Chapter 3 Journal Entry for Beloved

Chapter 3

5. What new information do we learn about Sweet Home in this chapter, specifically about Denver’s birth?
   
6. Retell the night of Denver’s birth, from Amy’s point of view. 
   
   
   In this chapter we are told the story of Denver's birth- and then a little about Paul D's life after he left Sweet Home. We learn that Sethe ran away from Sweet Home while she was pregnant with Denver, and carrying milk for her other daughter, called Beloved. We learn that Sethe ran away to escape slavery and connect with her children, but that carrying Denver made it more difficult. Denver was an antsy baby- rolling and kicking in the womb, but walking soothed her. Sethe eventually collapsed from exhaustion and believes Denver magically brought this white girl to help her. We also learn that after Denver was born, Schoolteacher- a mean white man who worked for Mrs. Garner at Sweet Home and was one of Sethe's master's found her. She could either go back to being a slave or go to jail, so she went to jail and brought the newborn Denver with her.
   
   Later we also learn about Sethe's early life before she was sold to Sweet Home- She didn't know her mother, but she did remember the songs- and related them to antelopes. She referred to Denver as a little antelope while she was still in her womb.
   
   
   Amy- I was finally free. Id been walking and walking but I didn't have to work my momma's debt off anymore. I was free and I was done. I didn't have to do nothin for anyone. And I gonna go to Boston and get me some velvet. CARMINE velvet. Ain't nobody think I can but I'm gonna get me some velvet. The real good Boston kind. I came up on a woods and thought  maybe there be some good mulberries here. those good and sweet. I ain't eaten for days. I walked on up to walk up that them there hill and I heard a noise. A person noise, not some animal noise, I used to those. I called out- who's in there? nobody answered, I went to go look, all careful like you know? and it was a nigger woman. A PREGNANT nigger woman. I remember thinkin, what on earth is she doing in there? I asked her if she got anything food like, I'd eat anything now. She said she pregnant. I got that, woman got a belly. I told her about the velvet, then got up to go on. As I walked away I called on back- what you just gonna lay there and foal? She called back, I can't get up from here. Turns out her feel to swoll to walk and she couldn't crawl on her own. I went on and helped her out into a lean to I found a while back, and put her feet up an nice before I tried to rub the life back into them. I learned that livin the in cold root-cellar they poor me in.
   

Chapter 2 Journal Entry for Beloved

Chapter 2

3. What are Paul D and Sethe remembering about Sweet Home? Why do you think Morrison gives us the information little bit by little bit?
   
4. Why does Sethe refer to memories of the past as “rememory”; what does she mean by this concept. What is the relationship between past and present in the novel? 
   
   
   3. Paul D and Sethe are remembering different things about Sweet Home. Paul D is remembering how when Sethe came to Sweet Home they all wanted to have sex with her, and they had sex with the calves and dreamed about raping her. Paul D also remembers how he picked a tree and named it Brother, and often sat underneath it with Sixo. He remembers how Sixo tried and tried to create the perfect night-cooked potatoes but never succeeded, and how Sixo once walked 17 hours to spend one hour with a woman and 17 hours to walk home. Sethe remembers when the boys were shy and quiet and refused to touch her for the longest time. She remembers when she would bring the food out to them in the fields and they wouldn't take it from her hands, and she would leave it at the foot of a tree, and a few times she hid behind a bush to watch them. 
   Both Sethe and Paul D remember when Sethe and Halle coupled for the first time in the corn field- the corn swaying, Sethe and Halle oblivious and the Pauls and Sixo watching from afar. 
   Sethe remembers the dress she made on the sly- her wedding dress.
   I think that Morrison gives us this information in bits and pieces because it gives the reader more time to develop a sense of the feelings of the situation and a better understanding of the feelings involved.
   
   4. Rememory is Sethe's term for telling her memories to others. The relationship between the past in the present is very strong in this book. Sethe fears the past and doesn't often want to revisit it. The past is a heavy weight on everyone, and has guided their decisions and circumstances.
   

Chapter 1 Journal Entry for Beloved by Toni Morrison

Chapter 1

1. Write a journal entry as Sethe or Denver, describing how you feel about Paul D’s arrival. How do you think it will change life in 124? 

2. What do you think Baby Suggs means when she says, “What’d be the point [of moving?]... Not a house in this country ain’t packed to the rafters with some dead Negro’s grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby.” 

1) I don’t get it. Mama hasn’t laughed since before Baby suggs died. Whats this man comin up here and messin this all up for. What does he think he's doin. He gonna make her happy and never gonna stay. He aint gonna stay for long, not with the baby around to spite on him. He can fight it all he want but that baby hard to deal with. I aint gonna stay much longer, this aint no place to live. He gonna come in here and give mama hope and then leave and take it all with him. He aint gonna help 124, he gonna hurt us. Life round here aint about to get better and I aint about to stay long to see.

2) I think Baby Suggs means that there are much worse ghosts. That many houses are filled with grief and ghosts who do much worse. They are lucky that it is only a baby who can only do a few things, vs an adult (like a dead husband as she mentions). A dead husband is much more viable to be abusive and cause harm to the women, not just be obnoxious and tip over slop pails and scare people. I also think she is referring to the fact that a negro can only own a negro house, and white people only own white people houses. And in many of there houses, as they’re passed down through generations experience death of family members due to old age, sickness, and violence. They could have worse ghosts.

Essay Prompts

1) Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main characters may likewise be guilty of treachery or may betray their own values. Select a novel or play that includes such acts of betrayal. Then, in a well written essay, analyze the nature of the betrayal and show how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

2) Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then, write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why this ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole.

3) Writers often highlight the values of culture or society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values.

1) In the play The Doll House, a wife leaves her husband and her children for freedom for her own opinion. The time at which this play is set in many years back into history, and there are few women’s rights. Nora, the wife, becomes disgusted with her husband’s abusing manipulative ways and chooses to leave him, even though it is entirely unheard of and her quality of life is sure to diminish. She chose to leave her children with this wretch of a man after he finds out about her helping with the finances and refuses to treat her as a wife anymore. Although she loves her children, she realizes a life without her will be near the same as they will have the nurse, but if her children ever find out the “treachery” she committed, it wouldn't be. To Nora, assisting in financial income was a sin upon her marriage. Her husband told her never to help and she betrayed that custom and “trust”. This all occurs towards the very end of the play. To the play this adds dramatics, and is the climax to the story. In addition to this, it also revolves around the idea of feminism and  relationships that work within the play. The woman betrays her own promises to help the one she made those promises to.

2)No country for Old men

The book No country for Old Men has an interesting view on morals. It is open for interpretation from every reader. All of the characters have their own unique  ways of dealing with things. Some would consider one of the main characters, Sheriff Bell, extremely moral, others the complete opposite, but most view him as dead in between. While Sheriff Bell appears as a moral man we find things out about him as the story goes on, things he's done that are not so moral. He does a good man’s work. He abides by the law and he enforces it as well. However, he also ran away from his men in battle, and was the only survivor. He received a medal of honor for being the last survivor, which he accepted, even though he knew it wasn't truly an honor. In the end of the story, he gives up in chasing down a serial killer. He doesn't believe he can catch him without dying so he gives up and retires to the quiet life. Without this consideration of Bell in the book, the story would be lacking intricacy and meaning. It also has a sense of existentialism that it brings to the table, but without this choices have been made mentality of Bell, it wouldn't be as strong.

3) Fences by August Wilson

The play Fences by August Wilson is ridden with racial inequality on both social and economical levels. The play focuses on three people, Troy, the father, Cory, the son, and Rose, the wife. They are all black people living in a majority white society. Although there are no characters who are the privileged white they are so outcast from, racial discrimination is a huge theme within this production. Troy is the most obvious example  from the text. He forbids Cory to play ball, based off of his own experiences as a black athlete. Even though he was a good player, there were no unsegregated leagues for him to play in, and in turn he couldn't make it to the “big leagues”. Even though they have progressed to a time where integration is becoming more common in sports, Troy refuses to let Cory play ball. This plays to the theme of the book overall. How can one’s previous, or their parents experiences of being an outcast affect one’s life and choices.