beloved essay

Essay by benzahalanA, November 2013

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Ben Zahalan

Hour 3

Beloved Prep Sheet #5

1. Beribboned (286): Adorned with ribbons

Pillowslip (293): A sack like cloth that a pillow is placed inside; today, called a pillow case

Disdain (293): A feeling of contempt for anything regarded as unworthy

Cogitation (301): A complex thought

2.

Sawyer fires Sethe from her job

Sethe becomes infatuated with Beloved, forgetting about Denver, then changes her mindset and Denver and Beloved switch places

Beloved claims that Sethe is a bad mother and will not forgive her for when she killed Beloved when she was 2.

Denver leaves behind Beloved and Sethe at 124 to go to town because there is barely enough food for 2 people, let alone 3.

Denver arrives at Lady Jones and brings back food for her family

Lady Jones tells her church about Denver and Sethe's need for food and each week, a member of the church delivers food to 124 for about a year

Once returning home, Denver finds food left on a tree stump by M.

Lucille Williams

Denver takes the plates, bowls, and clothes that the food is delivered on back to town each week, bringing enjoyment to the people whom they belong to.

Relying on food from the church, Beloved grows larger and more fat, as Sethe loses weight and becomes skinnier. It's as if Beloved is sucking the life out of Sethe.

Denver visits the Bodwins to get a job because she does not want to rely on the church for food

At the Bodwins, Denver meets Janey and tells her about what's going on at 124

Janey spreads news about Beloved being at 124 around town

While waiting on the porch for Mr. Bodwin to pick her up, about 30 women come from town to save Sethe from Beloved.

The women gathered outside 124 begin to sing drawing Sethe and Beloved to come out on the porch, at the same time, Paul D arrives

Beloved disappears

Paul D tells the story of how he ended up at 124 this time, and when he enter's the house, he finds Sethe on the couch in the keeping room

3. How was Janey able to tell that it was beloved by asking about the lines on her hands?

When Beloved was getting bigger and Sethe was getting smaller, was Beloved drawing energy from Sethe because ghosts need extra energy to remain manifested?

Why did Ella punch Sethe in the mouth? I thought the reason she was at 124 was to help Sethe, not hurt her.

4. I made a connection between the thirty women gathered to get rid of Beloved, in order to save Sethe, and in mid-evil times, when people in villages would go on witch hunts. In history last year, we learned that if a person was thought to be a witch, the towns people would gather and hunt down the witch. Written in the novel, the towns people are, in a sense, hunting down Beloved.

Another connection I made between my life and Beloved was with the characters Sethe and Paul D, and me and a friend of mine, Christy. In Beloved, Paul D leaves, and when he returns, him and Sethe pick right back up where they left off. They act like Paul D hadn't been gone for years. This connects to me because I was best friends with a girl named Christy two summers ago. After that summer, she went off to college and I hadn't heard from her for about a year and a half. Recently, we got together and everything was exactly the same as it was before she left for college. We acted like we had kept in touch the whole time, and everything was well.

5. Morrison writes "His coming is the reverse route of his going"(310). This stands out to me because is ties the beginning of the novel back together with the end. When Paul D leaves 124 in the beginning, everything starts to go downhill. Now that he has returned, things are getting better. Sethe has someone to take care of her, Beloved is gone now, and Denver does not need to bare the burden of her mother all by herself anymore.

6. An underlying assumption I made was there is a sort of unity between the black people in the town and near country side. I made this when I inferred that all of the townspeople care about Sethe because there are at lease 30 women that gather at 124 to get rid of Beloved.