英文文學與文化教學資料庫

Beloved

Slavery and its Influence on family and motherhood

Background

Beloved: Setting and Timeline:

1873 (the present) Cincinattie, Ohio; the past--a Kentucky plantation called Sweet Home.
1855 Beloved born--> 1856 S's arrival at 124 --> 28 days after--the tragedy; Baby S's faith collapses--
--> 1864 Baby stays in bed --> 1866 Baby S's death --> 1873 (the present time of the novel)-74

Beloved: Backgrounds => middle passage; images (Civil War 1861-1865); etc.

Main Themes:

1. Slavery and its Influence on family and motherhood;
2. Memory and Language (syntax, use of symbols)
3. Rememory and Community;
4. Beloved as a postmodern history.

Reference to Historical Background:

the drifting after the civil war--52-53; the whites didn't bear speaking on. pp. 66-67; 1874 a lot of lynching and deaths of Blacks--> the red ribbon p. 180

TOP

Plot

Chap I

sec 1 Paul's arrival and beating the ghost
sec 2 P and S making love and remembering
sec 3 D's secret place; her seeing B with S;
   Denver asks S about the past;
   S's and P's changes after seeing each other
sec 4 the trip to the carnival 46-49
     Sethe's seeing their shadows holding hands 47
sec 5 Beloved's arrival
sec 6 B asks about the diamond
sec 7 P v.s. B shining; P and S about Halle, and P's bit
sec 8 Denver and Beloved dancing, reconstructing D's birth
sec 9 Sethe goes to the Clearing; remembers her arriving at BS's; seeing her kids (93); being stroked by BS, almost strangled, stroked again by BL;
sec 10 Paul D trembling; his past --in tabacco tin box;
sec 11 She moved him (from Sethe's room to the kitchen, to BS's room, to the cold house, etc. "red heart, red heart")
sec 12 Denver as a looker, in need of Beloved;
sec 13 Paul D goes to Sethe for help (asserting his manhood, grateful for two women)
sec 14 Beloved pulls out a back tooth, and cries.
sec 15 Baby Sugg's freedom --> her feast (started out with Stamp Paid's berries); she smells disapproval.
sec 16 the capture, told from the catchers' perspective, then Baby Sugg's.
sec 17 Revelation to Paul D
sec 18 Sethe's version (her views of motherhood)

Part Two
sec 1 124 was loud.   Stamp Paid's visit; the three women skating, taking flavored milk; Sethe's discovery 176; Stamp Paid's memory of Baby Sugg and her fatigue; Sethe starts to talk to Beloved pp. 183 -(jail and gravestone) ; pp. 191 -(notebook -->escape) , SP to Ella and John
sec 2 Sethe's monologue; about the escape, the Misery, and her getting close to Saturday girl.
sec 3 Denver's; about her fear of her mother, missing her angel Daddy, about Baby Sugg
sec 4 Beloved's; about the middle passage;
sec 5 chorus of the three women;
sec 6 Paul D's memory of his escape and Six-O;
sec 7 Stamp Paid goes to Paul D

Part Three
sec 1 Denver takes action

TOP

Slavery and Its Influence on Family and Motherhood

A. Slavery's influence on the Black's sense of identity:

dead negro's grief in every house 5
treated as objects: Baby Sugg's past--people treated as checkers 23; marks on the body of Sethe's mother,
categorized as animals p. 193;
no hope for God: Sethe: does not pray, talk instead 35; Baby Sugg's last view of God p. 179;
no dignitiy: Paul D: cannot compare with a rooster (71-72)
no name: Baby Sugg called Jenny (142);

B. Sweet Home which is not Home:

the Garners and Sweet Home Sweet Home men 10; Paul D's memory p. 125; Halle's interpretation of Sweet Home pp. 195-96
hunger for sex: the five negro men and Sethe, 9-10; "Wasn't Sweet and wasn't home."14

C. Sethe as a mother and as a daughter:

the breaking up of family/mother-daughter pp. 60-61 Sethe's mother; Nan's words 62; memory of her mother 29
the tree on Sethe's back 16-17; 79
of their wedding 26-27;
of the school teacher 37;
how she was almost found by the school teacher and then jailed 42
her crystals 58-59--marriage no ceremony
Cannot remember her children (sycamores beat out the children p. 6)
Sethe's love for Beloved, her grave 4-5;
her love for her daughters 45-46 (risky for Paul); calls herself "baby's moma" 93-94
her view of the house (need to like "Sweet Home"; cannot leave 124): 22.
clues to her killing the baby--no more powerful than the way I love her 4-5
cost too much to take one journey 15; jail 42;
she could do and survive "the things" 47;
Baby's S's collapse of faith 89;
28 days 95;
the perfect death of her crawling already? baby;
Lord's question 104

D. Denver's isolation: Denver & her green bower

E. Paul D --his pride as a man --annoyed by and proud of Sethe 8; his skepticism 10;
      Paul D's--tree and potato p. 21-; of Sixo 24-25; of Alfred, Georgia, which closed one portion in his
      mind 40-41; her jail=his Alfred; Paul's bit--rooster p. 71--Mister beating him
      Paul D's experience of the chain gang, being rescued by the Cherokee pp. 106-

F. Resistance and retaining the little dignity they can have;

Six-O's going out at night, meeting his Thirty-Mile Woman; (22; 24-25); singing before his death, laughing 226-27;
Sethe's wedding dress and their "wedding."

G. Re-gaining humanity and reconstructing family:

no more running away 15
Baby Suggs--her interest in color 4; and her children 5; becomes an unchurched preacher 87 of heart and self-loveb
history of 124 and Baby Sugg 124 (sec 9); Baby Sugg's last words 104
at the carnival--48

3. Memory, Identity and Language (syntax, use of symbols)

experience of slavery --unnameable,
e.g. tree & milk, green bower, rooster, tobacco tin box, red ribbon (180); jungle inside (198-99); Seven-O (228-29), color (harmless colors), crystal earrings,

TOP

Rememory and Community

1. Memory Repressed or unknown:

different views of the past
-- 42 Sethe keeps the past at bay; Denver cares only about it
-- Denver's memory of Sethe's walking while being pregnant 29-30
-- Amy's 35--"anything dead coming back to life"

1) Sethe: tries not to remember

--"she worked hard to remember as close to nothing as was safe" (6)
-- does not go inside 46
--"the serious work of beating back the past" (73).

2) Paul D

2. Rememory & Emergence of the past:

-- Rememory: "Anything dead coming back to life hurts" --> ", , ,nothing ever dies" (35-36); things that never go; not just in the mind, but out there;
-- Sethe's thoughts
-- 124 (spiteful pp. 3-4); Denver's view of the house:--like a person 29; Sethe's being constrained by 124 39;

3. The Beginning of active memory:

1. Paul D's arrival:

2. Beloved:
a) Who is Beloved?
-- Beloved sec 5--pp. 50-51--Sethe waters like water breaks 51;
-- drinks a lot; the three's different responses to her 53; 55;
-- her eyes 55; her attention to Sethe (sec 6); her eyes bottomless longing 58
-- Is she the crawling already? 98

b) What are her influences?
-- Upon seeing her, Paul D thinks of "the War" pp. 52; 68
-- B's need for storytelling --Sethe starts to want to tell stories; pp.58 (marriage); 69-70 (talk with Paul D about Halle in the barn seeing Sethe 69); p. 76
-- Denver of S's memory of her birth and S's escape: pp. 77-

3. Beloved's past p 75

C. Forming a Community:

1. Paul D's influence on Sethe
--start to remember (sec 2);
-- temptation to trust 38;
-- find how barren 124 is 39 ;
-- assures her she can go anywhere she likes, "we can make a life" 46
-- 95-96--drive away one ghost, brings another haunting; get over this image 97
-- her willingness to start a new life with him 99--trust and rememory (their secrets would come)

2. Beloved and Denver:
--her care for Beloved, possessive,54
-- dances with Beloved--knows where she is from 74-75
-- solitude makes her secretive; dull her in some ways and sharpens her in some others 99
-- think BL was hers 104;
-- the question makes her watch for the baby and withdraw from everything else 105
-- see BL watching two turtles 105

3. Sethe, Beloved and Denver

Sethe (after going to the Clearing) p. 87--get off the wagon-p. 90
Denver's her going to school, Nelson Lord's question 102--two years in silence
--return of her hearing--the presence becomes spiteful 104

4. community BS's ;
the one that helps her cross the river and get to BS's, that welcomes S 95;

TOP

Images

The Middle Passage

TOP