The book Beloved by Toni Morrison was a great read. In the beginning, the story was very hard to understand, because of how the flashbacks were so smoothly transistioned into the present. This story is really complex and is a lot to take in all at once. Reading about them being slaves on Sweet Home and how badly they were treated once schoolteacher came, made me realize at the end, when Sethe explained why she killed her children, that her violence was out of Love. Even though no one can being to understand how it felt to be a slave with children, I can imagine myself in similar circumstances and I would probably do the same thing as Sethe. If I had kids I would not want them to go through anything like that ever. I really liked how certain things gave hints as to Beloved being the manifested ghost. A few examples was the scar on Beloveds throat, how Beloved asked Sethe questions to make her tell stories of her past, and finally how when Sethe first saw her, she peed forever, like giving birth.
I think Paul D was very important to this novel. He found Sethe, after years of wanting her, and he had stayed in 124, trying to make a family with Sethe and Denver. Paul D also told Sethe about her husband Halle, and how he went crazy after seeing Sethes milk be stolen. Even though Paul D brought up the past, it had to be spoken for them to get over it and move on to a happy life. He also saw things for how they were, telling Sethe that Beloved was trouble, that something wasn't quite right with her, when no one else saw it right away.
This book was insightful to make people realize what happened back when slavery was going on. How crazy one can get due to all the awful things they went through. Especially since this is based off someones life, it makes readers have more compassion for Sethe, even though some say it was wrong of her to kill her child.
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Paul D is important to the story for more than this reason. He brings about a different perpective to Sethe's past and makes her face it from an outside source.
ReplyDeleteEven when he tries to reconcille the past with her he still has to fight her version of the past and presence of the "new" Beloved.
Beloved can see that Paul D will turn her Mother against her and has to take action against him to get him to leave before he can really connect with Sethe. It seems to me that if Paul D would not have come back, Beloved may have killed Sethe by making her depression and dependance to make Beloved happy a jail cell to which she would have rotted away to nothing in Baby Suggs bed. Paul D is a hero for coming back and trying to take Sethe away from the past, making her realize she was value and pushing her to the future.