Beloved is a novel all about trying to forget the traumatic events of the past even though they keep coming back up. All Sethe does in the novel is try to escape her traumatic experiences, yet they always come back to haunt her, and not only her but others around her.
It seems as though the more Sethe tries to repress her memories and the affects of her trauma, the harder it comes back. The most clear example is Beloved, first she haunts as the baby ghost and later she shows up as a real life form. Another example of this is Paul D coming back and living with them, Paul D is a symbol of Sweet Home and the past for Sethe. Not only that, but he has his own stories to tell which interrupt Sethe's understanding of all she tried to forget. Finally we have Denver who most likely reminds Sethe of everything that happened everyday. For example after she escapes Sweet-Home, she tries to forget the tragic stuff that happened to her while she was there. And even though Denver was born off and outside Sweet-Home, its still Denver's trauma too. Denver now has to understand why her mother acts the closed off way she does and why she grows up in the environment she's in.
And again Denver is forced to face the blow of her mother's trauma the day School Teacher comes to 124. Sethe completely turns off all emotion and does exactly what her mind tells her to in order to save her children because she vowed they would never go back to Sweet Home. Denver survives this and doesn't end up being killed but when she learns of it she goes deaf and stops going out for years. Now she is forced to live with this trauma as an affect of her mothers trauma. Not only Denver, but much later in the book when Paul D finds out what happened that night, he gets freaked out and leaves. He can't possibly comprehend at first that the Sethe he loves so much could do something like that.
Hi Lili, this is a good blog post that covers the presence of trauma and haunting throughout the novel. The only other feeling or thing that has as much prevalence as trauma throughout Beloved is the presence of love. In many ways, love and trauma are connected in this book. The arrival of loved ones (Paul D and Beloved) causes the return of trauma. Sethe's difficult decisions that she has to make (fleeing Sweet Home, killing her baby and trying to kill the others) are rooted in true love. It's important to remember that the trauma caused in this book isn't because of the presence of love in Sethe and Paul's hearts, but rather the absence of love in School Teacher's and the systemic racism that surrounds the world in which Sethe and her children must survive in. What ultimately heals or at least helps repair these wounds, both physical and mental, is love.
ReplyDeleteAnd with Denver, the trauma isn't *just* limited to the events in the woodshed, which she would have no conscious memory of and would presumably not be traumatized by in the same way that fully conscious adults might be (I'm not an expert on infant psychology, and it's certainly possible that aspects of the horror and trauma could have affected her at the time--her mother's anxieties transferred through her milk, for example, which is also cut with her sister's blood). The trauma for Denver has continued through her entire childhood--as you note, she is attempting something of a "normal" life when she goes to Lady Jones's school, but everyone else know about her family and stigmatizes her house and ostracizes Sethe, and soon enough one of the kids asks her about the rumors he's heard. For Denver, the trauma is an everyday experience of growing up a pariah and not fully knowing why--she's isolated, alone, uncommunicative, and she knows that the entire town avoids the house because of her mother. But it's not obvious that she really knows the full story or context for what happened in the shed: her limited understanding has it that "something came into the yard that made my mother think it's okay to kill her children," which is accurate to a point, but she doesn't seem to grasp what that "something" is, how it would have been related to slavery and the Fugitive Law, and all the context that would make Sethe's choice more sympathetic. She sees it as a random act of spontaneous violence with no reason behind it, which is a lot more scary.
ReplyDeleteHey Lili, this is a great post! I agree with you on the point you make about how the more Sethe ignores and tries to forget about her past trauma, the more it comes back to haunt her. Paul D and the "ghost" of Beloved force sethe to face her past and overcome, or at least attempt to overcome her trauma. These characters from her past help her heal past wounds and live in the present. Good work!
ReplyDeleteI think the role of Paul D in what you're saying is especially interesting. I agree that as you said, he leaves and then comes back, giving a feeling of haunting. But I would argue that Paul D 2nd arrival is the first time a recurrence of a character in Sethe's life is not a "haunting." Perhaps the book ends with them reuniting because it shows that Sethe is finally able to create warm relationships with people despite her trauma.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Lili! All of this trauma that she tries to forget does seem to cause these "hauntings" come back from the past. These hauntings and physical manifestations of trauma also seem to force her to reconcile with the past. I would argue that the reappearances of her past trauma are necessary for her to come to terms with the past and move on. Sethe and Denver's condition at 124 may have gotten even worse if Sethe kept trying to ignore these events from her past. At the end of the book we are left with signs of hopefulness, hinting that Sethe is ready to move on from Beloved.
ReplyDeleteHello Lili, this is a great post! I totally agree that the more Sethe tries to move away from her trauma, the more it follows her. I also really liked how you talked about how Sethe's trauma is also Denver's in many ways because she is who has to deal with many of the consequences and isn't able to live a truly free life. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic blog post! You do a great job identifying how Sethe's trauma not only affected her, but it affected the people around her as well. I really like the evidence you use, specifically when you talk about the part of the book with School Teacher and Sethe. This scene not only shows how trauma, in this case, Sethe's, can bleed into the lives of those you love, but Denver was directly affected by it through Sethe's actions. Great post!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree with the fact that repressing memories is not a solution to dealing with your past and that it only exacerbates the past's effects on the future. You did a great job of identifying examples for the encroachment of the past upon the present. It's important how you mentioned not only the effects of the past on Sethe, but also on her daughter. Really interesting, Lili!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Lili! I like that you made the connection between running away from trauma only making the trauma worse, which is definitely made clear in Beloved when you look at Sethe. Even though Sethe's traumas manifest in slightly hyperbolic ways (she is literally haunted by her past), the message still comes through to the reader. Great job!
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