Blog Post 18: FREEDOM...FREEDOM...

Chapters nine through twelve examine Beloved’s role in each character’s life and how they deal with the past. In chapter nine, Sethe has decided to go to the Clearing, a place Baby Suggs used to preach, because in recent days she has found herself at unease with how to deal with her burdensome past. At one moment, she is letting the ghost of Baby Suggs rub her neck, but shortly she finds herself being strangled (113). When she is saved by Beloved and Denver, bruises appear on her neck. These physical marks are made to show that even though one’s past cannot be seen, it has a lasting and visible impact on the future. The way Denver and Beloved react to the bruises represent different ways of dealing with a harsh past: Beloved’s choice to nurture and touch them represents her advocacy for confronting the past, while Denver’s choice to ignore them shows that she would rather avoid the past and try to focus on the present (114).

In Chapter 10, the reader learns about Paul D’s experience in a prison where he was chained to forty-six other prisoners, sexually abused, forced to work, and confined to living in a wooden box in the ground. After Paul D escapes from this low point in his life, he learns to deal with the past by repressing it and putting it into a “tobacco tin lodged in his chest” (133). In Chapter 11, when Beloved and Paul D have sex, Beloved demands that she will not leave until he calls her by name (137). When the sexual encounter is complete, Paul D repeats the phrase “Red Heart” over and over (138). Because Beloved is used as a representation of the past, her insistence on him calling her by name shows that the past must be confronted before one can move on. Paul D’s repetition of “Red Heart”  symbolizes that he is finally confronting his past and letting his memories out of “the tobacco tin lodged into his chest” and into his heart.

Blog Post 16: Dearly BELOVED...We is Typing Here Today...

When Paul D comes to 124, he immediately rearranges the prior familial structure and assumes the typical male role as the head of the household: “There was no room for any other thing or body until Paul D arrived and broke up the place, making room, shifting it, moving it to someplace else, then standing in the place he had made" (47). One might find it peculiar that Sethe allowed him to take this role so promptly considering all the men in her life have left her, but this male absence is actually the very reason she enables him to assume the head position of the family. On page 47, Sethe reminisces on when her two sons left her: "There was a time when she scanned the fields every morning and every evening for her boys." Ever since her sons left her, she has been yearning for a male presence to come back to her, which is why she is so eager to accepts Paul D when he comes from her past and into her present life. She believes that if she is able to move forward and create a family with him, she will be able to move on from the past. On page 51, Morrison writes, "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. The fact that Paul D had come out of "that other one" into her bed was better too; and the notion of a future with him was beginning to stroke her mind." Throughout the next chapter Sethe continues to think of Paul D as part of the family as she watches their shadows "hold hands". Paul D being part of the family is not only beneficial to Sethe because it is a way to escape the past, but she also sees it as a way to help Denver: "Soothed by sugar, surrounded by a crowd of people who did not find [Denver] the main attraction, who, in fact, said, "Hey, Denver," every now and then, pleased her enough to consider that Paul D wasn't all that bad." As Denver warms up to Paul D at the carnival, Sethe continues to entertain the idea of Paul D being the head of the family because she sees him as a way to bring her family back to normalcy and therefore give Denver more companionship as part of society.

In chapter 5, a strange woman named Beloved comes out of the water and eventually makes it to 124. There is obviously something extremely peculiar about Beloved, but Sethe, Denver, and Paul D do not even make an effort to ask her questions about her background. On page 62, Paul D identifies with Beloved's slow and difficult pronunciation of the letters of her name and relates it to a part of his past, when many people from all different backgrounds would walk together, all with different destinations and issues. On page 63 he describes these crowds as "silent, except for social courtesies, when they met one another they neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to another." Because Paul D understands that everyone deals with different struggles, he decides not to ask Beloved about her past. Sethe's lack of inquiry is for other reasons, however. Sethe does not ask Beloved any questions about her background because she is preoccupied with reminiscing over her daughter: "Sethe was deeply touched by her sweet name; the remembrance of glittering headstone made her feel especially kindly toward her." Because Sethe feels called to be a motherly figure to Beloved, Sethe does not care where Beloved came from, she only cares about nurturing her. Denver does not question Beloved's identity either, and her reasoning varies from Paul D's and Sethe's as well. Denver's upbringing has been very isolated, so she sees Beloved as an opportunity for companionship. Denver immediately takes on the role of Beloved's caretaker because she is desperate to have someone there for her to keep her from being lonely. So even though their reasoning is all different, Paul D's, Sethe's, and Denver's decisions not to question Beloved leaves her identity up in the air.