1. Using your found poetry to consider today's focus question (feel free to use the questions below for help):
- In Beloved, what is lost?
- What do the characters want to lose?
- What do they wish to reclaim?
- What is found?
- What has the potential to be found?
2. Viewing the Baby Suggs scene: What is being reclaimed, and how?
3. Discussing the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2 of Beloved via Socratic seminar
HW:
1. Read chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Part 2 (don't worry--they're short) for Friday. We'll keep the reading ticket short and sweet this week; just use any five of the Socratic stems I gave out last week (they're also linked to the class website) to form five good Socratic questions. You can just write them in your Beloved book or your composition notebook.
P.S. We're actually listening to Morrison read these chapters tomorrow in class, so hopefully that will help you manage your workload and your sanity this week.
2. Keep pushing through that critical review book.
What is Sethe admitting to Paul D?
ReplyDelete• She did killed Beloved when she saw the four horseman coming to get her
What is the perspective? Present or past?
• There are a lot of flashbacks with the different character’s perspectives
Why does Morrison switch perspectives?
• All the different narrators create a puzzle
• Baby Suggs was bought out of slavery, Sethe treated terribly and Paul D endured a different kind of terrible
• All these characters show the different sides of slavery
• The book is about all of the different perspectives and experiences
• Baby Suggs quilt is a metaphor for all the pieces of the perspectives fitting together to tell this story
What is the time period? How long has it been since they were at Sweet Home? How long had Paul D been staying at 124?
• Its been about 18 years since Sethe was at Sweet home
• The book starts off at 1873, Civil War is over and the reconstruction of the South begins
• 1885 is when Sethe is at Sweet Home
How long was Sethe at 124 before she killed Beloved?
• 28 days before the four horseman came to bring her back to Sweet Home
o Why was this number emphasized?
Black History Month is in February which is 28 days
It seems like such a short amount of time where she was free
• Pg. 204 Every 20 years something good happens for her, such as Paul D coming into her life
• Pg. 212 the community escaped slavery but in many ways they are worse off “the end of the war, it’s short, flashy results”
• Stamp Paid’s perspective?
o Stamp Paid showed Paul D the newspaper clipping about Sethe killing her child
o Upset he tries to go to 124
o He keeps flashing back
o Stamp Paid had a big focus in the last reading which gives the readers more insight into the community
• Sethe seems to be speaking to Beloved as she comes home from work even though Beloved is at 124 pg. 233
o Its an internal monologue
o “But I go you out, baby”
o Pg. 230 “you were too little…”
o She is trying to figure out how to explain herself to Beloved
o Sethe is justifying her actions and what could have happened in the future is she hadn’t killed Beloved
• Part 2 shifts perspective to outside the house, Part 3 Denver is shocked by the silence. The beginning of every part starts off with the character the readers are supposed to sympathize with
• Did Sethe recognize the scratches on Beloved’s head?
• Why didn’t Paul D know about Sethe killing Beloved?
o The people in the town just assumed he knew and accepted it
o He also seemed in denial, “that’s not her mouth”
• What was the fixation of Sethe’s mouth?
o In these times, mouths were really exaggerated to animalize these people for comedic effect
• What is the point of Paul D’s return?
o He is calming presence for a while in the house
o Things have changed in 124, it’s just really hard to see
o Paul D shows the contrast to Beloved
• What is the draw to Beloved?
o Sethe is trying to reincarnate her
o Without Paul D, the reader might not have the same apprehension towards Beloved
• Will Paul D come back?
o It’s asking a lot of his character to go and move back with a murderer
o Yes, because he loves her despite her possible craziness
o He has to come at some point to finish the conversation
• Will he come back for selfish reasons?
o Pg. 194 “… her too thick love” Paul D is a good character, whereas Sethe is a murderer
o He will come back because before he came to 124 he was emotionally locked up and was changed and opened up by the characters
o
• The people are just waiting for something to happen
• The difference between freedom and how the characters view their freedom
• It is difficult for the people to reclaim their bodies and decisions
• In order for Paul D to come back, Beloved needs to leave because there isn’t room for the both of them
• Paul D- future, Beloved- obsession with past