Deaf Until Acceptance: Close Reading

"Even when she did muster the courage to ask Nelson Lord's question, she could not hear the courage to ask Nelson Lord's question, she could not hear Sethe's answer, nor Baby Suggs' words, nor anything at all thereafter. Fro two years she walked in silence too solid for penetration but which gave her eyes a power even she found hard to believe...For two years she head nothing at all and then she heard close thunder crawling up the stairs...The return of Denver's hearing, cut off by an answer she could not bear to hear, cut on by the sound of her dead sister trying to climb the stairs, signaled another shift in the fortunes of the people of 124. From then on the presence was full of spite." (122)


Before she lost her hearing, a fellow pupil in her class named Nelson Lord asks her "the question about her mother that put chalk...out of reach forever" (121). Toni Morrison does not choose to include the actual question Nelson Lord asks Denver - but I can infer that he asked her something about her family's past (and specifically where her mother came from), a topic that she doesn't feel comfortable talking about. Denver perceives the question to be racially motivated and mocking. She doesn't have any friends or companions at school after she is insulted by this remark from one of her peers - and the "deafness" follows. However, she explains that she "should have laughed when he said it", acknowledging Nelson's innocent and curious intentions. Denver physical change reveals the influence her family's past has had on her inner insecurities and identity. She doesn't want to accept the comments that her classmates made, and her ears symbolically "blocks out the words" as a way of protecting herself from truths she doesn't want to hear.

The noises of the ghost are the first things Denver hears after two years of silence. Once Denver finally accepts her mother's past, her body allows her to hear the noises the baby ghost is making. This "physical" alteration from a past event shows the overall theme in Beloved that an individual's past still has the power to infiltrate and affect the present, especially in such an extreme and violent past like Sethe's. Even though Denver was not ever brought into the environment of slavery, affects of that time are everywhere. She sees it socially when she goes to school. She sees it within her family because of the obvious impacts they are still having on Sethe and even Paul D.

Earlier in the novel, when the baby ghosts' presence is noticeable, Denver is always either ignorant or annoyed by the spirit. Symbolically, this is Denver's way of ignoring her family's reality. When Denver is finally ready to accept these facts, she is not bothered by the spirit's haunting. It can even be argued that Denver finds companionship with the baby ghost, which similarly affects the "sister"- like relationship Denver has with Beloved.

Female Friendships

Honestly, that family suffers from a dearth of outside friends and a preoccupation with the past. All of the drama and focus is facing inwards, in the interpersonal relationships and the past of all the members of Sethe's unconventional family. But this is what I believe causes the negative cycle between Sethe and Beloved and the frustration that Denver feels.

It is obvious that Denver suffers from lack of companionship by the amount of time and energy she sinks into a relationship with Beloved before she finally realizes no action she does will have an effect. Denver is looking for a close female friendship or a surrogate sibling bond with which to release all the thoughts and issues she had and is having in her life, constantly describing people and things to her and feeling hopelessly addicted to gaining her attention even when she feels that Beloved is taking over her life. If she had the opportunity to have a mutual friendship, she wouldn't be stuck in this unhealthy power imbalance by her need for affection.

Denver deserves a better companion, someone who actually cares about her and feels a responsibility to reciprocate attention. But because her family is stuck in the past, only capable of contemplating what had been done and the people who had come from that action--a ghost sister who had been killed, a mother who had been the killer, a man with a tin box for a heart, the haunting spirit of slavery contaminating everything--she doesn't have any other recourse.

Critical Lens Experts

The two essays that look at Beloved through the New Historical Lens both give different perspectives on what Toni Morrison was thinking when she was writing Beloved. In one of the essays the writer says Toni Morrison borrows from Frederick Douglass’s 1845 narrative. When Frederick Douglass wrote his novel it was during a time when slavery was still going on and he had to be careful about what he wrote in the novel because he did not want to offended the white readers of his novel because of the time period it was written. This writer also talks about how Douglass is able to use facts to inform readers rather than offend them, and how Morrison was able to more freely write about slavery without causing too many problems. The author also says Morrison tells a more emotionally telling story than Douglass does. They also say “Morrison’s treatment of song in Beloved provides the reader with a testimony that is significantly different from the testimonies set forth from slave narratives.” It is saying that what Morrison wrote is different from what other stories that have been told by previous slaves. The thing that stuck out to me in this paper the most was when it talks about how Morrison explores the relationship between song and humanity using her description of Beloved’s unique origin. I had never realized that Sehte is basically banished from society for murdering her one of her children and it is the reason why no one talks to Denver or Sethe. It went into a deeper reasoning of why no one talks to Denver or Sethe. Her neighbors think of her as inhumane because she murdered one of her children. It also says “If Sethe had acted less barbarically, her personhood would have been recognized by the spectators and “the singing would have begun at once.” This is saying the root of Sethe's problems are because she murdered her child, had she not done that she would have been better off. This part of the paper made the most sense to me, it made me think something different from then what I was thinking before.

Motherhood Might Matter

Terry Paul Caesar posits many ideas regarding what Beloved tells about motherhood in the essay "Slavery and Motherhood in Tony Morrison's Beloved." Motherhood, she says, is when a mother owns a daughter and the daughter owns the mother. This situation is corrupted, however, by slavery because it conditions the participants to despise the fealty owed to the other party. She also comments on how Sethe and Beloved specifically interact: Sethe feels guilt about the perceived lack of love she had for her children, and Beloved feels spiteful for not having that love, so they go about in a self-contained cycle of reminding each other in their pain until they are essentially the same broken person.

Though she thoroughly explored the mother-daughter relationship between Sethe and Beloved, Caesar does not much address Denver's spurred claim to Sethe. Though she does say that Beloved's need for Sethe is all-consuming and "tyrannical," she doesn't account for Denver's need which isn't stimulation from her mother but stimulation from her "sister." The relationship between daughter and mother, while always having the potential to be a strongly justified slavery to one another, is not so in many cases. As Denver can find entertainment in sources other than her mother, I don't have a very close relationship with any of my family and instead rely on friends to connect with others or feel contractual responsibilities. By that I mean that the same dual-ownership situation described by Caesar is what I encounter in friendship, since I feel that both parties in a friendship have a responsibility to help one another. Overall, though I found this essay a very interesting and topical analysis of Beloved, I believe the exploration of more situations than just those found in the book or worst-case scenarios could have lead to a more nuanced analysis of motherhood.

Slave Society Struggles (on Sex)

Beloved is set in a tumultuous time, when former slaves are struggling to fit into a free society and their children are just beginning to grow into people of their own. The focus of this book is on the problems that arise from that integration, which carries over into all aspects of the book, including how the main characters deal with sex.

There is tension between two different societies' expectations and roles. On the slave side, sex is expected and not really shamed, and it doesn't have very many limitations (there is no question that Sethe will eventually have sex with one of the slave men and there's no hesitation that they have sex with cows while waiting). The mores present at Sweet Home (no rape, respect the sanctity of marriage) were upheld, and that seemed to be what justified the men as civilized.

But in the society they must fit into after they are free, bestiality is for savages and rape is allowed as long as it's not paraded or is against a "lesser" being (as Schoolteacher's nephews demonstrated on Sethe). In the mainstream society side, sex and virginity is something to be protected and not given freely, and there are lots of rules and regulations you are supposed to observe--but it's okay to ignore them as long as you aren't caught.

The mainstream relationship with sex is one that in many ways seems flipped from what Sethe previously was used to. There are numerous guidelines for how often to have sex and with whom to have it with, and even more caveats on those rules based on one's gender, age, economic status, etc. This is in conflict with the very simple rules that applied when Sethe was a slave, basically only warning against infidelity. The focus of the mainstream social structure to sex seems to be most focused on maintaining one's social status, but the slave rules were created primarily as a way for the slaves to feel and prove themselves civilized. The question of whether the characters are sticking with the old slave way of viewing sexual attraction and the act itself or shifting to the more amoral, "don't-get-caught" attitude comes up whenever they view another person in a sexual light or do the act.

My views on sex are complicated, but I think they align more with the moral nature of the slave rules than the social purpose of the mainstream ones. The issue of sex is a complicated thing for any person to face, since what society dictates one should think about leaves out so many ways of expressing with it. Though, as an asexual, I don't have to worry personally about the social and moral consequences of having sex, it is an interest of mine especially because I know that many women struggle to escape the condemnation that comes if they have "too much" sex and many people of both genders face difficulties expressing themselves because they like kinks. Seeing characters in a book similarly struggle with a strange and imperfect system of regulating sex connects with the knowledge of that struggle I read before this book.

Angelic Heroism vs. Heinous Torture

Responding and Reflecting: Beloved

An unusually extensive flashback occurs during Chapter 8. Denver decides to share the story with Beloved, which she has heard from Sethe’s memory of giving birth to Denver. Sethe had a very special woman, Amy Denver, helping her deliver the baby. Denver loves retelling this story and cherishing the memory of an important “white woman” who brought her into the word. Toni Morrison tries to portray the marvel and rarity of a white woman willing to save a suffering runaway slave’s life. She accentuating this type of situation was seen as an “angelic” miracle, revealing that most slaves doubted any signs of true humanity in white people.

Amy and Sethe cross paths near a river and Amy offers to “rub Sethe’s feet”, which is a biblical allusion to a story in the New Testament. Sethe shows Amy her beaten, bloody back. The sight of a butchered backside would normally turn most people off, but Amy describes the sight as a “chokecherry” tree, which is a symbol of life and beauty. Amy sings Sethe a song that her mother used to sing to her. Amy bets that Sethe will survive the night despite her difficult physical suffering and pain. Together, they find the Ohio River and Sethe goes into labor. They quickly find a boat and Amy delivers Sethe’s baby. Before the two women get too fond of each other, Amy Denver leaves. Sethe decides to name her baby “Denver” in honor of Amy’s volunteered assistance in the desperate woman’s time of need.

I think it’s an interesting point to consider that although these women were racially different, they shared some interesting similar characteristics. Both women were running away from their past. Amy had been an indentured servant and she was traveling to Boston to finally buy herself some velvet. Sethe was running away from Sweet Home in the hopes of finding a better future for herself and her baby. I can’t help but assume that these women felt some connection based on their similar life paths and Amy felt an obligation to help a fellow suffering woman.

Slaves, including Sethe, had no faith that the average person would go out of their way to help a slave. In fact, Amy Denver didn’t show the utmost care and respect that Sethe deserved, especially after what she had experienced at Sweet Home. Sethe recalls that Amy condescendingly spoke to Sethe and even called her a "nigger." However, what Amy did for Sethe is still seen as an absolute miracle for Denver and her mom because it was such an anomaly in their society.

I am always amazed and inspired by genuine acts of extreme kindness that humans can show for one another. Recently, I had the privilege and honor of meeting and speaking to a “Righteous Among the Nations”, a woman who hid twenty Jewish individuals in her house while the Holocaust genocide was unfolding. Her story brought tears to my eyes and hope into my heart. It validated my faith in the fact that all people are good-hearted. Despite corrupt terror and acts of crime against other humans, which are caused by other factors like greed, power, and money, the pure and innate desire to help others is always present.

Responding and Reflecting

Reading Beloved through the New Historical lens has given me a different perspective of slavery during that time period and overall. It really showed me how long the effects of slavery stayed with slaves. In Beloved Sethe and Paul D are both affected by slavery after they have been freed. Paul D specifically is affected the most even though he is free, he flashes back to when he was at Sweet Home and all the bad memories which has affected his ability to have the life he always wanted.. I had never really thought about the impacts on the slaves after they were freed, this goes into the effects on them after they were free. Looking at the text through this lens also showed me that some slaves never truly felt they were free after slavery ended. You can see this in Beloved when Sethe or Paul D flash back to Sweet Home, they can not keep their minds from thinking about it and it still has a big affect on them. They still feel like so much of their life was taken that freedom now, while although good it is not as meaningful as it would have been earlier in their life. Baby Suggs is a good example of this she says “...then he gave he Halle who gave her freedom when when it didn’t mean a thing.”(28) She got her freedom when she was older and not able to enjoy the freedom, which is what some of the slaves felt at the time when they got their freedom as well. Overall reading Beloved through the New Historical lens gave me a different perspective on the lives of slaves while they were slaves and when they were free. The effect on slavery in the long run was a lot more than I ever thought of, when you think about slavery you never really consider the effects after the slaves were freed, you only think about the effects during slavery.