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April 04, 2007
Steven King... watch out
What a truly horrifying story. Like, just REALLY terrifying.
We talked a bit in class about how this story is, in some ways, "magical realism" (or at least contains elements of the genre). What I find interesting about this, however is the extent to which Morrison makes graphic, or explicit, scenes/emotions/events which many authors would instead choose to allude to. She does this to the point that it almost makes the reader (at least me) unconfortable.
Example #1: ""As she reained up from the heat she felt Paul D behind her and his hands under her breasts... What she knew was the the responsability for her breasts, at last, was in somebody else's hands." (18 in non-red cover copy)
Example #2: In the scene where Sethe has just killed the girl who will become Beloved and Baby Suggs is trying to take the dead girl: "They fought then. Like rivals over the heart of the of the loved.. Baby Suggs lost when she slipped in a red puddle and fell. So Denver took her mother's milk right along with the blood of her sister." (152)
This type of graphic violence loaded with thematic and symbolic importance at first put me off as a reader. Admittedly, I still have a hard time wanting to pick up the novel and read it (especially when we find out later that she used A SAW to kill the child). However, after reading the essay exploring the purpose of "American Gothic" literature as a sort of critique of the contradictions of American history, Morrison's graphic choices seemed more necessary and useful.
There's so much more to say about this. I'll just conclude with a few talking points (please comment on any if you noticed them too!):
- the color red as a symbol for a "black person's" pain and suffering
- "falling" (the three women ice skating, Baby Suggs fall on the RED puddle, Paul D's fall because of Sethe)
- the "chain" around the neck (Beloved choking Sethe, Paul D's chain)
- water
Posted by premonp at April 4, 2007 09:41 PM
Comments
I haven't read "Gothic America," so I can't comment with regard to that. However, I have to say that reading about the look in Sethe's eyes, how they are black with no white, was disturbing for me in that it awoke this image of soullessness.
As for the falling, I think it is interesting how it always happens right before one of these former slaves seems to give up on life, when each one reached their breaking point. Suggs falls on the baby's blood right before she retires to her bed; Sethe falls with Beloved on the ice, and later (SPOILER) seems to lose herself when the crowd drives out Beloved. I think this is an interesting use of foreshadowing, in that Morrison establishes it as a pattern. Assuming this has any validity, though, why did Paul D manage to regain himself, and is Morrison using this to imply a greater message about acceptance?
(Sorry this is so long)
Posted by: gdejongh at April 4, 2007 11:54 PM
I figured out, what I think, is a decent analogy: The novel Beloved is like a Salador Dali painting. Surrealist and creepy but also strangely beautiful. Horribly intricate to the point where one can never really grasp all of it at once and each re-visit reveals something new.
You know what I'm talking about??
Posted by: premonp at April 5, 2007 07:59 PM
I noticed that the meaning of red is addressed when Stamp Paid hoped that Baby Suggs "stuck to blue , yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red" (213). This implies that red is a "negative" color, maybe a symbol of a black person's pain and suffering. Baby Suggs giving up on life, to lay down and think about color, in general, for the rest of her life, maybe her way of giving into her own pain and suffering or maybe a way to deny it.
Posted by: emlauren at April 9, 2007 09:13 PM
Well, Nicole, I know what you are talking about with regard to Dali, but I'm not sure I can agree with its application to Beloved. Something about this book just really turns me off of it; however, if my opinions were different, I would say that is quite an apt analogy.
Posted by: gdejongh at April 9, 2007 11:18 PM
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