Understanding Beloved

Contrary to the title of this post, I don't really understand Beloved. Now I wouldn't call myself the most careful of readers, but I'm still really confused by this book. The book quickly plunges you into 124, a haunted house right outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. The main story is literally haunted by another story that happened 18 years ago, coinciding with the birth of one of the main characters. The most challenging part of reading the book for me is piecing the individual tidbits of information that we are given and shaping that into a coherent and concrete narrative. Somehow it reminds me of Invisible Man, in which reading it felt like a nightmare, in some ways. Reading Beloved is very surreal, and terrifying. For starters, there's a freaking ghost baby! At the same time, it also feels like the main characters are the ones waking up from the nightmare, as Sethe and Paul D learn more about their past and Denver learns it.

One thing that I have been thinking about is the metaphor that Beloved presents about slavery at large. I think Morrison by writing in the horrific accounts of slavery that the main characters face and the inevitable psychological trauma that follows, she presents an entire demographic of Americans that still face outdated problems to this day. I think that's what I'll write my essay on anyway. What do you guys think of that?

Comments

  1. IzzyNovember 12, 2018 at 7:10 PM

    Yeah, I really felt confused by this book too. I think that it does a very good job of cramming in all the information that it does, and it definitely produces a very vivid picture, if a confusing one. It's definitely got pretty creepy, horrific vibes as well and I think that was probably the feeling it was supposed to invoke.

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  2. SamirNovember 12, 2018 at 8:07 PM

    Cool post! If we run with your idea about the story having allegorical implications for slavery's lasting impact on America, the 'rememberance' that Sethe experiences seems kind of blunt. Even though the time that these horrible things took place in has passed, they will never truly disappear, and will continue to impact people in the future.

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  3. ZonaNovember 13, 2018 at 8:34 PM

    I think that's a really interesting idea to follow, to look at how Beloved depicts slavery. Because to me it seems to be a very personal account. You can maybe get an idea of slavery as a system, but this story is about it's human impact. You see how people felt, how their families functioned, and how even when slavery ended the impacts still lasted.

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  4. Martin DNovember 15, 2018 at 5:26 PM

    It is an interesting idea on how to perceive slavery, but I thought that it was interesting that Beloved does have a connection with Denver. Perhaps Denver has something still connected to Sweet Home.

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  5. Ayat JaberNovember 23, 2018 at 4:36 PM

    A lot of books end happily, make sense, and have a cohesive narrative. I think by making events more complicated and making us have to piecethings together like this, Morrison shows us tthis isnt a happy and nice story. Slavery didn't make sense and it certainly wasn't right or happy. As readers we get a small, very small, piece of what that means.

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