Blog Post #7_Abby

As we keep on reading we learn how school teacher becomes someone really important in Beloved. As a white male the readers have a better understanding and perspective from someone who owns slaves and from someone who disliked colored people and lived during that time.  Schoolteacher was a radical racist who thought Africans were as close to animals as humans could become, he even went so far as to compare the slaves on Sweet Home to animalistic traits, features and characteristics. “No, no. That’s not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right.” Sethe recalls a time where she hears Schoolteacher talking to his nephews about how to categorize Sethe and the other slaves at Sweet Home. In Beloved, the schoolteacher part of the white upper class of plantation owners presided over the lives of Sethe and the other slaves, the lowest social class possible and, considered equal to that of an animal. That is something that I have been learning throughout Beloved. Slavery is a very controversial topic and hard to understand now because we have not experienced anything like it. This a very sensitive topic for me personally, and it makes me angry and sadden how individuals become savages as they sell and buy humans as if they were toys.

In the 18th century slaves had nothing, poverty was very common and one of the reason many slave owners sold and separated the slave from their family. Gladly, a Constitution was created to build a stronger nation and protect civil rights and liberties for American Citizens. In 1868 the 14th amendment was passed and it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law to everyone not only a specific group of people. Years after, African Americans were slowly able to gain more freedom and the right to vote as stated in the 15th amendment passed in 1870. Little by little innocent African Americans started to gain freedom they deserved.

Blog Post #6_Abby

Sethe is a very complex character who struggles everyday to forget her past. She is a free slave however, her past keeps on hunting her present, and it seems like she will never be free. Even though she was fortunate enough to escape from slavery. Sethe has suffered a lot and all her painful memories, especially the death of her daughter Beloved, have not gone away. She is reliving her past throughout this book, which reveals to us how much the slaves suffered. Additionally, she had to be apart from her children and family members for heartbreaking amounts of time. Throughout the book, Sethe’s identity is destroyed because of slavery and she is physically, emotionally, and mentally destroyed by her past.

The main focus of Beloved at this point is the materialism from the white slave owners in the sense that they only cared about money and treated the slaves very badly. And more specifically the class struggles that slaves were put in. Through the Marxist lens, we can argue that all characters in Beloved are victims of the historic slavery into which they were sold and are unable to escape from. Based on the Fugitive Slave Act, slaves could be taken back if they were in good conditions. “Right off it was clear, to school teacher especially, that their was nothing left to claim.” (Morrison 175) The only reason why school teacher did not take back Sethe and Denver was because of their poor physical  conditions. 

During this time society thought it was okay to treat colored people as animals and not as humans and to treat them like property and not like normal American Citizens. I believe that everyone has the right to be treated equally and not better or less than everyone else. Every individual has flaws, and they should not be denied the right to certain things because of their skin color. Today, many there are many tensions between races for example Hispanic/ Latino and White Americans. Where they feel like Mexicans are taking their jobs away. But in reality they are willing to get paid minimum wage and do certain jobs that other people are not willing to do. Immigrants come to this country to look for a better future, and they have to go through discrimination and even poverty.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Blog Post #5_Abby

Even though there are many different characters in Beloved, the school teacher becomes one of the most important when understanding the racism many African Americans experiences, especially Sethe. Schoolteacher and his nephews that rapaciously depict Sethe and slaves from Sweet Home. The author of an analysis article of the book Beloved, Heather Duerre Humann, specifically talks about the racist comments when Sethe overhears them talk about categorizing the slaves based on animal traits.


It is erroneous to compare animals to human beings just for their social status and skin color. This event helped us understand how Schoolteacher really felt about his slaves at Sweet Home. His nephews were learning from him, and he made it seem like it is okay to treat colored people in a certain way. Feeling superior and in control of the lives of the slaves. Everyone has feelings and it is not okay to feel better than the other because at the end of the day everyone deserves to be treated equally with no preference towards a specific race. And many of slaves were so used to getting treated badly that they wanted to become the animals that they were being compared too because at least they were free.  Paul D wanted to be like the rooster “mister.” (Morrison 72) Who had more freedom than anyone else at Sweet Home. The oppression from Schoolteacher put Paul D and others in barbarous situations that put these poor and innocent human beings in abasement and in unpleasantness moments throughout Beloved.

#7 Obsession

04/30/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Lens: Feminist
Blog: Close Reading #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. But there would never be an end to that, and seeing her mother diminished shamed and infuriated her. Yet she knew Sethe's greatest fear was the same one Denver had in the beginning- that Beloved might leave" (295).

When read through the Feminist Lens, this quote demonstrates a stereotypical weakness in women. Sethe feels trapped by Beloved. She is almost scared of her but desperate to have her around. She drops to her knees whenever Beloved needs something. She is dependent on someone else for happiness which is extremely unhealthy. Denver notices her mother deteriorating because of Beloved and we see later that Beloved leaving made Sethe go into a state of depression. Sethe cannot be independent as much as she wants to be. She is damaged and needs others around so her guilt and loneliness doesn't eat her alive. Sethe killed Beloved out of motherly love and protection but Beloved doesn't see that. She is going to stop at nothing to make Sethe feel bad. And eventually that is what happens. It is very upsetting for me to see how women need others to depend on. In most cases society believes that women need a man. Sethe needs Beloved. She becomes obsessed with trying to fix their relationship and tortures herself when thinking about Beloved leaving. It almost seems like Sethe doesn't want to rebuild what she destroyed out of fear that when she makes up for it, Beloved will abandon her.

#6 Slavery and Motherhood

04/30/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Lens: Feminist
Blog: Critical Lens Expert #2

Terry Paul Caesar has a very interesting outlook on motherhood and slavery. He calls the two "convertible terms". I would have never thought to put these words together as he did. He goes on to say that a mother could be a slave to her daughter just as a daughter could be a slave to her mother. This makes me think of mothers having to clean up after children and take care of them. They cannot ever leave just as slave life. A daughter could be a slave to her mother by having to obey anything she says or does. It is clear the Beloved makes Sethe feel as a slave. The sad thing is, Sethe doesn't even realize it. She is made to feel like she owes something to Beloved and that she must not stop doing everything she wants. She is trapped by her own daughter. There is also a sense of slavery in Beloved, when Sethe must kill her children. The protection she must give to her children during these awful times is scary. Sethe is so trapped by the love she feels for her kids that it is almost an obsession. This obsession is so strong that Sethe murders her child so they don't have to go into slavery.  All in all, I really enjoyed reading this article. It pushed me to think about ideas I hadn't really thought about. After that, I was able to make my own connections and observations. It is such a different outlook on the relationships between mothers and daughters as well as the relationship between the words slavery and motherhood.

Blog Post #4_Abby

The interpretation of Beloved, by Nicole Coonrad, helps us to understand two significant characters. Amy and Sethe, the differences and similarities that both lived during the times of slavery. Coonradt highlights insightful connections between both characters in Beloved. Sethe is a very complex character meanwhile Amy is not, she is rarely mentioned in the book. To understand a little more about her, her mother died had died while working as an indentured servant which is why Amy became an indentured servant to serve her mother’s time. This may confuse us a bit because Amy is white. Not the typical story you might expect from a novel about black ex-slaves. But this means that Sethe and Amy had a bit in common because they both live, work without basic freedoms and they both try to escape from their conditions. Which makes it a lot easier for Sethe to relate to Amy. This is important because from this we learned that American slavery is a lot more diverse and complex. Besides the connection that both of these characters there is a connection to the Marxists lens.

Throughout the book we learn the important connections from both characters however, the most important one is the fact that they are both separated by race. Which is the primary reason between the two. The idea that servants are African American minorities goes more beyond when Morrison decided to talk about a white indentured servant. This connects to the Marxists lens because of the ideals that African Americans are in the lowest social class than everybody else, and it is not always true.

#7_Sethe's Relationship with Beloved

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Feminist Lens

After reading and analyzing Beloved, I have gotten a clear interpretation of each character. They each have different mindsets when they are in certain situations. This book has helped me learn that one may not be who they proclaim to be. Sethe has problems she had to deal with throughout the novel. One of these problems was an internal conflict. Where she was not able to understand why she was being haunted by her dead daughter. However, her dead daughter resurrected and happened to be the beautiful Beloved. This young woman was the daughter that Sethe herself once killed. Beloved came back in order to retrieve the mother she was not able to live a life with. Also she wanted to acquire the love she never had the chance to receive from her because of that absence.

Many people struggling with the feeling of love do not know what they are doing. For example, Beloved is blinded by Sethe and her desire to be by her side at all times that she starts to choke her own mother. Moreover, jealousy is another feature that can lead to spiteful actions. Because of Beloved’s resentment, she also entered her mother’s boyfriend’s room and had sex with him. She did this because she did not appreciate the fact that Sethe had been paying more attention to Paul D than to her. She would do these things for revenge or to be like Sethe. Beloved said to Denver, “Make him go away,” when Paul D entered Sethe’s room (157). She feels as if Sethe is being taken away from her. Beloved thinks that Sethe belongs to her.

Furthermore, Sethe then starts realizing that Beloved is the daughter she once killed when Beloved starts humming a song that Sethe used to sing to her children. It took Sethe a really long time to realize this because she says that Paul D was a distraction. Beloved then takes over Sethe after Paul D leaves her. Sethe starts losing weight and Beloved starts gaining weight. Sethe begins acting like a child and Beloved begins acting like a mother. This allows Beloved to take advantage of her mother in a way that will make Sethe feel remorse and shame for what she did to her own daughter. Beloved was “draining Sethe’s life force away”.

#6_Psychic Death

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Feminist Lens

The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" by Barbara A. Shapiro

Slavery can have a huge impact on people, leaving them with an emotional and mental affect. The Bonds of Love and the Boundaries of Self in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" by Barbara A. Shapiro speaks all about the influences slavery has had on the world, especially in Beloved. The slaves were dehumanized and taken advantage of. Instead of being seen as human beings, these slaves were just objects/property to Americans. "Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was an other" (95). Even after African Americans were freed, they were still left with the inner thought of not actually being free.

According to Barbara A. Shapiro, “psychic death” is a major characteristic in Beloved. Psychic death occurred when Sethe killed her child in order to prevent her from being taken from Sethe and being killed in the future as an enslaved woman. Sethe’s explanation for cutting her child’s throat was “if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her" (200). It would have been a “similar fate”, says Barbara. She connects this to what Howard Guntrip says, which is; “the love-hunger and anger set up by frustration of this basic need must constitute the two primary problems of personality on the emotional level”. This is exactly what is happening in Beloved. When reading this book, we can see that Beloved resurrected either to get revenge from the rage Sethe left her with or to receive the love that she was never presented with when she was a child. Barbara also mentions a connection between Morrison’s Beloved and one of her other novels, "The first experience taught her there was no other that you could count on; the second that there was no self to count on either." (Sula). Sethe and Beloved both had difficulties relying on people throughout the entire novel. Although Sethe killed one of her children, she did love them. When Beloved came back, she loved Sethe so much that she would do anything to be really close to her mother and observe her every move.

#5_Enslaved by Beloved

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Feminist Lens

Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s "Beloved" by Terry Paul Caesar

In Slavery and Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s "Beloved” by Terry Paul Caesar, Caesar compares mothers to being similar to slaves. Caesar makes a comparison between Cassy, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Sethe. He states that “Cassy can be comprehended as being enslaved by little Eliza”, which is the same with Sethe being enslaved by Beloved. The author explains how mothers can be slaves to their daughters and how daughters can be slaves to their mothers. But in Beloved, Sethe is more of a slave to Beloved. Caesar mentions the part of the book where Sethe cuts Beloved’s throat in comparison to Cassy killing her daughter. In the book, she did this because she wanted to protect her daughter from being taken into slavery. However, Caesar indicates that Sethe killed her own daughter “to protect her own self-possession”. This could be seen in Beloved, when reading it through the feminist lens. The author uses Sethe’s words, “Freeing yourself was one thing" and "claiming ownership of that freed self was another" in order to make a very valid interpretation of the text (Beloved, 95). Sethe was afraid of being dominated by motherhood. The author questions if Sethe killed her child in order to save herself rather than to save her child from what was yet to come. Sethe needs to examine who she really is in order figure out what it means to be a mother to Beloved.

Furthermore, Caesar describes daughters being as a disruption. We can see this in Beloved when Beloved has a sexual encounter with Paul D and when Denver saves Sethe from being choked by Beloved. Even if it was either Beloved’s own intention or an accident, she is very troublesome to Sethe’s life. She does those things out of rage and jealousy, which could also be seen as revenge. However, Beloved comes back in order to show Sethe how much she really cares for her even though Sethe did kill her when she was younger. Moreover, Sethe can’t define what it means to be a mother and Beloved can’t define what it means to be a daughter, they both differ from each other.

#4_Slaves as Objects

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Feminist Lens

“The next evening he did it again and then again. He was accustomed to sex with Sethe just about every day, and to avoid the confusion Beloved's shining caused him he still made it his business to take her back upstairs in the morning, or lie down with her after supper. But he found a way and a reason to spend the longest part of the night in the rocker. He told himself it must be his back-- something supportive it needed for a weakness left over from sleeping in a box in Georgia” (135).

During the 1800’s, slave auctions occurred where men were bought for labor and women were bought for sex. Back then women would be taken advantage of and they didn’t really have a choice, but to be sold to American men. However, now a days, women sell themselves and just give away their bodies to men that are willing to pay for it. Furthermore, during this time in the book, women were seen as sex objects. Over the years, women still get raped, but not nearly as much as slaves did.

In this passage, Paul D mentions that he and Sethe have sex with each other constantly and that he was “accustomed” to it. Since Sethe was an African American, she would be seen as property to a man instead of a human being. “He made it his business” to have sexual encounters with Sethe “just about every day”. They would do it “in the morning” and “after supper”. Sethe was like a sex toy for him because he would have her there whenever he wanted to do it with her. When Sethe does it with Paul D, it is as if she is doing it for fun rather than doing it because she loves him.

Besides just being his sex object, Paul D also had sex with Sethe daily in order to take his mind off of Beloved. He did it to “avoid the confusion Beloved’s shining caused him”. Paul D does not enjoy Beloved’s presence in 124. Being with Sethe makes him feel good because the attention is on him and not on Beloved. Paul D uses Sethe only to have a good time.

Moreover, we can compare Beloved to Fifty Shades of Grey because Paul D is like Christian Grey and Sethe is like Anastasia Steele. In Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian only wants sex with Anastasia, but he does not want her to develop any feelings for him and vise versa. Paul D’s sexual proclivities are the same as Christian Grey’s. Many men don’t treat women the way they should be treated, yet women also don’t put a boundary to how far men can take things. Paul D exploits Sethe in a way that does not benefit anyone.

#5 Beloved, Paul D, and their Relationship

04/29/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Lens: Feminist
Blog: Responding and Reflecting #2

One thing I want to make sure I touch on is the relationship between Paul D and Beloved. As well as Beloved as an individual. Although Beloved is a grown woman when she reincarnates, she acts as an infant. She can't talk right, she isn't sturdy when she walks, and she is clingy with her mother. Beloved is almost obsessed with Sethe. She follows her around constantly and creates a competition with Denver. Going on to the relationship with Paul D, it gets interesting. Before we get to Part 2 in the book, we notice that Paul D is paying attention to the sex appeal beaming from Beloved. When I read this, I knew it was going to go downhill. Beloved says, "I want you to touch me on the inside part. . . . And you have to call me my name.” Paul D tries hard to resist the urge that he has to have sex with Beloved but her attraction is too difficult to resist. Paul D ends up having sex with her. Paul D goes on to say that Beloved opened up his "tobacco tin heart". After they finish having sex Paul D repeats "Red Heart" over and over again. This, to me, seemed like Paul D was alive now. He had been missing something all his life. This is somewhat a paradox in two ways. One way is because Beloved is supposed to be thought of as the spirit of an infant yet has a womanly sex appeal. The other is because she is technically dead but makes someone else feel alive. Both of these concepts make it very hard to understand what Beloved's motives are. She seems to want to do good and please people especially her mother but makes choices like sleeping with Paul D. The way the scene was written made it feel like Beloved is a manipulator. Paul D was distant and then almost trapped by her. I feel as though Paul D left the home of 124 due to his guilt he faced after this encounter with Beloved. It is really unfortunate that no one sees through Beloved because not once have I gotten an innocent vibe from her, only evil!

#3_ More of a Mother Rather than a Sister

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Feminist Lens

Prior to reading Beloved, I knew the history about how African Americans were treated and the amount of labor they had to do. The way slaves were treated made me feel pity towards them. However, I never thought that African American women were treated ten times worse than African American men. The experiences that Sethe, an African American women, had faced in the 1800’s are a way of proving that slaves lived very difficult lives. Beloved has taught me that Sethe would get raped repeatedly and there was nothing she could do about it. We can tell that women were seen as objects rather than human beings. From previous knowledge, I have been convinced that women have always been treated differently than men.

Furthermore, when reading this book through the feminist lens, I am reminded of how many people have thought for the longest time that women are meant to be stay-at-home women. In this book, we can see that Denver acts like a sister/nurse to Beloved when she “tended her, watched her sound sleep, listened to her labored breathing and out of love and a breakneck possessiveness that charged her” (64). Denver wants to make sure that Beloved is alive and she does not want anything to happen to Beloved. Similarly, when Sethe tries to help Denver take care of Beloved, Denver says “Leave us alone, Ma’am. I’m taking care of her” (65). Denver wants to be the only one to care for Beloved because she does not allow anyone else to care for Beloved, not even her own mother.

We can also make a connection to how Denver feels with Beloved with the way Beloved has an obsessive and possessive act towards Sethe. After Beloved felt better from her fever, “Beloved could not take her eyes off Sethe”(68). Beloved would be in the kitchen in the mornings watching Sethe cook before going to work. When Sethe came home from work, Beloved would be there waiting for her or she would meet Sethe halfway to walk her to 124. “Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by Beloved’s eyes”(68). We can conclude that Beloved admires Sethe so much that she doesn’t want to take her eye off her.

Blog Post #3 _Abby

Paul D is a very important character in the book and on chapter 17, it mainly describes his job. Keeping in mind that he is a colored man and at this time he is free. Paul D lives in Cincinnati working as in a slaughterhouse for pigs. During the 1800’s There was not a lot of high technology therefore, people working in them had to do it by hand, and it was often not sanitary. Paul D had a very hard job, “For a month or so in the winter any stray man had work, if he could breathe the stench of offal and stand up for twelve hours, skills in which Paul D was admirably trained.” Most of the people working in slaughterhouses at this time were colored men, because they were desperate for jobs, even if it meant getting paid minimum wage. Black men were not “fit” for high end jobs because of their skin color and lack of education. Therefore, most of them had to do the “dirty” work like working in slaughterhouses and keeping up with the high demand for pork. “The craving for pork was growing into a mania in every city in the country.”

This piece of evidence helps us understand the difference of social and economic classes during the 19th Century between slaves and white individuals. Many runaway slaves had difficulties of finding a job and had no other option than working in unsanitary slaughterhouses for very long hours. Which Paul D was highly prepared to work in those conditions and for very long hours. Individuals in the lower class had not chance or what so ever to get to a higher level of an economic class. They will never be able to be on a higher level, at least not now, because they are slaves therefore, do not have rights of any kind. They are property, and slaves were treated like that until the late 20th Century where they started to gain certain rights. Today in the 21st Century people can argue that we are still going through some social and economic similarities were people with no education and low income take jobs that educated people would not take; and I honestly believe that this will always exist. There will always be some sort of separation of social class due to education and income.

#4 Pakistan and Feminism

 

04/27/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Lens: Feminist

http://www.idosi.org/mejsr/mejsr16%2810%2913/17.pdf

Written by Hira Ali, a student who attends the University of Sargodha in Pakistan, Gender Analysis in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Sula is an amazing depcition of Feminism in these literature masterpieces. Ali spends a lot of time talking about the difference between sex and gender which was very informative and reflected my own views on the differences between the two. One thing that really stuck out to me in Ali's writing was her portrayal of what the purpose of the book is. She says talks about the past and present being linked in Sethe's life instead of being separated. This got me thinking a lo about my own life. Both Sethe and Myself had some bad upbringings and experiences that made it hard to treat the present as something different than the past. Sethe has zero trust in men based on how she was treated at Sweet Home. From the sexual assaults, to the beatings, to her own husband leaving, men have not proven to be a sense of safety for her. Ali also talks about how Sethe and Baby Suggs were robbed of their femininity while Paul D was robbed of his masculinity. This is a very interesting observation and one that I didn't catch on to before reading this scholarly essay. Paul D cannot even have sexual experiences like most men would. And Sethe has a hard time being a mother because of how she was treated. It's really quite sad how these characters have been stripped of their gender roles but force. I also got another perspective from this article about black people being impure and corrupted by whites. This made it seem as if white people robbed all innocence and identity from these poor people. It is such a brutal and deep thought and being able to read someone else's opinion on it really deepened my understanding. After reading this and continuing to read Beloved, I have developed a relationship with the characters. Things such as being stuck in the past and not conforming to typical feminine roles drew me towards Sethe and her life. I hope to read more and find even more ways I can relate to Sethe.