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.

Beloved

In Beloved we see that community solidarity plays a role in the events in this novel. The setting of the novel is in Ohio and mostly at the house 124. We learn that when Sethe first gets out of slavery she becomes part of the community. Throughout the book we get the sense that the community wants nothing to do with Sethe’s family. We find out why, which is that Sethe had killed her infant daughter to avoid her getting taken away and put into slavery. Community plays a big role in this event. The failure of the community to alert Sethe of school teachers arrival into town results in the death of Sethe’s daughter, which is the reason they have distanced themselves from the family afterwards. We also see how important a tight knit community is when Paul D is still in Georgia and all the inmates are able to escape by working together. They are all chained to one another and Paul D said, “ if one lost, all lost.

I think we see how community solidarity is important in our lives today. For instance, there have been riots breaking out in cities recently. The people in the riots are causing the communities to break apart, but there are some who pull together and stand up against that to keep the community together. When communities stick together and are strong it leads to a safer and also more stable and functional community. The relationships in the community they lived in had some traditions. An example of this is when Stamp Paid talks about how after he did a favor to a family “ he took the liberty of walking in your door as though it were his own”. This means that they were a close community and they had a close relationship between them, they helped each other and worked together. I think this concept is relatable to everyone. Everyone is part of a community, some closer than others and also with our own traditions. I think this book shows that all it takes is one initiative move to bring people together if there is no closeness.

At the end of this novel Denver realizes that the situation in which they are living is complicated and that she has to do something solve the problem.

“She would have to leave the yard…Leave the two behind and go ask somebody for help”. Denver then goes out and asks lady Jones for help, by doing this she opens up the community. She tells them the story about Beloved and by doing this she ends up being part of the community again. We see that because of this, the community pulls together and everyone starts contributing with what they can. “Every now and then all through the spring, names appeared near or in the gifts of food”. The people started sending food because they knew Sethe and Denver didn’t have much to eat anymore. After finally discovering the whole story they came together and go to 124 to get rid of Beloved and help save Sethe. Without the help from others Denver wouldn’t have been able to help Sethe. By doing that they are coming together to release themselves from the past that has emotionally chained them down for so long.

       I can’t imagine living as an outsider as Sethe and Denver did for so long. I think having a community to lean on is important. You should be able to trust your neighbors and all pull together in hardships. I think feeling all alone, especially like Denver did, is not good for people. We all deserve to have the feeling that we have someone to lean on when we need it the most. I think it’s sad how they community distanced themselves when Sethe needed them the most. I think it’s ironic how the death of the baby distanced them, but Beloved( who I believe is a representative of the baby that had died) brought the community back together. 

Literary Context: Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford. Both of her parents came from sharecropping families who had moved north in pursuit of better living conditions. She grew up in a lively household and was surrounded by songs, fairy tales, ghost stories, myths, and the language of their African American heritage. The importance of listening to stories and creating them contributed to her love of reading. While attending Howard University she changed her name to Toni ( which came from her middle name Anthony) and was involved in the repertory theatre; their trips to perform gave her the opportunity to observe the African American experience in the south. Not only is Toni Morrison and author but she was also a teacher and editor.

As an editor, she edited a range of books, fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, on subjects ranging from abortion rights to reparations. She believed that her presence at random house : assured the black author who walked through the door that he doesn’t have to explain everything-somebody is going to understand what he’s trying to do in his terms, no in somebody else’s but in his”.  As an editor she was very hands on and was involved with every step of the publishing process. She believed her perspective as an editor gave her a privileged vantage point from which to appreciate both the author and the text. The most singular project she took on was called the Black Book.  The Black Book is a source for beloved in a very specific sense. It reprints and article titled: A visit to the slave mother who killed her child” which is a contemporary account of Margaret Garners crime and punishment, the historical even that makes up the plot of Beloved.

            Her first novel was The Bluest Eye, which was published in 1970. Morrison’s fascination with language is revealed by her presentation for the vernacular of black people in her novels. “Black style is not”-she warned us “ as some writers think, ‘dropping g’s’ it is rather the oral quality and the restoration for the language to its original power”. Toni Morrison likes to polish clichés and recover their original meanings. Her most striking literary techniques in her first novel are the narrative voice and in the emotional lives of her characters. Her most known novel, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is Beloved. When she was first writing Beloved, Morrison was obsessed with fragments of stories about two different incidents: a child murdered by an ex-slave and the forgiveness of a young lover who helped her murder escape. Morrison set out to write about the interior lives of slaves to fill in the blanks that were left out of the slave narratives when the narrators drew a veil over stories too terrible to relate.

            To study Toni Morrison’s writing, we read the novel Beloved for class. I think Beloved did a great job in what Toni Morrison set out to do, that is writing about the interior lives of slave narratives when narrators drew a veil over stories. Morrison’s writing allows us to see history in a different perspective and clear up those clichés that might have been giving us something other than the whole truth.  We can also see connections to Morrison’s past influences in this novel. Having the experience to go to the south to see southern African American experience could have been an influence in putting together the lives of her southern slave characters. As stated before, as a child one of the things in her household were ghost stories and also the language of her heritage. Beloved could be taken as a ghost story. Many people could assume that Beloved is a ghost. In Beloved Morrison really brings to light the history of African Americans and rips the veil off that most narrators, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin had.

“ I used to think to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But its 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.”

            The passage above from Beloved I think really shows that no one will ever forget what they were forced to endure during slavery. Although it is a new time and slavery was abolished the things that happened does not go away. The places where they happened are still there and the people have those images of the places and events etched in their mind, which they pass down generations and generations. All the slaves that had to endure it are long gone but the memory will remain forever and the harsh reality and truth of what they went through will live on forever. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a great step forward in getting a different perspective of slavery.

             

Works Cited

Thao, Gaushia, Meyer,Sarah, Dipasquale,David. Toni Morrison. Ed. Gaushia, Meyer,Sarah, Dipasqualie,David Thao. 02 28 07. 10 05 2015 <voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/morrison.toni.php#biblio>.

Tally, Justine, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Cambridge Companions Online. Web. 10 May 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL052186111X

Good Country People

Religion is a big theme in “Good Country People” by Flannery O’ Connor. In this story the daughter Joy who has renamed herself, Hulga is an open atheist. Her mother on the other hand claims to be a Christian. When Manley, a man selling bibles, who also claims to be christian comes to their house to sell bibles, Mrs. Hopewell invites him in. Manley and Hulga hit it off and go out together. Manley takes Hulga up to the loft of the barn and Hulga we soon find out who Manley truly is. Manley being a Christian is a lie. We learn this when he opens his bible and it is hollow inside and filled with dirty pictures, booze, and condoms. In the end Manley ends up stealing Hulga’s fake leg and confessing to her that he actually doesn’t believe in anything and does the Christian act to get what he wants.

         Knowing the authors background, of how she was a devoted catholic, I think helps understand the role of religion in this story. I think it’s kind of ironic how she brings out the worst of religion. This shows that people can claim to be something but you don’t really know what’s in their heart. I think she wrote this to get people to want religion in their life. She shows how Hulga does not have religion in her life and what the outcomes of her situation.

         In the text we can see where there is a contradiction in Mrs. Hopewell’s religion. The text says, “ My daughter is an atheist and won’t let me keep the Bible in my parlor”(p.1345). Mrs. Hopewell really keeps her Bible in the attic, meaning she doesn’t think it’s important to have around. She may not be an atheist like her daughter, but this shows that religion isn’t a big part of her life. We can definitely see where Manley misuses Christianity. “ He was now nineteen years old and had been selling Bibles for four months. In that time he had sold seventy-five bibles..”.(p.1346) Even though Mrs. Hopewell and Joy do not have religion in their life Manley still wants to convince them that he is a devoted Christian. He knows they will be more trusting of him. He says things to build up his convincing belief in Christianity. Hulga asks Manley why he brought his bibles with him and he replies, “ You can never tell when you’ll need the word of God..”(p.1349). That line makes it sound like he wants the bible with him everywhere he goes, which makes him sound like a devoted Christian. But when we observe why he really wants his bible with him everywhere he goes, we can see how easily it is to be fooled by what someone presents and what actually is their motivation or what’s inside.

         Overall I really like this story. I liked the message of the story and it was not only relatable to a religious perspective but it was also relatable to other aspects of life. You truly never know what is in a person’s heart. I think this shows the dangers of giving people the benefit of the doubt. Also it shows how you should not pretend to be someone you’re not. If Mrs. Hopewell would stop pretending religion is a big part of her life and have been more forward to Manley about how they’re not interested in religion and wouldn’t have invited him in then Hulga wouldn’t have gotten into the situation she got in.

A streetcar named desire

In a streetcar named desire there is a theme of women being dependent on the men. We can see in the text that both Stella and Blanche have a dependency in men but in their own different circumstances. I think both Blanche and Stella think that the way to be happy is to have a man. In the text Blanche sees how Stanley treats Stella and gets her sister to see she would be better off without him. What she really means by this is not that her sister should be without a man but instead leave him for a different wealthy man that could financially support her. Stella does not listen to her sister and remains and relies on the man in her life, Stanley, on whom she is dependent. Blanche on the other hand, thinks that marrying Mitch will be a way out of her poverty and she sees him, being a man, someone to depend on. Blanche thinks that marriage to a man is the only way to secure her future. When Mitch rejects her, Blanche moves onto the next prospect, the wealthy man she tried to get her sister to leave Stanley for. Because she thinks that a man is the only way to help her, she is blinded by how she can try to help herself.

     Being from modern times, I can see how blinded these women were back then on their dependency on men. They thought of their only means to having a stable life was to have a man. Now days, women are and know they can be independent and they don’t need a man to financially support them. I can’t imagine feeling like finding a man to marry is my only means to having a secure future. Before reading this I knew it was the man’s role to be the head of the household back then and that women were the homemakers. I knew that women were dependent on the men, but this story really highlights that aspect of our history.

     We can see in the text that Blanche flirts around with men to try to find a husband and there is a tone of desperation. In scene three when Blanche and Mitch are talking he describes them as a rough bunch. Blanche responds, “ I’m very adaptable-to circumstances”(p. 1136).  Blanche has shown herself to be someone that would look down on lower class. This text suggests that Blanche is so desperate to find a man to depend on that she would stop caring about what she seems really concerned about: social class. Blanche also seems like she is dependent on Mitch for compliments. We can see her fishing for compliments when she calls herself an old maid schoolteacher. Purposely fishing for compliments is her way of trying to flirt with men and to get them to make her feel better about herself. Fishing for compliments makes her look very insecure, which in fact she is insecure about her future and also about her age.

     Although woman didn’t have power and they depended on a man, Blanche still has a little power. The power she can use is manipulation. She tries to manipulate the men to try to fall for her. I think the reason she is so desperate is because of her past. She had lost her relatives and her home. She also had been married before and that ended tragically. There is a pattern in her life of loosing things. She wants someone to depend on and keep her grounded. I think that is why Blanche seems more obsessive in depending on a man than Stella seems to be. In the end Blanche gets sent away and will in the end be alone. Her desperate actions didn’t give her a good outcome. Maybe if she wouldn’t have been manipulative and shady she would have gotten a better outcome. It’s a nice feeling to have someone to depend on, but Blanche went about it in the wrong way.