Beloved

Beloved is a truly striking and so far extremely disturbing portrait of the life of a runaway slave. It may be a stretch to say there are many aspects of this book that strike me as being uncanny, since it is impossible to relate the lives of the characters in this novel. But for myself there have been a few instances that I would consider uncanny. For example, the ghost of the dead baby haunting the house is truly uncanny, because although it is strange and is not something that directly happens to a lot of people, the idea of hauntings and possession are recurring throughout history, and for me is is by far the creepiest thing I can imagine. In the part where Sethe brings Beloved and Denver into the clearing, something very creepy happens while Sethe is calling on her mother in laws ghost to help her feel better. "The fingers touching the back of her neck were stronger now...Sethe was actually more surprised then frightened that she was being strangled...tumbling forward from her seat on the rock, she clawed at the hands that were not there." (113) The idea of something (or someone) touching you that is not really there is scary and weird. I think that a lot of people have felt a feeling similar, though, that something is there or watching you that really isn't. That is why I think that the haunting is uncanny. In this novel, the memories of the people who were at Sweet Home, mainly of Sethe and Paul D, are basically a character of their own. They affect the lives of these characters every day, and no matter what they do, they are constantly haunted by their pasts. Paul D recounts, "But wasn't no way I'd ever be Paul D again, living or dead. Schoolteacher changed me. I was something else and that something was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub." (86) I think that I am going to concentrate on this in my analysis of this novel, how the past is a main character in the book, and how no matter how hard the characters may try and forget and move on, their memories and experience forever change who they are and what they can become. For Denver, it seems that the lack of knowing what happened to her mother plays more of a role in her life then her own memories. When she remembers what her mother did to her sister, her disposition changes, and it seems like she can barely handle the thought of what happened. I also think that Beloved is the incarnate of the past, she is a representation of what Sethe did and although I am not sure what role she is to ultimately play, I think that she will tear the family apart just like Sethe's past is something that has so completely torn her apart she cannot grow and move on.