Baby-Ghost Woman
Beloved, written in 1987 by Toni Morrison, describes the life and trauma of former slaves and their experiences with rememory. Rememory, a new concept introduced in Beloved, can be identified as a sudden remembrance of a forgotten or purposefully suppressed memory. One character in the book who openly discusses the idea of rememory is Sethe. Sethe is one of the main protagonists of Beloved, and she can only be identified as one of the strongest characters in all of American literature. She not only fights and advocates for herself independently, but also emphasizes the importance of family and will do anything and everything for her family, blood-related or not.
Sethe and Denver discuss rememory in the novel, saying,
Sethe and Denver discuss rememory in the novel, saying,
“Denver: ‘If it's still there, waiting, that must mean that nothing ever dies.’
Sethe: ‘Nothing ever does.’”
This interaction between Sethe and Denver is unsettling and extremely eerie, especially now (after reading the rest of the book). With this description of rememory as a relentless phantom of repressed or forgotten experience, the reader has a better idea of the connotation that memory is regarded with. When thinking of examples of Sethe’s rememory, one comes to mind almost immediately. There is nothing more chilling about the haunting of a rememory than a physical manifestation of the rememory: the tragically departed child of Sethe, Beloved, or more specifically, the woman who may or may not be the reincarnation of Beloved.
There are multiple signs that point to the mysterious woman being Beloved, including behaviors and mannerisms to her likes and dislikes. The similarities are pretty hard to ignore considering how seemingly odd the woman already is without the knowledge of her possibly being the baby, Beloved. One of the first things the reader notices about the woman is that she emerges from water. This could be a sign of a rebirth of some sort, especially considering the black dress she wears upon her arrival. Her physical appearance is also incredibly similar to the physical appearance of a baby. She has large pupils, “fresh eyes,” fresh and unwrinkled skin, and a raspy voice. These are all attributes of a newborn. The “fresh eyes” may represent eyes untainted by the entirety of the world and its injustices, as the eyes of a baby have not seen the world yet. The fresh, unwrinkled skin, specifically her feet, could mean that she physically has not used her body yet. As we grow and age, our skin becomes wrinkled and scarred and constantly changes, while Beloved, a grown woman, is unscathed by impending mortality. Outside of her physical appearance, the woman loves the staircase. This seems quite peculiar, especially for an adult woman who emerged from water. What is significantly more intriguing is that the baby Beloved had a special love for the stairs. She also has a sweet tooth, which is obviously similar to a child. The woman also has an extremely deep connection with Denver. This fact is particularly interesting because if the reader was to assume that the woman is the reincarnation of Beloved, then that would make her the sister of Denver, thus explaining their deeper connection to each other. For all of these reasons, I think it would make perfect (well, almost perfect) logical sense for the woman to be the reincarnation of the baby-ghost, Beloved.
I wrote the majority of this before we read the rest of the book and before I knew more about the relationship between the woman, Denver, Sethe, baby ghost, and baby Beloved. I think it is really fascinating how we were able to come up with all of these comparable attributes and more between the mystery woman and baby-ghost Beloved during the class discussion.
There are multiple signs that point to the mysterious woman being Beloved, including behaviors and mannerisms to her likes and dislikes. The similarities are pretty hard to ignore considering how seemingly odd the woman already is without the knowledge of her possibly being the baby, Beloved. One of the first things the reader notices about the woman is that she emerges from water. This could be a sign of a rebirth of some sort, especially considering the black dress she wears upon her arrival. Her physical appearance is also incredibly similar to the physical appearance of a baby. She has large pupils, “fresh eyes,” fresh and unwrinkled skin, and a raspy voice. These are all attributes of a newborn. The “fresh eyes” may represent eyes untainted by the entirety of the world and its injustices, as the eyes of a baby have not seen the world yet. The fresh, unwrinkled skin, specifically her feet, could mean that she physically has not used her body yet. As we grow and age, our skin becomes wrinkled and scarred and constantly changes, while Beloved, a grown woman, is unscathed by impending mortality. Outside of her physical appearance, the woman loves the staircase. This seems quite peculiar, especially for an adult woman who emerged from water. What is significantly more intriguing is that the baby Beloved had a special love for the stairs. She also has a sweet tooth, which is obviously similar to a child. The woman also has an extremely deep connection with Denver. This fact is particularly interesting because if the reader was to assume that the woman is the reincarnation of Beloved, then that would make her the sister of Denver, thus explaining their deeper connection to each other. For all of these reasons, I think it would make perfect (well, almost perfect) logical sense for the woman to be the reincarnation of the baby-ghost, Beloved.
I wrote the majority of this before we read the rest of the book and before I knew more about the relationship between the woman, Denver, Sethe, baby ghost, and baby Beloved. I think it is really fascinating how we were able to come up with all of these comparable attributes and more between the mystery woman and baby-ghost Beloved during the class discussion.
Maybe the strongest piece of evidence--the one that drives home the visitor's identity to Sethe--is the fact that she can hum the song that Sethe *made up for her children and has sung to no one else*. (Beloved eerily states , "I know it.") There is a pile of evidence to suggest that Beloved has some kind of supernatural origin, and we also get her extremely confusing and evocative internal monologue, with its horrific imagery that implies some kind of purgatory or afterlife (with corpses piled on each other, where she can see Sethe through "clouds"), other imagery that recalls slave ships, and also suggestions that she has been held captive by white people (or "men without skin").
ReplyDeleteThis last possibility remains alive in the book, as Paul and Stamp refer to a young woman who apparently escaped from captivity over the summer, around when Beloved arrives. None of this explains all the supernatural-seeming evidence that Beloved knows stuff about Sethe and the baby, or the smooth skin or the baby teeth or any of that weirdness. This character is never going to be fully explained, and Morrison renders her ambiguous intentionally. But the possibility that Beloved is fleeing some *other* real-world horrific trauma (of the sort suffered by Ella while captive of "the worst yet") adds an additional layer of mystery and trauma to the story. As Paul notes at one point, there are damaged, traumatized black people wandering the countryside at this point in American history, and the most obvious explanation for Beloved's disorientation and confusion is horrific in this very non-supernatural way.
Hello Emma, I completely agree that Beloved is most likely some sort of reincarnation of Sethe's lost child, Beloved. There is no other explanation for her knowing about certain things, like the song. As you talk about as well, when Beloved talks about things never really dying that is a key indicator of her "ghost" identity. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Emma! I think you did a great job laying out all the evidence in a way that clearly pointed to Beloved's true identity. The eerily out-of-place characteristics Beloved showed throughout her appearance in the novel really gave me the chills at times. I remember being thoroughly creeped out by this character whenever she would talk about her experiences "underground" along with the memories she should not have had as a stranger to house 124.
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