1. Warming up with two quick rounds of Socratic ticket musical chairs
2. Considering the following: How is Beloved marked?
- What does our friend, Thomas Foster (from How To Read Literature...) have to say about marks?
- "...character markings stand as indicators of the damage life inflicts...[characters] bear signs illustrating the way life marks all who pass through it." (195)
- Find two or three good passages illustrating how Beloved is marked. What might these marks signify?
3. Discussing Chapters 5 through 8 of Beloved, Socratic style
4. Wrapping up with questions, epiphanies, and kudos
HW:
Read Chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12 for Monday. If you decide to try a redacted poem, a found poem, or a drawing, please include a reflection with your art exploring what new understanding of the reading you gained from it.
Sethe and Halle
ReplyDeleteConsequences
Sethe is fixated on one aspect of it
Sethe is more bothered by things that affect her kids than her personally
Willing to sacrifice rational thought for her children
Sethe has to stop Paul D from talking about the past
Beloved is the connection to the past; Sethe doesn’t feel bothered
Sethe has developed an attraction for Beloved
Treating Beloved as a daughter more than Denver
Number 4
Beloved is Sethe’s fourth child
Sethe’s ability to be a mother is trapped in the past
Why Denver can’t be treated so much like a daughter but Beloved can
3 scratches
Representation of 3 other children- uniting that family
Water
Most essential human moments
Cleansing
Baby is seen in a white dress and now in a black dress
Innocence and purity vs. darkness through cleansing
Outhouse
Reminded of water breaking
Beloved coming out of the water
What are Beloved’s intentions of coming back?
Malicious
Good intent came after
Sethe and Denver are pulling her back, passively move on
Denver and Beloved are wandering in their own way
Change of white dress to black dress
Color of the dress wasn’t clarified until she got to the porch
Subtly let Sethe know she is beloved
Beloved came at a really weird timing
Right as they were moving forward, Beloved came in and pushed them back
Relationship between Sethe, Denver, and Beloved
Beloved is in the body of a teenageer but also has the mind of a toddler
Parasitic relationship towards Sethe
Sethe and Beloved are both trying to bring up the past; sticking up her claim before Paul D
Do the characters see things for what they are?
Who in the book has the ability to see things for what they are?
Paul D has to betray Sethe’s relationship to get rid of Beloved or keep the relationship
The most conscientious about what is happening.
The way Beloved eats makes Paul D sick to his stomach
Paul D is the representation of how to deal with a painful past
Book is written in third person and magical realism
Only narrative we get is the one we construct for ourselves
We can’t trust our perception