Controversial Death

In, The White Boy Shuffle, there are many ways that we can see similarities between the way that Gunnar retaliates against what he sees as racism and what how Sethe responds to the arrival of the four horsemen. With both Beatty and Morrison, they make us come to love the character, Sethe for godlike ability to make it to her children, and Gunnar for being funny to the point where he is satirical. With both of their methods of protest and escape being suicide, we can look at them the same way, right. Wrong!

When looking at the way that Sethe made her decision to kill her children, we can see that she did it because she loved them so much. She didn’t see any other way to protect her children from Schoolteacher and so she what she believed to be the right decision. While we cannot assess the situation because we did not experience the same things she did, we do know that Schoolteacher was a bad person and Sweet Home did not put the “sweet” in the “home”. Just like the poem that Phong presented in class today, to someone who doesn’t know what slavery is like, being forcibly separated from someone you love and knowing that they are going to be hurt is worse than burying that person. We can see Sethe’s point of view and thus feel more empathetic to her plight.

On the other hand, we do not see the same urgency with Gunnar. While it is clearly visible that people treat him differently because of his race, it is clear that he has it better than Sethe. The racism that he experiences is more, being treated like an object and the way that basketball is treated in the book is that it is similar to slavery. The decision to commit mass suicide doesn’t evoke the same sympathy that we feel when Sethe decides to kill her children and is ridiculed for it. He also has the support of the wider community which makes his decision seem less emotional based.

Thus, there are many differences between the Sethe’s and Gunnar’s situations and the decisions they make seem do not evoke the same responses. While killing your own child is an extreme thing to do, even though we are appalled by the act, we can’t think of anything else she could’ve done and it worked. Suicide is a controversial topic, but sometimes we can feel empathetic towards the decision of one to take their own life because of their struggles. With Gunnar, we cannot see any tremendous amount of struggle and therefore, it is harder for us to see his decision as right. How do you feel about the similar decisions of both of these people in dramatically different situations?

Thin or Thick Love

What I take to be the most controversial scene in the book is the part where Sethe decides to take her children out into the shed to kill them when she sees Schoolteacher's hat. There are many different ways to assess the decision that she makes and while it is an extreme thing to do, we know that her reasons were not because she actually wanted to kill her children, but because she loved them too much to let them be treated by Schoolteacher the same way she was treated. In addition, no matter what we say about the decision, it did in fact work and even though Beloved died, Buglar, Howard, and Denver ended up living a life outside of slavery. 

This reaction reminds me of how people commit suicide. That has always been a controversial topic and in the past and still today, people don't like the action, but in a way, that act is similar to what Sethe does. People often commit suicide because they feel like death would be the better than continuing to live the way they are living right then. If we don't judge these people harshly, even though Sethe made that decision for her children, then we kind of have no right to judge her the same way. In addition, we have to take into account the different time periods we are talking about. The time period around 1857 didn't offer the help that is provided to people today. Also, even though there are still problems with society today, some things aren't as bad like how there is no law claiming that a person is another person's property and there is no escaped slave law. 

In the part of the book when Sethe learns that Halle had seen what happened to her and broke down we learn that, "Other people went crazy, why couldn't she?" (83). She would thought about how good it would've been to just sit there and smear butter over her face like Halle was doing, but she couldn't because, "her children were chewing sugar teat under a blanket on their way to Ohio and no butter play would change that, " (84). She wished that she could just shut down and not care about anything anymore like Halle, but she couldn't because she had her children to take care of. Another way that there is a time gap is now we would see what Sethe went through to save her children as very heartwarming and showing that nothing is as powerful as motherly love, but in the book we see that this wasn't seen as such a good thing with Paul D saying that, "Your love is too thick," (193). It is apparent that many people in the book are appalled at the decision that Sethe makes, but what choice did she have in the situation? Especially when none of the other people assisted her in any way. 

Finally, while the ending is a bit confusing, we can see that there is something a bit happy about it. Although she stated earlier in the book that she doesn't get a chance to just be whatever she wants to be, do we see the end as Sethe finally being able to "go crazy"? What do you think?

Haunted

One thing that makes Beloved different from the other books we have read is that is seems to jump right into the topic. With Invisible Man and Their Eyes Were Watching God the rest of the book is about how they got to the point that is shown at the beginning of the book, but with this, we are right in the moment. Native Son was pretty much like that too, but I don’t really count that book since it was mostly a summer read. 

It is interesting that the first thing we learn is that the house Denver and her mother are living in is haunted and that her two brothers have run away. Time doesn’t seem that important in the beginning because it is all over the place. First we see Denver and her brothers when they were younger and learn that they ran away when they were 13. Baby Suggs dies right after that and then we just see Sethe and Denver. Initially, a person would think that the story continued right after that moment, but we get an 8 year jump and then the story continues. The way that Toni Morrison does that so well that the person doesn’t notice at first is amazing. Or it could just be that I didn’t notice at first. Anyway, we then see Denver and Sethe interacting in the present at the same time as Paul D and Sethe are trying to reclaim the past. For what would be chapter 2, the main thing we get are scenes that Sethe remembers from Sweet Home. The way that Morrison interweaves all these different time periods while still keeping it someone coherent is really great.

We are given many different stories with only part of the information and that is an absolute way to keep a reader interested. Even in Invisible Man, we could tell that some parts of his story could be a little exaggerated or that there were a few chapters where there was a dreamlike feel to it, but there is nothing like that happening in Beloved. From all the things we have read so far, there is no sensible way to rule out that the house is haunted because if you did that then you would rule out the whole story. Since in real life we all know that haunted houses are not real, then why would Morrison write a book in which the main characters live in one? I really want to see if there is going to be some sort of message at the end of it or any sort of conclusion.

What's With All the Hair?

In the first chapters we have read, hair seems to play a huge role on how "good" a woman looks and there seems to be a little colorism.

In the very beginning, one of the things that the women notice on the porch is Janie walking with her hair all the way down her back and their response is, "What dat ole forty year ole 'oman doin' wid her hair swingin' down her back lak some young gal" (2)? From the tone of voices, we can get that they are envious of Janie and that turned to resentment because they want what she has. There is obviously something about how long and relatively straight Janie's hair is that makes the other women want to have the same style of hair.

Hair is used as a measure of how "good" a woman by the men as well. When Janie is just walking by, the second thing that the men notice is, "the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume" (2). While the overalls were not seen as fashionable or decent in any way, somehow her hair still remained emasculate. The next moment where we can see how men rate women based on their hair is when Hicks tries to woo Janie and then later on he tells Coker, "Tain't nothin' to her 'ceptin' dat long hair" (38). That seems to be all most people think about when they look at her and Joe Starks is aware of that when he makes her wear a headrag around the store. He doesn't want anybody else ogling her so he makes her tie up her wondrous hair. That is just one way that Joe is controlling.

Where colorism shows up is when the guys and the girls are acting out courtship and then Daisy Blunt shows up. It is said that, "she knows that white clothes look good on her, so she wears them for dress up" (67) and, "her hair is not what you might call straight. It's N* hair, but it's got a kind of white flavor" (67). Not only is this implicitly saying that "white" clothes look better which shows that although there are not any white people in Eatonville, racism still very much exists. In addition, to go along with that, the hair that white people have is "better" than black hair. That also brings in a little bit of colorism because Daisy is seen as the most beautiful out of the other three women and that is in part due to her hair.

Thus, while racism seems to not be inherently ground up into Eatonville there are still the stereotypes present that white somehow looks better than black so they rank people based on that.

The Disillusionment

Chapters 22 and 23 are the first chapters where we really get to see the narrator from the prologue. It is at this moment that he actually starts to use a more critical consciousness and think for himself. We also see that he is starting to pay more attention to what his grandfather has said.

In the beginning, the narrator is always avoiding what his grandfather said or just not understanding it. That comes from the beginning when the grandfather first started talking about how he was a traitor and then "the younger children were rushed from the room" (16). Even then, to the narrator's parents, the thought of being subversive was completely against their nature. That is why, in the beginning, we could see the narrator as completely naive and believing that "white is right". His avoidance of what his grandfather is saying is seen in the Golden Day as well. When the Doctor very accurately describes the relationship between the narrator and Mr. Norton, he dismisses it by labeling the Doctor as crazy. There have been other moments of disillusionment before the scene in chapter 22, but the narrator still remained optimistic and it isn't until now that he really sees that the brotherhood and the society is flawed.

In this scene all we get from the brotherhood is sarcasm. They aren't clearly upset with what the narrator did, but instead of being able to speak scholarly like they always pride themselves in, all they can do now is just repeat what the narrator is saying in a mocking voice. The narrator is clearly the more sophisticated one here actually developing clear and precise sentences and undermines everything that the others are saying, especially Brother Tobitt. They are making a change in the way things are being done in Harlem and even though the narrator ends up going along with it, he is still thinking for himself. He not only questions their authority, but thinks about breaking apart completely, but decides that this solution would not work. It isn't until the end of chapter 23 when he finally sees past the whole illusion and begins to embrace his invisibility.

Thus, the narrator has changed a lot from the naive college undergraduate to the Rinehart like Speaker in the brotherhood.

Bled

As the point came up in class, there is a way that Bledsoe still takes up residency in the mind of the narrator. He is not under the "influence? of Bledsoe any more, but he does dream of exposing his mask and he gets very aggressive with it when he explicates, "You're a sneaking chitterling lover! I accuse you of indulging in a filthy habit Bledsoe!..." (265). Then he starts laughing like a hyena after he thinks about the scene. It's crazy how much the narrator changed from chapters 13-15 to chapter 16 because in 13-15, there are other ways that he compares to Bledsoe and is a little bit like him, but then in chapter 16 those similarities disappear.

In chapter 14 when he gets the job but has to cut his ties with Mary he describes the relationship he has with her and even though he doesn't hate her he doesn't actually like her that much. The way that he relates to Bledsoe in this scene is that he explains that people like Mary "usually think in terms of 'we' while I always tended to think in terms of 'me'," (316). The way that he relates to Bledsoe at that moment is that he is saying that he only cares about himself and not the black community as a whole which is similar to Bledsoe saying, "I'll have every N-word in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am" (143). That shows that even if he doesn't think so, he is still acting in a way similar to that which Bledsoe recommended. If you have power, you better work hard to keep it. 

Another way that he is similar to Bledsoe is that he is developing a mask as well now. It is not  the same mask that Bledsoe wears, but it is one that makes it to where the people think that they would be in charge, but they aren't. He clearly tells us this when he states that, "they might think I was acting like Booker T. Washington; let them. But what I thought of myself I would keep to myself," (311). Therefore, he is giving them what they want while he is actually doing what he wants which is a little bit like Bledsoe.

In chapter 16 however, we see a growth where what the organization wants is aligning with what he himself wants and he is actually starting to care about other people and that can be seen when after the speech he gives, he is telling himself that, "I would do whatever was necessary to serve them well," (353). Therefore, we can see a growth where at first he just wants to please white people, then he wants to be himself and only cares about being himself, and now he wants to help the black community as a whole.

Bessie's Predicament

As we read Native Son, we talked a lot about how Bigger's environment and the way he was brought up shaped his actions and beliefs. He was reactive rather than proactive and as the book went on we were supposed to feel sorry for him. I felt bad for him with all the stuff with Jan and Mary, and then when he killed her, but then after that he just grew tiresome. Especially when it came to Bessie.

Throughout the book, we see all different aspects of Bigger's personality and the way he reacts in different situations, but we don't get to see that much of Bessie's. We know that she has to work long grueling hours for little pay and that to get over it, she drinks, but we don't see anything of how she got there. What happened to her family and how was she raised are good questions that would shed light on Bessie, but we never get that.

She is used as an object by multiple people when she is just used as evidence for Mary's murder and even by Bigger himself when he says, "You have to have a girl, so I had Bessie"(352). He didn't love or hate her, but just used her as an object. In order to save himself, he killed her like he was lessening a load he had to carry. He dragged Bessie into his mess because he wanted to have someone with him, but then he wanted her dead because she became a liability and made him vulnerable. Other evidence for him objectifying her is the scene after he kills Mary when he goes to her house we see the unspoken agreement that he had with Bessie where "he would give her liquor and she would give him herself"(139). When she was alive nobody really cared for her and then when she died, nobody mourned her. While in the beginning we can feel sorry for Bigger as the book goes on the person who we should feel sorry for the most is Bessie.