读Beloved时所想
Retelling relies on remembering. Most of the selected part is a string of retelling (Baby Suggs told about her past to Sethe; Sethe and Paul D talked about their past; Denver told about her quiet and queenly Mama), which usually means that someone at present narrates something bygone. Yet the sentence “Her past had been like her present” seems to break the chain between the past and the present. Thus it turns the narrative non-linear, and also conveys a gloomy message--all these characters, mired in the past forever, are deprived of the “present”.
The dialogue between Baby and Sethe (“…that’s all I remember” and “That’s all you let yourself remember.”) clarifies two kinds of remembering. The first type is more of an object, meaning that we pay more attention to the target while remembering. It probably leads to forgetfulness, yet Baby and Sethe gradually learnt that death and forgetfulness were merely not enough (“death was anything but forgetfulness”). Therefore they mounted the second level: remembering as a ceaseless and torturous course. Through remembering, they kept internalizing those memories and turned it a suicide-like course.
The second type of remembering always directs those who suffered, which focuses on the subtle and imperceptible emotions of black people. Baby compared her eight children with Sethe’s three left kids. The scarred memories were supposed to be excruciating yet a tint of self-mockery was added while Baby was narrating. Besides, Sethe could not forgive herself for remembering wonderful soughing trees rather than the suffered boys. Those monstrous white people and the related system were to blame, yet Sethe internalized all those hatred and shame.
Those who suffered are afflicted by these memories, which, meantime, protect them in an intangible way. Denver learnt that memories could endow the victims with the privilege of talking, a sense of belonging. Such action is like constructing high walls in heart, as if to wipe off perpetrators and to block irrelevant people’s view of the disgrace, leaving those victims faked “pride”, and an illusion—they became the core of the history because only they could talk. But in reality, it was them that belonged to the marginal group, with no right to say.
Retelling usually involves two parts. It seems that not until Paul D came by accident did Sethe tried to open up and retold. Yet from my perspective, what renders Beloved magnificent is that it redefines retelling and remembering, which suffices to involve a single part throughout. Just like Denver who had no one to talk to, self-conscious sufferers under that dark history can do nothing but keep relieving yet internalizing the memories to themselves. “They took my milk” echoes through the lines, remaining the most painful yet helpless part. When Sethe finally took a valiant attempt to attribute the scars to “they”, all she could do was still to uselessly repeat. But who are they? Why couldn’t she make it clear? We know some of the reasons behind.
