Chicks On Lit discussion

Anyone who is interested in Discussing Beloved is welcome. I started reading it already. What does everyone think so far?

Okay I started reading the book. I was flipping through pages. I checked it out from my school library. Taped to one of the pages, was a piece of paper that said :"Never lend me money!" Talk about the weirdest things you find in books. :)

I haven't started it yet, but will do tomorrow :)

How are we coming along? I am on chapter 4 and so far it hasn't been easy reading.

I will start the book on Monday

okay i am about halfway. I like to add there will be some spoilers. First, is anyone else struggling to understand this book? I lost track of the plot a couple of times.

Second, anyone figured out what 124 means?

Third, I found this title on a banned list. Do you think it belongs on the banned list?

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to drop out of this one. I've been really busy, so I haven't been able to start Beloved yet. I hope that everyone enjoys though!

I am almost finished. I should finish the book tomorrow. I really hope more people discuss besides me.

Okay, I finished the book. I feel like I didn't really get the gist at all. It didn't have much of an ending.

Things I figured out
Beloved-Sethe daughter-ghost
Paul D was suspicious of Beloved
Denver-Sethe's other daughter
Baby Sugga-Sethe's mother-had 8 children,died
Sethe-main character, sick in old age
Denver had to support mother, got job as a maid(?)
Sethe-loved Beloved
Halle- Sethe's husband, left
Sethe's sons also left

Questions
124 means
Sweet Home-name of plantation(?)
Why didn't Sethe's sons or husband ever come back
Why didn't Denver and Beloved get along in the end?

That's all for now.

I didn't start the book yet. I've been swamped over here. Have you seen the movie?

There's a movie? I might check it out.

O Veronica, I am so glad that someone else has not yet started. I am also swamped. And, I was feeling so guilty.

Nothing to feel guilty about. We can discuss when more people have finished the book.

I finally started the book and am about 1/3rd of the way through. I had trouble getting used to the language at first, but it began to feel silky on my skin after about 40 or 50 pages. I don't have the answers to all the questions yet, because I am not far enough along. But, here is what I think I know so far.

I thought 124 was the house number, and therefore a place name. Am I wrong?

Sethe's husband was traumatized by seeing the rape of his wife and lost his mind, that is why he never followed her into Ohio. Atleast that is what I understand so far. The sons run away because they are sufficating under the weight of the sadness of the house, or the presence of the ghost.

I understand the gost to be a personification of sorrow so strong that it seems to take on a life of its own. Sorrow that strong does frighten people off, it can be felt and almost seen. It colors everything literally.

When Paul D comes into Sethe's life, he breaks up her world, breaks open her heart. His presence lifts a bit of the sorrow. Everything shifts. I saw the shifting of the furnature as a symbol of the internal furniture shifting inside Sethe. I am reading the ghost and the furnature moving and so much else as personifications of psychological realities. So, when Beloved arrives and Sethe experiences such a tramendous flow of water, I saw it as symbolic of the breaking of her water when Beloved was born, of the flow of memories and tears connected with the years of sorrow, as the water that swamped the boat on the night of the birth, as the waters of creation and so much more.

Here is my question. If Beloved is personifying the emotional life of Sethe and maybe Denver, what is being signified as she moves from a ghost whose presence is only felt to one that can be seen and touched?

I thought Beloved was the child that Sethe never had and came back for a second chance. I don't know if that answers your question. I struggled to understand what was going on throughout the whole book. I must have missed the rape part at the beginning and the why her husband and sons left. I think they are cowards for not sticking around.

Even though there was so much sorrow in the house, Sethe never left it. I would think she would want to make a new start somewhere else. The fact she didn't says she is a courageous woman.

Interesting Irene.

124 is the number of the house where they live, but the missing digit "3" also symbolizes Sethe's missing daugher.


I think that Paul D shifting the furniture around was his attempt to get Sethe to leave her past behind. Although for a while the ghost's presence subsided, ultimately he was un successful because the ghost of Beloved solidifies as a person.

I love the symbolism. When Sethe first encounters the human incarnation of Beloved, her water breaks as if she's actually giving birth to her daughter again. I think that there's a dark secret revolving around Sethe and Beloved, earlier in the book, (I have to find the page) it mentions baby blood, and a baby's slit throat. Beloved? I think so.

Irene, to answer your question, i think that Beloved's incarnation as a human being is to prevent Sethe from leaving her past behind. When Paul D moves around the furniture, the poltergeist inhabiting 124 goes quiet. At the carnival, Sethe and Denver finally seem happy, leaving behind them dark memories. I guess it's easier to leave a ghostly presence behind than a full-grown woman.

I am now about 2/3rds through the book, soI have a bit more information and understanding. I may give something away for anyone who has not read through page 200, so please stop here if that will be a problem for you.

Regine, thanks for the insight on the missing number. I did not pick that up, but I think you are right, four children and the third is dead. Brilliant!

I was wrong about a rape. After having read further, what I thought was a rape was far more dehumanizing. The boys seem to have milked Sethe as if she was a farm animal. The School Teacher is conducting studies on the Black slaves at Sweet Home, measuring them and chronicaling their characteristics. He instructs the boys to chart their animal and human characteristics. When they hold Sethe down to take her milk, I thought they were raping her. But, I now realize that they were milking her to compare her milk with that of the farm animals. Paul D has a bit put in his mouth and so does Sethe's mother who died when she was a young child. This is about fighting to be a human, not just free from slavery.

Beloved is the dead daughter. The bloody secret (stop reading if you have not got this far) is murder. When the School Teacher comes with the Sherrif to find the run-away slave Sethe, she runs to the wood shed. Baby Shugs who is already free because her son bought her freedom and Stamp Paid is in the yard working. It is the day after the big feast to celebrate their safe arrival. Sethe grabs her four children and runs to the shed. There she tries to kill them figuring that physical death is more merciful than the death of slavery. Stamp Paid runs into the shed in time to grab Denver out of her hand mid swing as she is about to bash her head against the wall of the shed. Beloved (who never gets a real name) is already dead. Bugler and Howard are lying on the ground near death. Baby Shugs is able to nurse them back to life, but they always have the scars, both physical and psychological. They won't let go of each other's hands for years. When the slave catchers walk through the door of the shed and see the dead babies, they back out in horror and figure that they have lost the value of the dead baby animals and the now crazy female animal. Had they been another type of animal, at least their hides would have been of some value, but not thse. Sethe does go to jail with Denver at the breast for a period, but is not hung. Denver has vague memories of the rats in jail.

I think Beloved is supposed to be the personification of sadness and regret and memory. This is semi-real. I think this is about the power of memory, both to sustain and to destroy. Sethe lives with the ghost of Beloved and then with the presence of Beloved because she can not move on. She is trapped by the reality of having murdered her daughter. She needs her presence, her forgiveness, her love. And that presence is so strong that it becomes a living, breathing presence for those closest to Sethe. I think this is a story about how slavery shaped and strengthened and destroyed those who lived on the threshhold between slavery and freedom. It was far more than the discrimination and the legal constraints, it was something far mor real. Paul D and Sethe and all the others live with their past. Their fears, their needs, their self-perception, their desires and repulsions are all tangible forces. We try to destroy the "ghosts" in our lives, but it is never that easy. They just take on other forms. There becomes a point when we need the ghosts more than we need living company. There are so many layers to this book. I am amazed.

I finished last evening. It left me speechless. Morrison conveys the emotional pain so forcefully. I loved the ending. It left the reader with hope. The cruelty that this group of people endured should have broken them. And, it does for a short time. But, not forever. I was profoundly impressed by the strength in the community. I am ashamed to be human knowing that humans can do such things to one another.

Okay, so I finished with the book.

Irene, you were right about the rape. There was a part in the book where the school teacher's pupils measured Sethe's hips before they entered her. I find it interesting that Sethe is more traumatized by the men stealing her milk than she is about the rape--it just shows how much she values her children more than herself.

Irene, if you enjoyed Beloved then I strongly urge you to read The Book of Night Women by Marlon James. I actually preferred this to Beloved.

It's a lot more graphic. The violence that's portrayed here is much more brutal. There's also a lot of Patois, so it might take you a little while to get use to the dialect.

However, the story it paints is just so beautiful.

Regine, Thanks for that suggestion. This will be a new author for me and I love discovering really good new authors.

I did not read the reaction to the taking of her milk as a statement about motherhood, but you may be correct. I read it as a statement about resisting the forces of dehumanization. In my mind, it is connected with Paul D's envy of the rooster. He is jealous of the rooster because, even if killed, it would remain a rooster. But, Paul is being reduced from being a human to being an animal. I thought that it was being milked like an animal that was so traumatizing. The School Teacher instructs his pupils to make lists of the human and the animal characteristics of Sethe. That is what finally moves her off the farm and causes her to risk running alone and full-term pregnant.

As I am typing this, a sceen from the movie Oscar Romero is flashing in my head. I have not seen this movie in years. But, Romero is jailed and he can hear the screems of the tortured ringing through the cell block and he is shouting "These are human beings". We are all in big trouble when we can not see another person as a human being. When we can lose sight of that, see them as slave, as enemy, as terrorist, we are free to do anything and, then, God help us.