The Power of Rememories

4/14/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytic Lens

“Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it's you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It's when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else. Where I was before I came here, that place is real. It's never going away. Even if the whole farm--every tree and grass blade of it dies. The picture is still there and what's more, if you go there--you who never was there--if you go there and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there for you, waiting for you. So, Denver, you can't never go there. Never. Because even though it's all over--over and done with--it's going to always be there waiting for you. That's how come I had to get all my children out. No matter what" (38-39).

This passage speaks volumes about the power of the photographic images that we store inside our subconscious.  Everyday human beings experience new places, new environments. new sounds to which that individual’s memory is shaped.  Essentially, images are categorized or attached to a person’s conscience and in a way remain ingrained in that person.  The power that thought pictures or “rememories” have over Sethe is so powerful that she believes that it is out there “waiting for you”.  She believes that, based on these scenes lurking in her subconscious  never dissipate and never will lose the power they have over her and her family.  She convinces herself that her family will fall victim to the same rememories and thereby they need to avoid, at all costs, any place where the memories lurk.

The shared memory experience delivered to Denver has the power to both heal and distort. Curative powers of “rememories” come from Denver believing that to avoid the places that have resounding psychological horrors is to avoid it and consequently move on past Sethe’s tragic history.  However, the distortion that is apparently overshadowing Sethe’s psychological perception of reality, contains the ability to also warp Denver’s perspective and indeed has caused the brothers to flee.  Denver is not aware of how much pain and torment the memory itself holds but rather is fully aware of her mother’s tortured soul and has witnessed the end results of the brutality of slavery. Humans have a deep psychological connection with their parents or role model figure and it ultimately shapes an individual when they are really young. Such is the case for Denver seeing that there is no one else around who can help guide her without being haunted by the suffering and agony of slavery. As a human being, we have no choice but to accept what they go through as being part of our own reality. Naturally, we attach the pictures that parents paint for us with their descriptions of their memories ultimately becoming the picture we use to represent the people, places, or events we witness. Sethe intentionally tells Denver to “never go there” because she knows that her "rememories" is what perpetuates her past of enslavement and infects Denver with the same sense of loss of self and struggle to seek closure.