this is a story about sethe, a runaway slave. she ran to her mother-in-law baby suggs in ohio, sending first her three children. on her way a whitewoman named amy denver helps her deliver the baby and shows her the way to ohio. she names her baby denver and arrives at baby suggs. they live there for a month before something bad happened. you are never quite sure what happened till later in the book. it is not presented or told in chronological order so it's a little confusing but towards the end you find out more through flashbacks.
a man named paul D shows up on sethe's doorstep, this is after her two sons run away, her unnamed daughter and baby suggs dies. paul D is one of the "last men of sweet home" where they were slaves to mr. and mrs. garner. the garners were decent towards their slaves and treated them ok. halle (sethe's husband) bought his mother's freedom by working. he was supposed to escape with sethe but never made it. he is presumed dead. life is not good for sethe, just her and denver there with a ghost of the baby daughter they call beloved.
beloved is so called because at her funeral the preacher said "dearly beloved" and so on her tombstone, sethe got the word "beloved" engraved.
it's a story about slave life and freedom, love for your children and making tough choices. paul D came and gave sethe a little bit of light in a dark world. despite her having "freedom" she was not totally free, with her daughter's death haunting her deeply. he had his emotions "locked in a tin can" where his heart was supposed to be, but upon arriving at 124, found some love to share. sethe and paul D went way back to the days when they were slaves together, 18 years previous but she was "halle's girl" back then.
sethe, if i'm here with you, with denver, you can go anywhere you want. jump, if you want to, 'cause i'll catch you, girl. i'll catch you 'fore you fall.
she is a friend of my mind. she gather me, man. the pieces i am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. it's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
sethe, me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. we need some kind of tomorrow.
i had not read many stories about slavery before but this one is loosely based on a true story about a slave who killed a child so it would not have to live the life of slavery. anything would be better than that, even death. it's hard to imagine a life in those days, especially as a slave. to think that it was considered okay is just crazy. they were not people.
to get to a place where you could love anything you chose - not to need permission for desire - well now, that was freedom.what do i know about freedom? that i take it for granted everyday. unless you've lived this sort of life or had to really struggle in growing up, you cannot imagine anything close to this hard life.
No comments:
Post a Comment