{"id":1304,"date":"2024-09-23T20:19:16","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T00:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2024-09-24T11:03:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T15:03:59","slug":"beloved-memory-and-motherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/2024\/09\/23\/beloved-memory-and-motherhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Beloved, Memory, and Motherhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Morrison\u2019s novel, the titular character Beloved shines. \u201cThat\u2019s how Beloved looked \u2013 gilded and shining\u201d (Morrison 76), and though Paul D expressed his wariness towards the mysterious young woman that shows up on the doorstep, the two women of 124, Sethe and her daughter Denver, immediately take it upon themselves to become caretakers in ways they\u2019ve never been before. The distinction between humanness and motherhood continually weaves through the timelines and characters of this novel, but in the beginning of the novel, Sethe\u2019s past trauma and its relation to Denver and Beloved walks the dividing line. Beloved is a thing almost entirely other; constantly referred to by her newness and confusing presence, after a month of staying with Sethe, they still had not \u201cgotten used to her gravelly voice, and the song that seemed to lie in it,\u201d \u201cfor just outside music it lay\u201d (72) and Sethe, Denver, and Paul D remain enclosed in a vicinity outside of her foreign presence. Denver, entranced by her newness, cares for her as if she were Beloved\u2019s mother, but Beloved is only satisfied when hearing stories of Sethe\u2019s past.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sethe was amazed at Beloved\u2019s desire to hear the stories \u201cbecause every mention of her past life hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost\u2026Perhaps it was Beloved\u2019s distance from the events itself, or her thirst for hearing it \u2013 in any case it was an unexpected pleasure\u201d (69). At this point in the novel, Sethe has not questioned if Beloved is connected to her now departed child, but telling Beloved these stories of her past at Sweet Home enacts a caretaking she deliberately avoids with Denver, as the memories are too painful if the distance does not exist between them. Beloved exists in the \u201cgleaming, powerful world\u201d of Sethe\u2019s memory that is \u201cmade more so by Denver\u2019s absence from it\u201d (79). Sethe\u2019s \u201cremembrance of glittering headstone\u201d (63), marked only by the name Beloved, establishes Beloved\u2019s belonging inside this past life, as they both shimmer in the light of remembrance, and remembrance is how Beloved asks to be cared for. Though Denver is Sethe\u2019s only daughter still alive, she cannot exist inside the world of memory because she exists in the present moment, and cannot be cared for in this way. Sethe then divides Denver and Beloved through remembrance, or deliberate avoidance, as an act of motherhood.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Morrison\u2019s novel, the titular character Beloved shines. \u201cThat\u2019s how Beloved looked \u2013 gilded and shining\u201d (Morrison 76), and though Paul D expressed his wariness towards the mysterious young woman that shows up on the doorstep, the two women of 124, Sethe and her daughter Denver, immediately take it upon themselves to become caretakers in … Continue reading Beloved, Memory, and Motherhood<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145914],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2024-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/403lit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}