Sethe's Tension

The article Revisions, Rememories, Exorcisms argues that Sethe’s actions reveals her inner tension, and that reveals the general theory of peace through music . I agree with this article. First, Sethe has been through several life experiences which formed her opinion about whites; her family’s experiences have also allowed her to form this opinion. However, she doesn’t want Denver to be exposed to these opinions, so she limits her talks to Denver. As the article states that “life-supporting fictions can easily be destroyed by facts which shatter the protective formulations”, Sethe wants tprotect the innocent Denver. However, the article says something which I disagree with; the passage says that a “in a classic slave narrative...the pathos of separation receives attention rather than personal relationships themselves”. In my opinion, this isn’t true. The personal relationships create the bonds and deeper themes of the story, and not really the “pathos of separation. The psychoanalytical lens allows us to observe this relationship between close characters, such as Sethe and Denver. From a mother-daughter relationship, it appears that Sethe cares for her daughter and doesn’t want Denver to be influenced by the dirt of the world. The article seems to agree with this, stating that “the sensitivity and complexity of human interaction”, causes certain bones to be left undug for the best. The truth might set someone free from a burden, but the truth may also push someone over the edge of life, causing overwhelming feelings. This article helped me better understand sethe and her character through a psychoanalytic lens. Through this article, I saw that sethe was internally broken and misunderstood. With her family's past at sweet home, she was left scarred and broken. Also, I understood that Denver was broken because of this past, but Paul d was there to help guide Denver away from her mother's pain. Since Denver and sethe are so close, it makes sense that their feelings are almost synchronized. This helps ys understand the mother and daughter bond, as the article says. Throughout the book, we see non verbal relationships such as Denver and sethe. They both share the pain and happiness, but this raises the question. Is Paul d simply interrupting a relationship?

No love like a mother's love

I chose to analyze “Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Psychological Reading”. My interpretation through the psychoanalytic lens of what she wrote was that she believes that mothers are powerful. I agree with this: our mothers represent the core of our lives. In Beloved, Denver learns that her life is centralized around her mother.  There is purpose in being a mother because of how the instincts of a woman can change when she reaches that point in her life when she wishes to bare a child. The emotional attachment to a child from her mother is extraordinary, and it hurts to break. In Beloved, Denver shares an interesting bond with her mother.  From the reading, I was able to deduce the general idea and perspective of the author. Sandra Mayfield believes that the presence of motherly love is derived from behavioral traits that contribute to the human perception. Living most of her childhood as a slave has a genuine impact on her future as a human being and will continue to change the well-being of her decision making. This argument that Mayfield makes can be seen in the actual text of Beloved. Sethe admits to killing her daughter, which ultimately made her children fear her. The text suggests that the supernatural being of Beloved was the reason people were afraid of 124. But from what Sethe suggests, it can be argued that Sethe was the reason that people feared 124. The motherly love that Sethe exhibit on her children is considered sinister and cruel.  I agree with the analysis. But I also disagree. Though Sethe is "sinister", she is only providing for her daughter. She's trying to escape the pain of sweet home. Then Paul D enters, bringing his PTSD into the aura of the house. Sethe, though defeated, still remains strong. This shows me a valuable lesson: when life becomes tough, we have setbacks. Then, we set step forward.

Never Forget

When I was reading Beloved through the Psychoanalytic Lens, I paid close attention to the thoughts of the characters. Using the psychoanalytical lens, I was able to use this lens to know why characters use certain lenses. The thoughts are influenced by not only through their actions, but also through their past. Since Sethe and her family were traumatized at Sweet Home, from mental, sexual, and physical abuse.  I noticed that many of them tried very hard to forget about their past, but the most interesting thing I found was that they seemed to NOT detach from their past. It was their identity. It was a part of their heart that they grew into. The world became gray to them: nothing was same and nothing was different. Because they were all slaves, their pasts were filled with painful memories. Their painful memories got in their ways of being happy. They were killing themselves with depression, and they embraced this death.  So what they tried do was bury the memories in their unconscious minds, but they couldn't. They tried to completely erase their past from their memory which is not possible. It is impossible because memories are forever in our minds or brains unless they are physically taken away. I have experienced this in my own life. I think we all do. Just like Sethe and Paul D, I try to forget all the bad things that has happened in my life. But sometimes things come up and they remind of the bad things I tried to forget. For example, deaths. I try to forget the deaths of my loved ones so that I can be happy. The pain I felt when I lost them was hard to handle. So, when I am thinking positive, I become happy and I can live my life being HAPPY! But when I'm stressed and tired from work: I become negative. A quote that I found from Chapter 1 was from Sethe: "My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember." This showed me how Denver, a symbol of innocence, was definitely her mothers blood. Like her mother, Denver learned to overcome pain, and make the most of life. The burned bread represents the trauma of Sethe, and Denver is learning to live with this dark history. In our lives, we do the same. We adapt and overcome hardships, no matter how hard it gets.

Hard to do right when wrongs so easy

“Come on. Come on. You may as well just come on.”

The sideboard took a step forward but nothing else did.

“Grandma Baby must be stopping it,” said Denver. She was ten and still mad at Baby Suggs for dying.

Sethe opened her eyes. “I doubt that,” she said.

“Then why don’t it come?”

“You forgetting how little it is,” said her mother. “She wasn’t even two years old when she died. Too little too understand. Too little too talk much even.”

“Maybe she don’t want to understand,” said Denver.

“Maybe. But if she’d only come, I could make it clear to her. (5)

In this passage, Sethe and Denver are trying to talk to the baby ghost that they think is haunting their house. Sethe says that the ghost would stop haunting them if she could talk to her and tell her the reason why she took her life. She would understand if she knew the reason behind Sethe’s decision to kill her.

Analyzing this passage through the Psychoanalytic Lens, looking at Sethe’s character, we start to understand the reason for killing her baby. Sethe says that if she could tell the baby ghost her reason for killing her then the baby would understand. Her motive for killing her baby was so that her baby did not have to go through the pain and suffering that she did. When she thinks of her baby’s future, Sethe thinks of her past and knows that the pain and struggles she went through and faced will be the same that her baby will go through. So, she decides to save her baby from that and kill her.

Also looking at Sethe’s character through the Psychoanalytic Lens, we see guilt and desire. The ghost may just be her imagination. When we imagine something, we imagine it because we want it to happen. We also imagine things when we feel guilty or bothered by something that happened in the past. Sethe could be imagining the baby ghost because she knows that what she did (killing her baby) was not right. Deep down she knows that taking her baby’s life was not right because it is murder. Because she committed murder, her sin is back to haunt her. On the other hand, if her imagination is what she wants, what she wants would be her baby girl. She wants her child to be alive and her unconscious mind is creating this thought that her baby is not gone and is here with her.

Horrible Memories

“Beloved.” He said it, but she did not go. She moved closer with a footfall he didn’t hear and he didn’t hear the whisper and the flakes of rust made either as they fell away from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn’t know it. What he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying, “Red heart. Red heart,” over and over again. Softly and then so loud it woke Denver, then Paul D himself. “Red heart. Red Heart. Red Heart.” (138)

In this passage, Beloved is forcing Paul D to have sex with her. This is known as rape. During his years of slavery, Paul D was raped or sexually assaulted by the whites a number of times. Beloved is a person in the book that brings back the past to every character especially the bad memories. While Paul D is having sex with Beloved, he is reminded of the rapings he had to face years ago and he is frozen by it. Beloved brings back this bad memory to him and he is frightened by it. The memory of his rapings cause him to go unconscious and he repeats the phrase “Red Heart.” The bad memories of being mistreated are brought back when Beloved rapes him because he experiences the memory again. Experiencing rape again causes all him to go into shock because it refreshes his memory and the pain from the past returns.

Like Sethe and many of the other former slaves, Paul D tries to forget the past. He tries to forget his past of being a slave because it reminds him of when he was abused and mistreated. He tries to bury his memories of slavery and completely forget about them because when he starts to think of these memories, he starts to feel pain. He doesn't want to feel pain anymore because he is free and wants to be happy. Without these memories, he is happy and is pain-free and that is why he tries to erase the memories.

Symptoms of PTSD

Throughout this novel something that truly stuck out to me was the trauma that all the characters faced. The character in particular that seems to suffer the most from her past is Sethe. She started off living at Sweet Home which was a place for slaves, and at Sweet Home she was beaten, sexually and physically abused. Also she was whipped, beaten by school boys before they robbed her of her breast milk. Sethe was then forced to give birth while running away. She traveled many miles to get to 124. She raises Denver on her own. Her two sons run away due to ghosts. Her baby died as well as Baby Suggs. It is incredible that one person can continue living their life when so much has gone terribly wrong. Paul D and Denver have also gone through a lot. For instance, Paul D was forced to wear a iron bit and was beat repeatedly at Sweet Home. Denver is forced to live with a ghost in her house and her mom being unstable. Since I am analyzing this book through the Psychoanalytic Lense, I can really pay attention to the way characters think and act. I can sense PTSD in Sethe and maybe some personality disorders in Denver. Paul D also has some symptoms of PTSD by how ridiculously high his stress levels seemed to be. Sethe's past has shown me that she is broken but strong, reminding me of the movie unbroken. Sethe is interesting. She closes herself up to the world, but acts as if nothing is wrong. Sethe seems to put her family before her own needs: she makes sure Denver doesn't have to complain about anything, and allows them both to live a comfortable life. But then Paul d comes in, in the middle of the book. It appears that Denver doesn't like Paul d, and doesn't respect his PTSD background, and simply sees him as a disrespect to the bond between 

Sethe and her. I think Denver acts this way because she doesn't know what Paul d went through. She thinks Sethe's life is cut and dry, but it's not. Denver hasn't seen the horrid life of sweet home, where countless rapes and assaults occurred. Denver represents innocence of the world, protected by her mother. In my opinion, this shows us Denver's opinion internally. We're able to psychoanalyse Denver and see who she truly is: a flower unexposed to the dirt she rose from. The dirt that her family was thrown into is the same dirt that she will rise from. 

Phychoanalytic Lens

 The lens I chose is the psychoanalytic lens. I chose this lens because I wanted to focus on the characters’ thoughts and emotions. During the time of slavery many good people were oppressed. These people were mainly african american. I look forward to analysing the characters in this book. Shethe seems like she has a lot of emotional trauma, as well as the people around her. Being a slave for many years, Sethe can never forget the harsh treatment and abuse she faced. Now she is cursed with a disease that i believe is PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder. This causes her to have constant flashbacks whenever she is reminded of something that resembles Sweet Home. Now, Sethe has to deal with the haunting of her dead child, which I am interested in knowing if this has to do with her terrible mental state or if she is actually in contact with her child.  This trauma might even cause her to make bad decisions. Many people shouldn't promises when they're happy and bad decisions when they're sad, according to Bob Marley. Sethe's sadness might cause her to be blind to logic: she doesn't know where she is going In life but she does know that she needs to provide for the only family she has: Sethe. She may be hallucinating the entire thing. Overall, I am very excited to be able to read this text through a Psychoanalytic Lens, because Psychology is something I find very interesting! I think psychoanalysis is really cool because it lets me understands the characters. Psychoanalysis also allows us to see why characters act the way they do. Reading other books allows me to see why characters act and think certain ways, without seeing or reading their actions directly. The psychoanalytical lens allows us to use historical context to understand the actions of characters. In what I read so far in Beloved, I saw that sethe is really broken internally.