Beloved Quote Analysis

Beloved: Reading Journal, Chapters 1-6

Megan Holden

Feb. 16, 2016

• “Not a house in the country ain’t packed to its rafters with some dead Negro’s grief.” Chpt. 1

Said by Baby Suggs, this simple statement puts into perspective the overwhelming amount of grief that slavery has ingrained in black families across America. Morrison shows how the institutionalized practice of slavery has lasting physical, psychological, and societal consequences that heavily impact lives even after it’s ended. As a mother who has lived through slavery with her eight children, slavery has also limited Baby Suggs’s self-conception by shattering her family and denying her the opportunity to be a true loving mother. One of the methods used to keep slaves emotionally complacent and not forming any bonds with one another was to break up families, separating mothers from children and spouses from each other. Baby Suggs was forced to limit the amount of love she could offer her children because having loved one only to have be taken away would be more painful than showing her children no love at all. “What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.” Chpt. 2

• “Denver picked at her fingernails. “If it’s still there, waiting, that must mean that nothing ever dies.” Sethe looked right in Denver’s face. “Nothing ever does,” she said.” Chpt. 3

The past doesn’t simply go away, but continues to exert its influence in the present in a number of ways. Sethe teaches Denver that “Some things just stay,” and that nothing ever really dies. Sethe explains to Denver the power of memories and how they are immortal. Memories have an effect on the present because they change the way we look at the world around us. The power of some experiences can be so strong that it seems that even the memory of it is enough to make the horrible incident happen again. Sweet Home, for example, although firmly in Sethe’s past, continues to haunt her through painful memories and the reappearance of even Paul D. Through a deconstructive lense, the novel moves between present narration and past memory, its form also denies any simple separation between past and present. Sethe’s term for this kind of powerful memory is “rememory”, a word that she created to describe memories that affect not only the person who remembers the past, but others as well.

• “Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love.” Chpt. 4

This quotes ties back to the experiences that Baby Suggs had with motherhood, and that many mothers in slavery had to ordeal. The constant threat of their children being sold or killed impacted many mothers and the way they chose to love they’re children. Denver, a child who was born free and was never threatened to be taken away allows Sethe to let her guard down and love Denver deeply. Within the novel, the strength of motherhood is constantly pitted against the horrors of slavery. In a number of ways, slavery simply does not allow for motherhood. Since it is so likely for a slave-woman to be separated from her children, the institution of slavery discourages and prevents mothers from forming strong emotional attachments to their children. That’s why Paul D notes that loving Denver is so dangerous, and Sethe’s unhindered love contrasts sharply with the murder of her other daughter, Beloved.