Thursday, September 20, 2012

Beloved Part 1 Section 1 Personal Statement


"124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom." The first two sentence of Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved” I believe state and “set the mood” for the relationships between Sethe and her children and the home and its inhabitants. I believe that Sethe was involved to how her first child died. The way the "baby ghost" reacts to different events in the house reflects anger, and even revenge. I feel that the child must have died in the form of hatred. "Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims", the fact that Morrison wrote "its only victims", it seems that this ghost has revenge against Sethe and her youngest daughter. It also seems that if that child, the one that was not even two before she died, still lingers, she has a reason; a task to complete. What reason would a baby return to haunt her own family, and to fill their home with its  "venom"? But being that the ghost is a family member to both of these women, shows another factor, that the child's death, could have been voluntary. Toni Morrison writes "But if she'd come, I could make it clear to her." This is said my Sethe, the dead child's mother. "I could make it clear to her." The question is to make what clear to her, what is it? During the first chapter Sethe seems very distant and full of regret. Memories she doesn't want to face. “the baby’s fury at having its throat cut” Could Sethe have knowingly and voluntarily murdered her two year old daughter? Is that why her child haunts her even after 18 years?  

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