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.