Thursday, April 2, 2015
Blog #2_Abby
Many events have occurred in beloved since the death of baby suggs. There have been many flash backs that describe the conditions of slaves. During this time, slaves were treated as property and many of them were sold to white males for their service. In Beloved there is a small description about it, Sethe and Baby Suggs were located in Sweet Home. Baby suggs describes how they both had to suffer with their family. “ Sethe’s own, men and women were moved around as well as Sethe’s own, men and women were moved around like checkers.” (27) The simile that she how everyone is moved around like “checkers” gives a big impact to the reader and makes us understand their situation better. Black people were treated as a game and who ever won had to keep them, even if it meant to rip them away from their families. “Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who had not run off or been hanged , got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen or seized.” This quote shows us the bad conditions that many of them had to go through. Through the Marxists lens, these individuals did not have any right to as American people during the 1800’s , slaves did not have a voice in their community. Slaves had to follow their owner’s rules and if not most of them were hanged or wiped, they were being oppressed by the rest. This creates tensions and conflicts, no one wants to be mistreated and therefore, they will do everything they can to run away.
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I am very captivated by your first quote and I think you can grow your analysis upon the idea around African Americans being used as pawns and checkers on the "White Man's" game of slavery. How are AA's being demeaned and how does it contribute to their condemnation into slavery?
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing to think about from a Marxist lens in how community and social dynamics were made within the slave community- not including slaveowners.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting how you compare the game of checkers to how African Americans were treated back in the 1800's. You should also consider how slavery has evolved in the book through the Marxist lens and compare it to how African Americans are treated now. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeletegreat integration of contextual evidence!!! I like how you relate it to the bigger picture
ReplyDeletei like the way you integrated your evidence and related it to the big picture of the story.
ReplyDeleteI find it really interesting how you have chosen to analyze one phrase in connection to the text as a whole. I also think it really how you brought up the idea of black people being treated as a game. I had never thought of this in this way before, but now that you have brought it up and explained it I think that this idea of African Americans being referred to as checkers can be seen at many points throughout the text!
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