Beloved Blog Post #1

When I first started reading Beloved, I found the book to kind of difficult to read. I had no background at all about the book, and I’d never seen the movie. I’m sure that doesn't really matter because movies are never really like the book anyway. What I found most intriguing from the first 30 pages or so, was the fact that there was so much pain within those first few pages. The text left me asking questions like, ‘Why did Sethe chose to kill her daughter Beloved?’, ‘Why is Beloved so angry/sad?’. Questions like that. Although the death of Beloved may seem harsh and malicious to some; how could a mother kill her own child, I don’t necessarily see it that way. I see the death of Beloved as something that was done out of love, not out of hate. On page 5 of the text Sethe states that, “...if she’d only come, I could make it clear to her.” (Morrison, 5). A person could ask, ‘Make what clear?’. I take this passage to mean that, if Beloved would only “show” herself, Sethe could explain to her why she chose death instead of life for her. The text is very descriptive in regard to the way Beloved feels about her death. On page 6, she is said to be furious over the fact that her throat was slit by her mother. To me, this shows that Beloved doesn't understand the reasoning behind her death. She may have even seen it as her mother not loving her. If put in Sethe’s shoes, maybe she'll understand that it was all done because she loved her.

Not only is pain bestowed upon Beloved, it is also bestowed upon Sethe and Denver. Both Sethe and Denver are dealing with loneliness, albeit differently. The way that Denver deals with her loneliness is by showcasing jealousy, particularly towards Paul D and her mother’s relationship/friendship. “Hot, shy, now Denver was lonely. All that leaving: first her brothers, then her grandmother---serious since there were no children willing to circle her in a game or hang by their knees from her porch railing. None of that mattered as long as her mother did not look away as she was doing now, making Denver long, downright long, for a sign of spite form the baby ghost”. (15). Man. As I read this passage, all I could think about was a child longing for attention from her mother. Here was this man, a man that she didn't know, yet he knew her mother, coming in and practically taking her mother away from her, shutting her out. The only way she could think of getting her mother’s attention was to hope that Beloved felt the same way as she did. I can honestly say that I too have felt the same way that Denver is feeling in this passage. It almost makes it seem like you’re begging for attention and love from someone who should give it automatically. The way that Sethe deals with her loneliness is by crying out to Paul D, maybe to find some sort of compassion? She longs for someone to soothe the pain that she’s feeling. 

Beloved is a text full of pain, loneliness, and confusion. There’s so much complexity within its pages that it makes it hard to continue delving inside of it. At the same time, I've heard great things about it and I can’t wait to unearth the mystery that’s buried beneath.