Monday, April 11, 2011
Beloved Section 2
Sethe's monologue in section two reveals a lot about her character. We have only been able to get glimpses of her past up until her section. Sethe thinks back to when she killed Beloved. Now that she has her back, Sethe wants to tell Beloved everything. She wants to explain to her why she killed her. "When I explain it she'll understand, because she understands everything already". This thinking leads her to remember her mother and how she was lynched. She wonders if her mother attempted to run away and leave her behind but the thought of that is too much for her. Sethe wants to believe that her mother loved her as much as she lover her children which further illustrates the theme of loving too much. Sethe loved her children too much so she tried to kill them and now that Beloved is back she is going to tell her everything even though she does not have to and hold on to her tighter.
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This section from Sethe's point of view made me begin to understand why Paul D. and Baby Suggs both would tell her over and over that she loved too much. Sethe obviously killed Beloved when she was a child because of this very reason and now that she is back it seems as though Sethe is holding on to her ever tighter. In any normal circumstance this is what should be done, but being a black woman in a post civil war America, several problems could easily arise once again.
ReplyDeleteI definitely see a commonality with Sethe "wanting to believe" things. She convinces herself that what she did was just and right and is always using her "maybe's" as Lance pointed out to keep from accepting the bad side of her situations. Now that she is convinced Beloved came back she has a very tangible way to justify this thinking; that Beloved understands and came back out of forgiveness. However she ignores the other signs like being strangled in the clearing that might point to ulterior motives. I'm interested to see if Beloved remains a symbol of forgiveness and togetherness in part III.
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