Responding and Reflecting #4 A circle that just keeps repeating itself.

"What goes around comes around."

A circle that goes around and around within itself. Going in loops and loops non-stop. You think you move forward each time you make a change in that situation, look back and no change has been made, not even a step forward.

This is exactly what I realized when I read, Circularity in Toni Morrison's Beloved by Philip Page. This reading was in fact, one of the few readings where I realized that the events that we come across, we may also be in a "circularity" circle. The beginning of his argument presents an idea, that takes sometime to understand and grasp. It takes a long time because at first it seems as though the characters in Beloved, especially Sethe and Paul D are moving forward, sure there may be times where they both stop and everything seems to just stop and repeat itself over too many times. On the contrary even though this may happen at times, as a reader I feel that this is the reason why grasping the idea that the main characters are stuck in the same place and can't move forward is hard to understand.

In order for me to have a better understanding I broke down what I knee and related it to my personal life. What I noticed about Pages argument was that blood in the human body never stops circulating, unless something cuts it off. I then used this application to interpret what he was trying to say for Beloved and saw that it was the same concept. I then took a closer look and saw that the characters keep going in circles like blood because something is blocking them from seeing past it. What is keeping them in that loop is the horrific experiences that they had to go through when in slavery and the regret. With this I believe that we have to be able to forgive the past in order to move forward, but it is a long process.

Close reading 1 "how moments should last a life time"

"Obviously the hand-holding shadows she had seen on the road were not Paul D, Denver, and herself, but "us three." The three holding on to each other skating the night before; the three sipping flavored milk."(214)

When analyzing this specific quote, as a person I can see that for the most part, these are one of the few moments that will not be able to ever replace. These moments are ones that feel as though they need to last for a lifetime. At that specific time, everything seems to stop and it also seems too perfect to be true. Life is built upon the small memories and those memories then seem to make up the bigger picture. At that moment, the feelings of being satisfied and feeling of calmness, makes me personally feel relieved from stress. Life just seems to be stopping for a short amount of time, then suddenly keep going.

This pattern of how life works, makes Sethe, Denver and Paul all just stop for a moment and open their eyes to see the reality of how far they all have come. They also then see that the differences between them have now all come together in one place. It is almost a picture perfect moment, because of all the misfortune lanes they have taken. The misfortune may destroy some relationships or like in this case, take a longer time than usual to get on the same path and actually bring them together to remind them that there will be some relief when least expected.

Circularity

Philip page talks about Circularity theory that instead of moving forward or backwards you're actually moving in a circle. Philips talks about the part in the book where Sethe was walking in a circular motion around Paul D not wanting to her past to Paul D. Almost as if she was avoiding it but eventually when Sethe finally circles in and closes in on Paul she finally admits, It was almost if her past always comes to her and brings her back a few steps but then eventually moves forward but falls back again when the past is brought up. Kind like a never ending maze but in a maze you'll always either move forward and backward and eventually will come out but not in this maze. This maze is never ending. Its crazy about the circle motion they're moving because maybe I feel in this specific part when Sethe is opening up to Paul D about her past that maybe shes mentally thinking that her opening to Paul D shes actually moving forward but in realty shes physically moving in a circle around Paul D not being physically aware because shes space out about horrific past.
        Another point that Philips brings up as that there are contradictions in Beloved. Sethe imagines this perfect family but what's crazy about this is that in realty her family isn't perfect for all. For Sethe the fact that Denver and Paul D stuck by her is enough for her. Her two priorities are her strength but as well her dark past that she fears. Like for Denver she loves her to  death but is in fear whether she would get up one day and leave because her fearing that she thinks Denver actually portrayed this image of her, Seth, actually king her like she killed Beloved. Also Paul D, seeing him, brings back all these horrific memories of 'sweet home'. Put through Paul D perspective its more when he sleeps. This isn't mentioned in Philips essay but I can argue saying that this fits. So when Paul D can't literally sleep in 124 he goes every where in the house and still cant sleep until he's outside. But after he has sex with Beloved he's able to back into 124 normally with out comfortableness. Almost as if he went into a circle because also after having sex with Beloved the tobacco tin can, that represents his past,opens with out him noticing. This represents a circle because it starts off in the rocking chair, sethes bed, bathroom, and any space in the house to shed, and after the shed incident back into 124 like nothing. Like he can never escape his past now because a new door way opened to all his past coming out now and all his dark memories stored in the this tobacco tin can is all free and running wild.

A perfect circle

After reading Philip Page’s “Circularity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved”, Page makes the argument that the community that surrounds 124 is the circle that defines the story. For instance she believes that the “community acts together” in times of happiness, and in times of remorse. Page also believes that the residents of 124 Bluestone at times are members of the “neighborhood community”, but often times “isolate themselves from the community”. And in this state of isolation, “they are haunted by their past--first by the inanimate ghost of Beloved, then by the animate ghost of Beloved, whom no one but the residents of 124 [can] actually see.” The community is able to come together with the inclusion of Sethe and Denver when they exorcise Beloved. Moreover, in the end, the community slowly loses their memory of Beloved, and ultimately forget that she ever existed at 124. 

Another circle that Page believes to exist in Beloved is the family circle. Family a large part of the plot in Beloved, in that it is the sole reason why there is apparent character conflicts between the main characters. These character conflicts are recognized throughout Beloved. For instance, Paul D joining the family in the beginning of the story contributes to the conflict that is the “animated” version of Beloved joining the family as Sethe’s dead child incarnate. Another conflict that is seen only towards the end of the first part of Beloved, is when Sethe reveals to Paul D the real reason why her third child died. And as a result Paul D leaves 124, and escapes his problems through drinking. From Page’s writing, the circularity in the communities present in Beloved have their obvious flaws and beneficiary aspects. Through a psychoanalytic lens, we can see that because of the human condition, we assume the worst about ourselves and continue to be self loathing--although we may not be aware of it. The fact being that in the end of Beloved, it is presumed that the supernatural being Beloved, was a figment of the 124 family’s imagination--despite the realism that it presented. Paul D’s self loathing nature was evaluated through his calmed hostility towards Beloved, finally resolved through his reminiscing about his past mistakes. 

The human condition is something that leads people to be self destructed and poor decision makers. Page’s argument for circularity refines the meaning of the human condition, in that the communities present in 124 are victim to the human condition. This can be seen through their absence of one or all of the factors that contribute to the human condition. For instance, in Stamp Paid’s past as a slave, he had to give up his wife because the slave owner let his son sleep with her. The outcome was uncontrollable for Stamp Paid due to the fact that he was a slave, and because he was unable to prevent his wife from succumbing to the slave owners. His sense of rationality was questioned when he had changed his original name, Joshua, to Stamp Paid. Dehumanizing himself, while condemning his significant other, led him to believe that there was no attainable hope.

Fading Dreams

         "124 was so full of strong feeling perhaps she was oblivious to the loss of anything at all. There was a time when she scanned the fields every morning and every evening for her boys. When she stood at the open window, unmindful of flies, her head cocked to her left shoulder, her eyes searching to the right for them. Cloud shadow on the road, an old woman, a wandering goat untethered and gnawing bramble--each one looked at first like Howard--no, Buglar. Little by little she stopped and their thirteen-year-old faces faded completely into their baby ones, which came to her only in sleep. When her dreams roamed outside 124, anywhere they wished, she saw them sometimes in beautiful trees, their little legs barely visible in the leaves.           
          Sometimes they ran along the railroad track laughing, too loud, apparently, to hear her because they never did turn around. When she woke the house crowded in on her: there was the door where the soda crackers were lined up in a row; the white stairs her baby girl loved to climb; the corner where Baby Suggs mended shoes, a pile of which were still in the cold room; the exact place on the stove where Denver burned her fingers. And of course the spite of the house itself. There was no room for any other thing or body until Paul D arrived and broke up the place, making room, shifting it, moving it over to someplace else, then standing in the place he had made" (47).

          Dreams are symbolic because they tend to represent another world  of your own. Whether you know it or not, specific things happening in your dream actually represent something. According to common dream theory two symbols I notice that are very significant easy the railroad track and the house closing in on her
       

When Sethe dreams of a beautiful world outside of 124 in her dream there is a part where she envisioned a railroad track.  According to the common dream theory a road/track represents, the direction in where you head in life and where you question your current "life path." What's very interesting about this dream and specific symbol is that it was her little boys on those tracks. It also says that in her dream Sethe called her little boys to come back but never turned back. And in the very begging of the book it says how Sethe two boys left and never came back after they couldn't take anymore of the haunted house. So Sethe dreams reveal that since her two boys are on the rail road track and never look back when Sethe shouts to them, they chose there path since they were young boys. The railroad track, their path in life, shows that went away never to look back but is true because they ran away with out looking back ironically.
Another symbol in her dream is when her dream is transitioning into another. The transition as symbol because the transition was that after she witnessed the calm beautiful life she started lie falling back and her house was closing in on her, almost like she's been trapped. Being trapped in a dream refers to, " is a common nightmare theme, reflecting your real life inability to escape or make the right choice." The crazy part here is that Sethe is literally trapped in her past and can't manage to move forward. I believe that what maybe what's holding her back is living in the house, 124. She grew up a good majority of her life their and actually is being haunted by her baby beloved. I also believe the house is symbolized as shackles and her past. Since shes so into 124 and never wants to leave it's as if the house is holding her back from moving. Sometimes the best way to leave or forget about the past is moving on. In this case Sethe needs to realize that this house hold brings back such a dark past and because of this she can't imagine forgiveness. She needs to forgive everyone and everything for doing what they did to hurt her and move on. Move away from this dark past leave it behind and pack your things and leave. And this is the point that I believe that Sethe hasn't realized since shes all caught up in the present and having flashbacks that she cant control mentally. According to psychecentral, "Forgiveness isn't a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You’re a good person. You did something that hurt me. But I want to move forward in my life and welcome joy back into it. I can’t do that fully until I let this go.”

A Dirty Little Family Secrete...

           Beloved so far has me in shock. Going into Beloved I already has a sense of the book that will be very uncomfortable at times. The very beginning was confusing at first because there was a lot of flash backs going on here and there. From present to memories all the way back to "Sweet Home." Then all of the sudden this new girl in her late teens shows up. When I mean show up, I literally mean this girl just came out of the water. It was almost as if she "resurrected" or just got baptized . The most anticipating thing was the the girls name was "Beloved". Which was the name of her baby that she buried back in Sweet Home. Also what was crazy was the Beloved loved Sethe as child would love its mother. However, what made this more iroic was that Beloved actually had the mind set of still a little kid. There is suspicion that Beloved is actually the reincarnated baby of Sethe that is actually this one girl that came out of no where. And a weird coincidence that her name is "Beloved", same as Sethe dead baby. I have a feeling that is Seth's baby just reincarnated. Everything matches up like a puzzle perfectly fitting together. This beloved girl walks out of a river as if she was resurrected, her name is bBeloved, has the mindset of a child as if she was literally still a baby, and absolutely loves Sethe like an actual mother.
          Another crazy thing was that Paul D past hit him all at once where he wasn't able to sleep anywhere around the house. Like he went to the couch down stares, bathroom, living room, Sethes room, and the rocking chair where he normally sleeps. Until he sleeps in the inside of a shed where he's finally comfortable. All of the sudden Beloved walks in. She basically forces Pauly D to enter her and it brought a whole meaning to crazy.  Paul D is making her leave but she wont leave util she "touches" her. Eventually, Pauly D gives in and has sex with Beloved. Right when Pauly D is doing it the dirty with Beloved, the tobacco tin can that represent Paul D past starts to open slowly with out him knowing. That tin can represented all his dark past adn sleeping with beloved unleashed all these painful memories. As the book continues you Paul D continues this raunchy relationship. I just think this is crazy overall how all this escated really quickly from Beloived this young girl with a baby minded state goes from baby to a young womens mind set real quick.

A Condemned Past...

Just As I thought this book couldn't get more demented, tormenting, and plot twisting, it did. I had to open my mouth early. Well I finally figured that Sethe actually killed her daughter Beloved, no biggie. After, reading part 2 and 3 I have to say part 2 was the craziest. For three chapters in Part 2, each chapter was dedicated to either Sethe, Denver, and Beloved's past or start I guess you can say. The first chapter in part was all about Sethe. In this chapter basically Sethe killed beloved. I connected this image of the symbol of blood on the hands. Normally when blood is on a characters hand it represents that the guilt of what you did will basically eat you metaphorically. I thought this also fitted in with Sethe because in reality Sethe actually killed her own baby daughter Beloved. Despite whatever her true intentions were on killing Beloved she has death of Beloved in her hands. I found it crazy how Sethe was able to keep a secrete away like this from people so long. I question whether Sethe actually has a mental problem . But this is the questioned I asked myself while reading this exact chapter, "did Sethe killing was Beloved was an actual mental health problem she has or was it due to the fact that Sethe was dealing with a lot back then making her motives to kill Beloved into actually saving her?" Because at the time she was a run away her and her own mother was lynched for what not. I feel as if Sethe killed Beloved for a greater purpose as in her being born wouldn't want her child to live into this horrible world as these slaves saw it.z
       

          Next was Denver perspective of all this. We also came to realization that her other two kids that left her wasn't because 124 was haunted but actually because her own children were scared of her. They were scared that their own mother would kill them as well. Denver I feel since shes pretty childish she wasn't actually thinking reality that her mom would kill her. But maybe that fear itself would kill her, as in constant thought of her mother hurting her when she actually wouldn't as like a nightmare. Beloved chapter was just questioning because it talks about how basically maybe a women ate her and next thing she knows shes that women or took her presence some how. Next thing she knows shes coming out of the water like i mentioned before in my other blog almost as if she "resurrected."