As
we have discussed several times in class, the power of
memory/rememory/disrememory is a crucial part of both Beloved and our present lives.
The first time in the novel when memory is explicitly discussed stems
from the conversation Denvor has with Sethe about the strange white dress that
appeared next to her: [Sidenote: Sorry for the giant quote!! There is so much
interesting/unparaphrasable stuff in this conversation I couldn’t leave some of
it out. Please skip over if you remember the passage well!]
“I was talking
about time. It’s so hard for me to
believe in it. Some things go. Pass on.
Some things just stay. I used to
think it was my rememory. You
know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it’s not.
Places, places are still there.
If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place—the picture of it—stays,
and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around
out there outside my head. I mean, even
if I don’t think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw
is still there. Right in the place where
it happened.”
“Can other people
see it?” asked Denver
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,
yes, yes. Someday you be walking down
the road and you her something or see something going on. So clear.
And you think it’s you thinking it up.
A thought picture. But no. It’s when you bump into a rememory that
belongs to somebody else. Where I was
before I came here, that place is real.
It’s never going away. Even if
the whole farm—every tree and grass blade of it dies. The picture is still
there and what’s more, if you go there—you who never was there—if you go there
and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there for
you, waiting for you. So, Denver, you
can’t never go there. Never. Because even though it’s all over—over and
done with—it’s going to always be there waiting for you. That’s how come I had to get all my children
out. No matter what.” (43-44)
Everything that happens has larger
implications that “just moving on” -- those forces and spirits still alive in
the world that surround us to this day. Looking
back on the passage after finishing the book, the “yes yes yes” is eerily
similar to the “No. No. Nono. Nonono.” that
Sethe describes running through her conscious as she sees Schoolteacher’s hat
on Bluestone (during her narration of the scene to Paul D) (192). Sethe’s explanation of why Denvor must *never* go back to Sweet Home is pivotal in
why she chooses death over life in slavery for her children. Even later in the novel when Sethe’s
explaining to Paul D, she is insistent that she made the right decision (/only
course of possible action in her mind).
What
is really interesting about the previous passage is how Sethe’s view of
memory/remormery has changed by the end of the novel:
-When talking about Beloved: “Everybody knew what she was called, but
nobody anywhere knew her name.
Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is
looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don’t
know here name?” (323).
-After Beloved’s
disappearance, the town “forgot her like a bad dream” (323) while “It look
longer for those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love with
her, to forget, until they realized they couldn’t remember or repeat a single
thing she said, and begun to believe that, other than what they themselves were
thinking, she hadn’t said anything at all.
So, in the end, they forgot her too.
Remembering seemed unwise. “
(323-324)
-And as Morrison
leaves with three repetitions “It was not a story to pass on” leads us to question our relation to the
novel. – Why read a story if it should
not be passed down? One answer here could be that this is from Sethe/the characters’
perspectives, not Morrison, who is the one telling the story. This “disrememory” of Beloved seems slightly
contrary to the “rememory” set up earlier in the novel. How
can everyone just “forget” and move on? She is still there, but Here Boy is
back, and the disrememory of her pushes her away.
The scene where Beloved is "banished"--only to become this soon-to-be-forgotten memory--is a compelling example of "rememory" itself, as there are many explicit echoes of the earlier scene in the yard and the shed, with Sethe triggered by the white man in a hat on horseback coming into the yard, where Ella and the church ladies are having a similar kind of flashback to the last time they approached 124 for Baby Suggs' party. We even get the same metaphor of hummingbirds poking Sethe's scalp as she charges Bodwin with the ice pick. It's almost as if this cathartic replaying of the earlier scene were necessary in order for Beloved to be forgotten. Maybe forgetting is linked to forgiveness here, and there's a clear intention for the community to reconcile with Sethe, with the idea that she's suffered enough, and this "ghost" from the "other side" has no right to torment her like this.
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure that the point is to forget the past. The way I see it, the characters have this deeply troubling history and the "rememory" is an effect that forces them to look back on actions and events that they have been trying to ignore and forget. Instead, by dredging up the past, Beloved is forcing Sethe and Paul D to not only re-investigate their past actions, but to come to terms with the consequences so that they could build a foundation for a new relationship and a new family in spite of decades of turmoil.
DeleteThe book almost seems to be contradicting itself because it spends a lot of time showing how the past never fully goes away, but in the final chapter, the story fades away over time as Denver gets older and has a good job. I think that this particular story must be an exception to the rule. When Beloved leaves permanently, there is no reason to remember the story. I'm curious why Morrison chose to make this important contradiction in her novel.
ReplyDeleteThe book almost seems to be contradicting itself because it spends a lot of time showing how the past never fully goes away, but in the final chapter, the story fades away over time as Denver gets older and has a good job. I think that this particular story must be an exception to the rule. When Beloved leaves permanently, there is no reason to remember the story. I'm curious why Morrison chose to make this important contradiction in her novel.
ReplyDelete