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.