美國文學首頁   /   The 20th Century -- Second Half 二十世紀 -- 後半  /  作家  /  Toni  Morrison  東妮.莫莉森  /  作品
Beloved
作者Author  /  Toni  Morrison  東妮.莫莉森

Beloved

 

 Background

 Plot

 Slavery and its Influence on family and motherhood

 Rememory and Community

 Images

 
 
 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

   
 

 

導讀
Copyright ©2009 國科會人文學中心 All Rights Reserved.