

The passage is important in that it lets us know what Sethe went through after Baby Suggs passed away and how she lived in her early teen years. It also introduces some important characters like Mr. and Mrs. Garner, Paul D and the other 4 men who lived with her which one becomes her husband later on.

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Glossary

Prodding

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prodding – to poke or jab with or as if with something pointed

Sethe never expected to see another thing in this world, so when she felt toes prodding her hip it took a while to come out of a sleep she thought was death. She sat up, stiff and shivery, while Amy looked in on her juicy back

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Glossary

Sopping

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Sopping – soaked; drenched:

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.

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