There is a lot going on in this chapter. We are simultaneously meeting the characters and learning about the conflict of the baby ghost in 124 Bluestone Road.
For this blog choose a quote and write two full paragraphs addressing either:
-how the narrative structure is related to the content (easier than it sounds)
-one specific character (Sethe, Paul D, Denver, baby ghost) and what's going on with them so far
Please read each others blogs! Be prepared to discuss your blog entry on Friday!
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Example: What's going on with one of the characters (I choose Buglar and Howard)
Buglar and Howard are Sethe's older sons who "hadn't waited to see more" (3) of Beloved, the baby ghost, running away a few months before Baby Suggs death. These two boys, while not actually present in the chapter, are present through their absence. They begin and end the chapter, their departure signaling the beginning of Beloved's haunting, and their absence accenting Denver's loneliness after Paul D runs Beloved away.
Buglar and Howard are also one of the many fading yet not forgotten memories, pieces of a history that cannot be forgotten. As Sethe criticizes Baby Suggs' selective memory of her children, she realizes that she, Sethe, "was down to one herself . . . [H]er memory of Buglar was fading fast. Howard at least had a head shape nobody could forget" (6). The details we learn about Sethe's sons hints at all the other histories hiding in the house along with Beloved.
PUSH YOURSELVES TO DIG DEEPER-- USE YOUR QUOTE AND ANALYZE.
What was the point of my comment above? To show you that with two characters who aren't even in Chapter 1, you can still use them (and specific quotes with citations) to discuss issues in the chapter. I don't want 2 paragraphs that cover the surface of Sethe, Paul D, etc., I want two paragraphs from each of you that get below the surface.
PWhats going on with them so far?...Denver
Denver is Sethes only child left. She was also the child Sethe carried when she escaped. Because its basically only Sethe and Denver (not counting baby ghost) they both care for each other and help in what they can, they are the only ones who trully understand whats going on "for they understood the source of the outrage"(4)(the baby-g's).
Later on in the chapter with the intro of Paul D that she connects with baby g and actually "wished for the baby ghost"(15) that is to do some of its spooky manifestations. She actually wants this because she realizes everything wrong in that moment. She makes all these excuses: no friends, acquaintences, boys, girls... nobody likes her. As Paul D arrives, her mother has a new connection, its no longer them 2. Denver has none of her brothers, her granny is dead, baby sis is a haunting ghost, and when Paul talks about her father, she had no connection to him and felt wierd. Denvers character is shy, she is scared of being lonely, nevertheless she is.
"They were a twosome...in a way that made it clear that both belonged to them and not her. That her own father's absense was not hers. ...Again she wished for the baby ghost- its anger thrilling her now where it used to wear her out." (13)
Denver, the only daughter left to Sethe, has to handle with lonliness and the knowledge of the extreme history of her mother. This she has to handle as a child all alone. All the pain within is extreme enough to mention the absense of an unwanted spirit, Beloved. She must feel overwhelmed with sickening information and no one to comfort her.
Denver can either lead us to become an extremely wise character if what has happened all around her she has taken in positively That wouldn't make much conflict in the book though, so I believe this all foreshadows her to have a social struggle. She lacks understanding and company. The young girl may cause trouble for her mother or have a messy adulthood with inner struggle with others.
Narrative Structure
"...and suddenly there was Sweet Home rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and although there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty...it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too."(7)
Throughout the entire first chapter the reader feels like he is in the past more often than in the present. This quote is just one example of the many transitions Toni Morrison makes with regards to retrospect and the present. She opens the novel with a veil of mystery that we have to look through little by little until we finally grasp all of those minuscule details that clear the present all up. While this narrative structure akin to a frame story characterized by different memories instead of characters is very confusing, without it the story would never have won the Pulitzer Prize.
Thinking about the first chapter, I am starting to think that Morrison discovered a fool proof way to prevent skimming in her novels. If someone reads it, they have to read every last word of every last paragraph. It is also interesting how the story is narrated almost like a "spark", meaning hat as Sethe and, say Paul D are talking, at the mention of the word milk, she jumps into a memory. Another detail is that besides the explicit flashbacks, through details, Morrison reveals certain aspects that serve as glimpses into the past without breaking off into a memory or an anecdote. One such aspect is Sethe's scar from slavery, a.k.a, her tree growing on her back. Hopefully as we progress with the story we will be able to recognize such crucial details which will only add to the experience of reading Beloved.
"And though her face was eighteen years older than when last he saw her, it was softer now. Because of the hair. A face too too still for comfort;irises the same color as her skin... Preganant every year...Her three children she had already packed into a wagonload of others in a caravan of Negroes crossing the river." (pg 10)
Beloved is a novel that plays with the present and the past in an odd, but at the same time, obvious way. It links the present with the past through a series of flashbacks and memories that present themselves through the first chapter. Many objects, images, and even people (such as Paul D with his nickname "the last man of Sweet Home"), trigger these memories.
The links with the past will form a crutial part of the structure of the novel. In the quote above, Paul D is observing Sethe's features and expressions after eighteen years of absence. This example reflects tha author's ability to jump from a description being done in the present to a vivid memory of the past. This is a quality that most of the characters have in common ( Sethe when she remembered Beloved's headstone, and Denver attemting to rememebr her father).
what's going on with sethe..
Besides being one of the one that is suffering the most on that haunted house, we realize this is a strong woman with an impressive determination. have all her children and simply the fact to be able to kill one of them already makes her a strong woman. When we start to find out about all that happens to her we realize that this woman has really suffered in life.
to be raped and to be a slave was just some of the things she has gone through. the memory of his daughter everyday is also a painful chapter in her life. "124 was spiteful. full of a baby's venom" this explains that it has not been easy to live with this torment all her life. he daughter is also having problems socializing with people because of this baby. when we see that she has to have sex with some guy just to be able to put "beloved" to where her child is we realize that this woman is like made of stone, she will do all she need to get what she wants. the scars she has can also represent all the things that have marked her life, which are slavery, rapes, death, and loneliness. i think this is the most interesting character in the book because she is really very strong and is not one that will break into pieces by one problem. she has a face "too still for comfort" this is all the pain and suffering she has had through her life. the coming of paul D can also be seen like a remeberance of her past. something that will bring all of her suffering again.
"I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much."
Sethe is a character that still suffers the memories of slavery, she is in a constant battle to forget all memories that bring her back to those times. She has tried, but that is something she cant escape from, wether she is remembered by her daughters ghost and the torments or by her scars that will never fade and will always be there. It looks like she is living just to forget what she lived and that takes us to what some of you have said that the story is mostly in the past, i believe this happens because her present is mostly a struggle to forget the past.
The scars (the tree) will always be there and that might serve to show her that the memories will never go away and that she will be marked with that experience forever. Also, her family has been spread apart, she has no idea with what happened to her husband, two children left, and her daughter was murdered. Sethe is tired from running away from her past and she will live in that house even though she is being haunted by the ghost of her daughter everyday. This gives place to write a little about the house number: 124, if you can see a 3 is missing and that might be missing third child (baby). I took a look at all the chapters and they all start with the house number. Sethe is being dragged by the memories of her child and slavery, but is tired from running away because the one time she did, she suffered much.
Paul D:
"Not even trying he had become the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry. Because with him, in his presence, they could.
Amidst chapter one this long lost character reveals his presence to Sethe. His presence in the chapter brings about a tumult that wasn't present before his entrance. Sethe and Denver alike experience a wave of emotions, they hadn't allowed themselves to feel before, once he was there. "He was not surprised when Denver dripped tears into the stovefire...nor her mother wet as well" Denver's anger and jealousy of the two, and Sethe's breakdown demonstrate the power he holds over these women, and all women in general.
Paul D takes onto himself their burdens and he will carry them with his for good. He also rids the house of the baby ghost so taunting to all to visit there. This hints to us how much change he can cause with one simple visit and how he might continue to stir up change throughout the novel and inside the characters' personalities as well.
Sethe is the protagonist of the story and she seems to have a past full of sufferings as in the times she was a slave and also the dead of her baby. When she escaped from slavery she separated herself from her husband. Now the ghost is around the house and people around started getting scare about this. Also the Sethe is strugguling since she cant remember much about her past everytime she fprgets even more, for example "'My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember.'" Now Sethe has only one child who’s called Denver.
Later in the story we can see they mentioned Paul D, who recently came to visit Sethe, we see him in struggle with the ghost. He seems to have feelings for Sethe and he might me for her a hope for the future.
From the text in chapter 1 we come to know Denver. She is Sethes only daughter and they live together, the two of them, alone. At the same time, she has lost her fathers, grandmother and siblings and lives in a "haunted" house. For all this reasons I come to believe she is lonely and sad.
Denver was also a shy lady since she wasn't used to visits "its been a good time since anyone sat at their table". Her mother is all that is left to her and a an inmense feeling of lonileness invades her for which she no longer wants to live in her house "I can't live her. I dotn know where to go or what to do, but I can't live here. Nobody speaks to us. Nobody comes by. boys dont like me. girls dont either" .."its not the house, its me and its you" she said to her mother.
Narration: it's a copy of Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude in the way Toni uses flashbacks that come out from a thought or word and the way the narration goes and comes back in time. An example of this would be how Paul D is presented through flashbacks that happen while Sethe and him are talking at the porch and at the table.
Denver.
She is rude to her visitor due to the fact that Paul D is part of Sethe's past and Denver feels out of place because they talk about times when Denver didn't exist.
" Why don't you spend the night, Mr. Garner? You and Ma'am can talk about Sweet Home all night long."
here, Toni shows Denver's hate for Paul D and the Sweet Home stories. She dislike Paul D also because she sees how her mother changes her way of being, from being shy and quiet to girly and somewhat flirtations.
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