Beloved
discussion
Message in Beloved
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
kisha
(new)
-
rated it 5 stars
Oct 13, 2012 09:49PM
What do you believe the message is in Beloved that Morrison was trying to get accross?
reply
|
flag
that Septha was feeling guilt for the child that died and she needed to deal with that
The message was that cutting you own infants throat to prevent a life of slavery for said infant will end in regret.
Life is full of grey areas. One man's bravery is another man's atrocity.
The message that I received is that longing for love and to be nurtured extends across life and death. To Sethe the darkness of this world far outweighed anything on the other side.
Loving something too much or too "thick" as Paul D would say, is dangerous and this is what truly leaves someone enslaved. A person can't control or own another person emotionally and basing someone's life on protecting and loving something so deeply will end in disaster and unhappiness. At the very end of the book Paul D tells Sethe that she is her own best thing, not Beloved - if she loves something more than herself, than she will always be a slave. A slave to what she loves - Beloved. Beloved is any love that turns dark, any love that makes someone give up their life for another.Learning to love yourself more than anyone is the only way to survive in the time of slavery and any time afterward.
Emily wrote: "Loving something too much or too "thick" as Paul D would say, is dangerous and this is what truly leaves someone enslaved. A person can't control or own another person emotionally and basing someon..."Great interpretation.
Beloved to me is a story about self-imprisonment. Sethe's whole purpose from running away from Sweet Home was to make sure that her children never had to endure the pain, suffering, and the animalistic lifestyle that the slaves endured. As we know, when she seen School-teacher she had to make a quick decision that would effect her and her children's lives forever; life or death. She chose death. From that day forward she endured a new kind of slavery/prison; Self-imprisment. She stayed in a home where her past haunted her, spiritually and figuratively. It began to succumb her whole life. She became her own slave living in her own prison. Many of us do that in everyday life. I think the message is that you can't run, hide, or escape the past. No matter where you are will follow you. You have to deal with it head on. Until you do your past will always haunt you. Also, I think the message is about the opposite of prison/slavery which is freedom. Freeing your mind, freeing your life and freeing yourself. And in the situation that Morrison presents the message would be that dealing with your past will free your present and future.
kisha wrote: "What do you believe the message is in Beloved that Morrison was trying to get accross?"I think she needed to deal with guilt and regret she might have had concerning her daughter that she lost and in some way to get back some of the time she lost
Patricialogan8 wrote: I think she needed to deal with guilt and regret she might have had concerning her daughter th..."
Great interpretation. And I can definitely agree that guilt was eatting her up.
Emma wrote: "Life is full of grey areas. One man's bravery is another man's atrocity."I like this interpretation. Great way to think about the novel.
Love is many things. Sometimes, love means doing an otherwise horrible thing.
Inner pain, darkness, guilt, and the likes need to be dealt with. Otherwise, it is likely to grow and effect your life in measurable ways. Beloved symbolizes that measurable inner pain.
any good novel has multiple messages and this has all the ones mentioned above
Interesting question and posts. The question gets more difficult the more I think about it. "the" - just one message...We know from Morrison that she was writing a memorial to slavery. We can kind of figure out that she is writing a book of healing - making us look directly at extensive horrors related to slavery in order to have us, the reader, confront it and deal with it, in order to not forget about it. This is more vicarious for some, and maybe less so for others.
But the one message - slavery, sacrifice, scars, love, healing-through-stories, memory...that message must at least include all these. I can't come up with it.
I think your right on the money when you say Morrison writes a 'memorial to slavery,' and that its a book of healing. I mean the whole book is about "unspeakable secrets." Beloved took the unspeakable secrets to her grave and thus the secret becomes a gap in the unconscious of Sethe and as a result Beloved's ghost embodies this gap. I think the underlying message that Morrison is making is that, America is haunted by dark secrets, due to its sinister history. Morrison speaks these secrets making them secrets no more so the ghosts of the past can "move on," and her ancestors can find peace at last.
The message I came away with was, " Can a pain cut so deep, that it takes over your life, and finally has enough power to manifest itself". Pain, guilt, and horrors can curse a person no matter what caused the event or series of events to precipitate. Like so many of us, it takes a community or village to help heal very deep wounds.
Slavery=bad. Fugitive Slave Laws=bad. Those are just a couple of the messages of the book, and while we KNOW these things, doesn't it make it all the more powerful to have these stories to SHOW it? The details were gruesome, to be sure...I know some people who can't get past the part that describes Sixo and the other men fucking cows, and many don't understand just WHY Sethe killed her child. The injustices of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Laws...those are what drove those characters to often desperate acts. But I also think that there's a message of redemption and healing at the end...slavery is over, so how do the characters move on, put the pain behind them and try to forge out their own lives? And CAN they do it?
Lynsey wrote: "Slavery=bad. Fugitive Slave Laws=bad. Those are just a couple of the messages of the book, and while we KNOW these things, doesn't it make it all the more powerful to have these stories to SHOW it?..."Great outlook!
Emily wrote: "Loving something too much or too "thick" as Paul D would say, is dangerous and this is what truly leaves someone enslaved. A person can't control or own another person emotionally and basing someon..."I agree with Synoria in saying that this is a fabulous interpretation.
That while we think committing an act of violence to "save" another is a good course of action, it really just damnned ourself. And for me in the case of Denver, that no matter what life has given you, once you decided to move forward, nothing can stand in your way.
Synoria wrote: "The message that I received is that longing for love and to be nurtured extends across life and death. To Sethe the darkness of this world far outweighed anything on the other side."That was said beautifully
I think that a message of the book is that focusing too much on the past can destroy you. Beloved is totally symbolic of the past; she is a combination of Sethe's baby and all the people that died on the voyage to America. Sethe becomes obsessed with her and slowly sinks further and further into the horrors of her memory. Denver, on the other hand, breaks free from that and realizes that you have to understand the past, and learn from it, but that ultimately the march of time doesn't stop for you and you have to be strong and live on. Never forget, but never obsess.
" Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all."
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
