Both A Mercy and Beloved are filled with mother-child relationships, many of which drive the stories. In A Mercy, we see Florens and a minha mae, Florens and Lina, Sorrow and Complete, as well as Rebekka and her various children. In Beloved we have Sethe and Denver, Beloved, and her sons, as well as multiple mother figures for Sethe herself. I couldn’t even begin to cover the dynamics between mothers and children in the two of Morrison’s books that we’ve read so far in one blog post, though Sarah P. mentions Rebekka’s relation with her children here. Yet in thinking about mothers and children in Beloved, especially Sethe’s relationship with Beloved, I noticed that the way which Morrison introduces Beloved seems to create parallels between Beloved and the development of an infant. Continue reading “Beloved Through Stages of Infancy”
Sound in Beloved
(Plot Spoiler if you haven’t finished the reading for 9/26) On Wednesday, Ken brought up that Morrison might have chosen Paradise as the title for the final work in her trilogy simply because she likes the way it sounds, and Dr. Beth wrote the word “sound” on the board. I was instantly reminded of some thoughts on the usage of sound in Beloved that I had when I first read the novel, and I thought I would share them here. In Dr. Beth’s class, I was introduced to Bernice Johnson Reagon who observed that “sound is a way to extend the territory you can affect…so people can walk into you way before they can get close to your body.” Morrison mirrors this extension of our beings in Beloved. Continue reading “Sound in Beloved”
Banned Books
Earlier this week, Professor McCoy mentioned that Beloved often makes appearances on banned books lists. Though Professor McCoy only made brief mention of this, I think its worthy of further discussion. As such, I decided to do some research on book banning, and coincidentally discovered that National Banned Book Week begins on September 25. So let’s talk about banned books. According to the American Library Association:
“By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.”
Hands
As I’ve been reading Beloved, Morrison’s use of hands has stuck out to me the most, but unfortunately I cannot seem to find a way to smoothly add it in to our current conversation. I even looked to see if there might be an article somewhere on the use of hands in Beloved but came up… empty-handed. *Crickets*. And although we have not really looked into it and I can’t seem to find anything else that has, I still believe it is a theme worth some attention.
I began to notice how Toni Morrison makes use of hands as a descriptor when I caught how often she mentioned Amy’s “good good hands,” (95). Four times in one chapter. Hands seem to Continue reading “Hands”
Shadows and Sinners
As it was pointed out in our introduction to Dante, there are a staggering number of subtle parallels between Dante’s trilogy and Morrison’s. The one that currently holds the most interest for me, and I will be exploring it here, is the presence of ombras/shades. In Inferno, Dante’s Pilgrim encounters ombras, souls in Hell who have sinned, thus condemning themselves to the afterlife there. As a class, we came to the consensus that these souls had each “done individual things” causing their eternal punishment. It implies a kind of agency. Being trapped in Hell didn’t just happen to them. Continue reading “Shadows and Sinners”
Infant Death and Haunting in “A Mercy” and “Beloved”
As we make the leap from Morrison’s A Mercy to Beloved this week, I can’t help but ask myself one question:
Why so many infant deaths?
In A Mercy, we learn of the numerous untimely passing of Rebekka’s babies. These deaths cause her grief that essentially serve as a driving force for her actions and relationships. For instance, Lina notes that she observes Mistress turning to God for prayer, although she previously believed her to not be much of a “Christian woman”. In Rebekka’s extreme grief, Morrison highlights the severity of impact that a broken maternal bond can produce for a mother. These dead essentially children “haunt” Rebekka, causing her shame, despair, and sadness. Continue reading “Infant Death and Haunting in “A Mercy” and “Beloved””
“All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition”
I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a piece of slam poetry that related to our content in class. While the title of this piece is “All Lives Matter: 1800s Edition” this piece focuses on the inherent white supremacy that existed during that time period.
Dante’s Inferno in music
In high school my band played The Divine Comedy composed by Robert W. Smith. Robert W. Smith composed the three different parts of the Divine Comedy; Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso as all separate movements. He told Dante’s story through music, and for me it really brings Dante’s story to life. Listening to Inferno you can almost imagine yourself entering Hell. The lone oboe solo in the beginning may represent Dante’s long journey into Hell. The loud percussion and brass throughout the movement really have a way of making you feel scared, and vulnerable. As Dante keeps making his way into the depths of Hell, Robert W. Smith adds human moans of agony and whipping sounds. This interpretation that Robert W Smith allows the listener to really understand the pain and harshness of Hell and the way Dante was feeling as he encountered it.
Here is Robert W. Smiths Divine Comedy I.- The Inferno
Biopolitics and the Neoliberal Subject: an introduction
Hello all,
This is my first blog post for my English senior honors thesis: Biopolitics and the Neoliberal Subject. For my project, I explore illness narratives and the construction of the ill-body in contemporary African-American literature, and the critical conversations surrounding these narratives. More specifically, my thesis seeks to answer this critical question: In contemporary African-American literature, how does the construction of illness and the construction of the ill-body destabilize and ultimately counteract the biopolitical agenda of the neoliberal regime? Currently, this question acts as a guiding force for my research; the wording of the question may evolve as I conduct my research, but this critical question keeps me grounded in what I am seeking to discover.
Continue reading “Biopolitics and the Neoliberal Subject: an introduction”
Dante’s Inferno Resource
Here is a great resource that I have used to help me in the past with reading Inferno. Even though I have read Inferno multiple times, this website helps me keep the different circles and key sinners in order.