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April 12, 2007
Kindred and Beloved
In a previous post, the relationships in Kindred and Beloved were contrasted. As I was reading that post, I started to think how the relationships between the slaves in each novel were so distictly different. In Kindred they seemed to depend on each other for strength and encouragement. Each slave seemed to have their role on the plantation and it was never argued upon between them all. While there was the occasional rift or jealousy, there was never really any internal fighting of an extreme magnitude that was presented. Meanwhile, in Beloved there seemed to be so much tension between all the slaves. For example, Baby Suggs never seemed to love any of her children and almost all former slaves in Cincinnatti seemed to hate Sethe for what she had done to Beloved. It is interesting to think about which of these settings was more commonly encountered in this period of United States history. It could have been one or the other, or even both just depending on each individual home or community.
Posted by shankamp at April 12, 2007 10:47 PM