How Powerful is Motherhood in Shaping Individuals

4/28/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytic Lens

In Sandra Mayfield’s critical essay, Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Psychological Reading, she ambitiously tackles motherhood and mothering in all of its layers of complexity, in particular how it impacts slave women.  By examining the writings of other authors she is able to add “meaningful insights into the psychological processes operating in the relationships between mothers and their children” and she uncovers “the relationship between woman, death, religion, and text”. Her trio of theorists that she bases much of her information on includes Helene Cixous, Jacques Lacan, and Julia Kristeva. Each of these of authors adds insight into the process of mothering and how it psychologically impacts Sethe.

Helene Cixous, a French psychoanalyst, based on her disposition, as well as the texts she analyzes, she uses to corroborate demonstrates that women have not sublimated the way men have so they are the most pure in the sense that they have avoided having to filter their emotions. What that more or less signifies is that no one is truly able to best raise their young as well as mothers do which demonstrate why the struggle of the slave woman is one that is about being entrapped within the reality that they will always be a product of slavery.

Jacques Lacan was a theorist that conflicted with Freudian theory by stating that the longing for possessing their mother “is not merely sexual, but “a longing for a kind of existential reparation, perpetually unfulfillable, eternally stretching forth towards the desire for something else” (198).” While Beloved throughout the book shows that she has this insatiable desire to possess Sethe in Chapter 23 which the purpose is to literally represent the conscience of Beloved because she repeats phrases like “You are mine You are mine You are mine.” and “I loved you You hurt me You came back to me You left me I waited for you.” best represents Lacan’s perspective.

Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian European critic, “suggests that mothers who are deprived of a sense of wholeness in their subjectivity, endure a period of “abjection,” self-hatred,  contempt, alienation, and disgust with the biological and psychological processes of mothering.” Similarly, Sethe had isolated herself from society not just by being rejected but choosing to live in 124 only to be reminded of her sins and atrocities committed to her children.

Psychic Resoluteness: The Power to Rise Above Psychological Trauma

4/8/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytic Lens

After having read Toni Morrison’s deeply troubling novel Beloved, I was relieved to witness Sethe’s moment of rebirth that happens at the very end of the novel.  The psychological anguish that she encounters because of the traumatic experiences associated with being a female slave are passed on to the reader. For me, it seemed like there could be no possible chance for healing after what she had gone through. As Morrison carves a pathway into the deep recesses of Sethe’s subconscious, she leads readers to believe that there is no possible hope for Sethe to escape the incarceration of her mind and the hopelessness that she feels.

My only personal connection to Sethe’s experience seems to be this hopeless feeling that I have felt on rare occasions.  In fact, to be human, one encounters times of hopelessness which for some, like Sethe, seem insurmountable. However, Morrison reveals how, through the power of psychic resoluteness, Sethe is able to reach closure. Like Sethe, I have come to realize that to move past moments or periods of depression and feelings of hopelessness, I have utilized a similar type of psychic resoluteness.  The mental process that needs to happen is not something that can occur instantaneously and this is true with me much as it is with Sethe, as impossible as it is to make such a comparison.  For Sethe the process took most of her life.  Truly, it involves a determined discipline to push past the mental roadblocks put up by life or by our own flaws.

In the end, Sethe says to Paul D about Beloved, "She left me."  and then she tells him, "She was my best thing." In this statement Sethe is saying that she is no longer haunted by the images of her past and her dead baby and she explains that the reason  she had to murder her child was because she was her “best thing”.  To arrive at these statements she needed a lifetime of processing and psychic resoluteness. Paul D reveals this moment of redemption for Sethe’s  past, when he states the truth,  "You your best thing, Sethe. You are."  And while Sethe does not validate his words she shows that she hears him and she responds with “Me?” “Me?”.  I like to think that when she responds this way she is on the road to believing in herself and loving herself.

#3_Weakness Disguised as Strength

04/16/15

Throughout the novel, I have noticed a woman who has been through too much in her life to bear. Although she is trying her best to support her daughter, Paul D, and Beloved, we can see that her strength is almost an act. Sethe is very broken, which is an understatement. As a woman, she has been manipulated and abused so many times, that seeing light in the world is so difficult. This is heartbreaking. Something that has kept me up thinking about is the scene in the barn with the Schoolteacher and his Nephews. Essentially, Sethe was sexually assaulted and her "milk was stolen".
To a woman, breast milk and pregnancy are things that are supposed to be amazing. Yet, too many pregnancies and in the days of Slavery, breast milk theft are all the outcome of sexual assault.  In society, women are over sexualized both in the media and out in the open. Women are constantly being made to feel like objects. With not being able to be shirtless in public and with the lingerie in commercial, women are without a doubt being treated differently then men. This is where my Feminist Views come in. I think that women should be able to walk down the streets shirtless just as men do. I think women should hold "man jobs" if they choose to. I think women are just as empowered as men are.
Sethe, deep down, is a very strong woman and I admire her for all she is trying to do to support her family. She is an amazing mother to Denver. Although Denver acts as a child and is quite underdeveloped for her age, Sethe still treats her like a young woman. Sethe supports her and is calm when she misbehaves. Sethe also provides for Paul D and Denver. She works hard to do so. She picks herself up every morning and never gives up on her life even though it would be so easy. She escaped a fate that should have killed her and turned it around to make such a positive light for herself.

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.  

Pain of Loss and How it is Universally Connected

4/8/15

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytic Lens

Throughout my reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved, I have found that what truly makes human beings diverse is the kind of experiences we all are capable of having as well as the different emotional reactions in response to those experiences.  However, there is one experience that is truly universal and usually elicits a similar response from others and that is the psychological pain of loss.  While there is obviously no comparison possible between my life as a white upper middle class teenage male and Sethe’s as a female black slave, what bridges the gap between me and others experiencing the novel is that sense of being able to connect by feeling the anxiety and loss that happened in her life.  It is inconsequential that we, the reader, have not experienced the same anxiety and loss that she has.  Through Morrison’s descriptive writing and setting and our ability to empathize, we are drawn into a shared insight into all the losses that befall a slave.

For me, the depth of Sethe’s experiences are far beyond anything I could even remotely identify with.  However, her broken identity is something that I can relate to as it is brought about by one’s environment and experiencing a some sort of personal loss.  Sethe’s experiences as a slave where she remarks, "If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up." is vastly different than anything I have ever experienced physically but her descriptions of holding painful memories at bay is something that I can relate to. "To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The 'better life' she believed she and Denver were living was simply not that other one." It seems that the emphasis of this text is not to truly compare your own experiences to this horrid life of an ex slave who has endured the atrocities of slavery and how they affect her inner psyche, but to recognize that this book gives you the opportunity to share an experience simply through the author’s description how her characters’ minds work and human beings who have suffered tragedy as well. Morrison provides this shared experience within this novel that ultimately develops the reader’s relationship with her characters and allows the reader to bond and empathize on a very deep psychological level with them.  

Blog #2 Critical Lens Close Reading_Karen

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Critical Lens: Feminist

“Dog, she thought, and then remembered that she had not allowed him the time for taking it off. Nor herself time to take off her petticoat, and considering she had begun undressing before she saw him on the porch, that her shoes and stockings were already in her hand and she had never put them back on; that he had looked at her wet bare feet and asked to join her; that when she rose to cook he had undressed her further; considering how quickly they had started getting naked, you'd think by now they would be. But maybe a man was nothing but a man, which is what Baby Suggs always said. They encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely that was, they studied your scars and tribulations, after which they did what he had done: ran her children out and tore up the house” (26).

In this passage, Sethe’s character is reflecting on what had occurred proceeding to the sexual encounter with Paul D. She remembered that leading to the sexual encounter with Paul D, she “had not allowed him the time for taking off [his clothes]” and “she had begun undressing before she saw him on the porch”. They did not have enough time speaking before they both started undressing. Prior to this experience, Sethe was revealing to Paul D that her house was being regularly haunted by her dead daughter, which has brought many complications. Sethe had not seen or talked to Paul D since they were in Sweet Home. After speaking with each other for a few minutes, they decided to feel something for each other. When reading this passage through the Feminist Lens, I thought that it made her seem as if she was a woman of easy virtue. She felt delight and pleasure when “he had undressed her further”. The moment of satisfaction had taken over her entirely. She let those feelings get to her. She had not thought twice before she was being undressed by Paul D and what that would lead to.

This entire passage makes me think about how other people might interpret Sethe’s and Paul D’s actions and decisions. Beforehand, I thought that Sethe had not yet gotten over her husband’s death, however this passage showed me otherwise. It also made me think differently about men and what their actions truly meant. When Sethe says that men “encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands”, it made me think that men just want to make a woman believe that they really care in order to make a woman attached to them. Men know how to get you under their spell when they have ”studied your scars and tribulations”. Men let women pour their feelings and secrets out to them and as a result the women fall for the men. Whenever they have the chance to speak to a woman, they will take that opportunity to get involved in one’s life expecting to get something more in the future. Baby Suggs’ quote, “But maybe a man was nothing but a man” can be seen as a stereotypical interpretation of a man. Typically, our society thinks of men to be muscular and brave. In this passage, we can interpret it as if men only wanted one thing; sex.

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.