Final Project: Critical Commentary

In “Hearing Reading and Being ‘Read’ by Beloved” by Angeletta Km Gourdine, the character of Beloved is brought to light. Instead of focusing on Sethe as a main character she analyzes the character of Beloved and the role she plays in the novel. What the author is trying to do is make sense of Beloved’s character. She talks about how Morrison “speaks the unspoken” and also gives the voice to the “unspeakable”. She also makes the claim that Beloved’s body represents a history of cultural pain. Beloved’s body portrays the future, one doomed by forgetting and remembering. Beloved resists being forgotten by placing herself in the present time, making the characters remember her. The characters in the novel spent years trying to forget about the child and now that Beloved is present it doesn’t make sense to try to forget; because Beloved is there, it is impossible. Beloved points out that although remembering seemed unwise, it is unavoidable. Denver “ actively manipulates the world and the past so as to create a future,” the author sees Beloved “as a vision of a future world where the past is manipulated, so that black women are prohibited from reclaiming an identity they taught us to despise”. Beloved’s rage manifests this identity.  The author believes that Beloved coming back to the present shows people living in the present that trying to bury past and forget pain that had occurred will not work. You can’t go into your future thinking that you can just forget, the past will haunt you. We must live in the present with the idea that there must always be a place for the past in the future; we can take the past and learn from it instead of trying to bury it. Just as Sethe’s child is still with her even though shes gone, the memory of slavery is still with us even though it was abolished. The authors says that “The idea of disremembrance and its consequences are the foundations of her response to Morrison’s novel. The novel Beloved relies upon amnesia about the horrific historical background our history has and it reminds everyone the price we pay for being comfortable with forgetting what happened. She explains how “there are two ways of existing in the textual and physical world of Beloved”. You handle your business, which is becoming involved with the reconciling with your past and if you don’t your business will handle you: you will be controlled or manipulated by the things that haunt you.

I think this authors response and interpretation of Beloved is an interesting way to look at it. I agree with all her points and I think her response achieve what she was looking to do. I think the way she describes Beloved and what she symbolizes is a true representation of Beloved. Beloved is this mysterious character who I think comes back to present to bring back the memory of Sethe’s deceased child. When in doing this, she also shows people that you can’t escape the past and you must face it in order to move forward peacefully in your future. I think this brings to light our past history and show how some may be okay with forgetting, others it affects much longer to reconcile with what happened. Our history’s horrific past was a different experience for different people and we all must not forget the past, but instead learn from it. I think this line from Sethe really reflects how you cannot escape or forget your past; it will always be there:

“I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place—the picture of it—stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened."

            Sethe reminds us that although something is gone, it still remains as part of present. The memory of it will always be there even if it is no long physically there. I think a lot of us can relate to that. We think of our childhood, and the house we grew up in or our childhood friends might be physically gone, but the memory will always be there, and you can picture it in your mind, as if it were yesterday. The character of Beloved/her deceased child will always be in Sethe’s mind although Sethe is trying to bury the memory. Because of that, Beloved crosses over to the present to rekindle that memory and show that you can’t just pretend like the past never happened and that it is okay to remember the past.

When first reading Beloved, the character of Beloved was sort of confusing. The book would jump to present and past, and the character of Beloved showed up out of nowhere and was quite a mysterious character. Throughout the novel, we can piece together who we think Beloved is, but an article such as Gourdine’s can help explain and help you to connect who Beloved is and what she means. By reading this article you can faster piece together who Beloved is and not only get a deeper understanding of the character but you can then more quickly piece together your own interpretation of Beloved’s character and decide for yourself what she means to you.

Works Cited

Gourdine, Angeletta Km. "Hearing Reading and Being "Read" by Beloved." NWSA Journal 10.No. 2 (1998): 13-31.