Monday, April 11, 2011
Character contrasts through writing style
Within Section II of Beloved, the shift from third to first person is a major indicator of the importance of the following chapters. Because we continually have just brief glances into the psyche of Beloved throughout Section I, her part is possibly one of the most important chapters of the selection. Besides the importance of her saga, there are important contextual clues that can be interpreted through sentence structuring and styles contrasted between each character. Sethe's section is long and continuous, with barely any paragraph breaks, yet her sentences seem to be short terse snippets of what she's thinking. She seems to only be able to think of one thing per sentence, which is an interesting insight to possibly how she deals with her life. Denver's stream of consciousness is broken up into lengthy paragraphs, with slightly longer sentences. This section reveals Denver's own fright of her mother's love and how it actually broke the family up. A lot of Denver's paragraph seems to consist of half what she knows and interprets and feels and the other half is what Baby Suggs tells her about her Daddy. She lives vicariously through these little facts about him to construct an angel out of the pieces she knows about her father. Beloved's section has no punctuation, very short childlike sentences that can barely construct complex or even coherent ideas. She repeats phrases over and over and in all it seems to be the musing of a loony.
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I enjoyed your insight into the syntax of the three narrations. That being said, I feel your interpretation on Sethe and Beloved's underdeveloped sentences, as compared with Denver's, reflects their lack of coherency with the surrounding world. It is clear through the book that Sethe has an inability to digest her past and I feel your thoughts on her short sentences compliment this idea. Denver on the other hand is clear and easily accessible. This is likely because she is neither guilty nor vengeful; just a child.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about Denver trying to "construct and angel out of the pieces she knows about her father". Perhaps this is because she needs to have one parental figure be good and wonderful in her eyes, because Sethe's actions were frightening and traumatizing.
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