AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
There are multiple people in Beloved who have been traumatized from their experiences at Sweet Home, but in ways that manifest themselves differently based on their experiences. Sethe, even before shit goes south, had herself be constantly dehumanized by the students at Sweet Home, having her characteristics ranked in terms of human or animal, and being characterized as an "excellent breeder". And of course, that ultimately leads to what happened in the barn, the thing we don't like to talk about. She gets objectified and turned into some kind of animal, and it sticks with her even after her escape: Sethe often shows signs of having immense self-loathing for what she became as a result of being at Sweet Home-- during her escape, she seems to have a kind of disgust for the baby inside of her, which carries on into Denver's life. The self-loathing manifested within her leads her to believe that her children are the best part of herself, and she expresses that belief by saving them from Sweet Home through extremely violent means. And again, the fact that Denver was the last one she attempted to murder is evident of her feelings towards her.
Speaking of Denver, Sethe's trauma carries over to her as well: not just the stories she's been told from Sethe, but Sethe's issues as a whole, as well as the nature of Denver's birth and upbringing, have clearly left lasting consequences on her. When Beloved shows up, Denver becomes obsessed with her, seeing her as a kind of revered figure: the favorite of her mother's children, the one to impress, the one who her mother loved enough to murder. Denver is terrified of her mother, as is seen in her stream of consciousness chapter, where she expresses her profound love for what Beloved represents, as well as her fear that her mother will kill her. In a way, though, as Denver says this, she seems almost anticipatory, wondering if she will have her mother's love like Beloved. She even begins to conflate her identity with Beloved, seeing her as an extension of herself as opposed to who she actually is. Meanwhile, Beloved is a literal manifestation of the child Sethe murdered made physical by her repressed trauma, so... we don't really need to unpack all that.
Paul D is the other main player in this story, and another person who has long-stemming issues with himself due to his trauma. At Sweet Home, he was constantly being affirmed as a "man", even as he was beaten around and treated like a restrained dog. He ends up escaping, with restraints on the entire time. His entire walk to freedom, much like Sethe's, is marked by the one thing that caused him the most pain, and when he recalls that story, it is all he can remember. As a result, Paul D is constantly insecure about his role as a man and his role to Sethe, worrying about his role as a person, and he ends up creating a sort of self-destructive coping strategy to keep from thinking about his life at Sweet Home.
As the child quite literally "born into freedom" and with no direct experience of Sweet Home, it definitely makes sense to view Denver as representative of the future, of the first generation after Emancipation. And Morrison makes clear that there is no stark dividing line between past and present, North and South (just as the Fugitive Law erased the legal distinction between North and South, allowing the South's laws to extend into "free" territory): if Denver is the first generation, we see how profoundly her growth and development have been hindered by the past. She starts to "free" herself, in small steps, at the very end of the novel, and the narrative in general tilts toward the future and begins to put the past to rest. But there are multiple reminders that the past is not going to go away quietly--that Denver will still have to contend with a world that has been profoundly shaped by the history of slavery and its legacy.
ReplyDeleteI think it is fair to say that there was a time in Sethe's life in which "shit goes south", but given the systemic racism that runs this country (not only in the book, but now as well), I think that it is also fair to say that Sethe was born into a life in which shit had already gone south and was designed to keep it that way. Regardless, you make a good point about the presence of generational trauma in this novel. Despite not being born at Sweet Home, Denver is conceived there, and even if she wasn't it is still something that is connected to her family and her lineage. We see this clearly in Sethe's inability to continue telling Denver's birth story after a certain point because of the trauma that she has endured. Paul's interaction with and retelling of his trauma is interesting because of its intersectionality with his identity as a man. The way that all of the characters in this novel respond to and cope with trauma is very interesting as well as troubling to dissect. Good post!
ReplyDeletei love the title it's like my blog website literaaaaature :D
ReplyDeleteI like that you included Denver in here, because Sweet Home definitely shapes her life despite her frustration that this other part of her mother's and Paul's lives is completely inaccessible to her. In some sense it really isn't, because her fear of her mother killing her was a result of her mother's fear of Denver and her siblings being sent to Sweet Home. Denver's fear is like a high branch of the wide tree that is Sethe's fear and suffering - seemingly far away, but rooted in the same place.
AA has been Lit w u
I definitely agree that Sethe's children are almost an extension of herself that has not yet been polluted, and her acts of violence are her trying not to let schoolteacher dehumanize all of who she is. She doesn't want to have to go through that trauma again, since I think having to watch or know her children are going through that at Sweet Home would be equivalent to it being done to her all over again, if not worse. However, by doing anything she can to avoid it, like trying to kill her children and succeeding with one, it seems like she's almost created a different, additional trauma for herself in the form of Beloved, that's incredibly intertwined with her original Sweet Home trauma that it's hard to tell them apart at times.
ReplyDeleteI find your observations about Paul D interesting - I haven't seen a ton of blog posts focusing on him, nor did we spend nearly as much time on him as we did on the three leads in class. It's interesting how intertwined his and Sethe's traumas are, yet how differently the two turned out. While he too was humiliated and abused at Sweet Home, he responded in shock to the means Sethe took to prevent her children from going back. I suppose the difference is that he didn't have anyone he was bound to and responsible for like Sethe was to her children - even if he had had a spouse, it likely would not have come close to the visceral protectiveness that Sethe had for her children.
ReplyDeleteThis was a super interesting analysis of some of the ways Morrison shows the characters' pasts extending into their presents! Your discussion of Sethe's self-loathing and even disgust with herself as a result of the dehumanization and sexual trauma she's experienced reminds me a lot of Baby Sugg's "preaching" in her clearing—she has a deep awareness of the empowerment that reclaiming one's body holds, and so she tries to give this gift of self-love to her formerly enslaved community.
ReplyDeleteI think your point about Sethe viewing her children as an extension of herself is really interesting, and I agree that her violence toward her kids to save them from Sweet Home seems to be largely due to this. If her children--her best part of her--had to live through what Sethe experienced, it would have felt like a piece of her was tortured along with them. Now that I think more about this concept, it seems like this idea of someone seeing the people they care about as extensions of themself in response to trauma is a theme in this novel. Beloved feels this way about Sethe, hurt by Sethe's abandonment, and Denver feels this way about Beloved, traumatized by her mother's actions and fearful of Beloved being killed by Sethe again.
ReplyDelete