{"id":155,"date":"2019-09-23T08:48:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T12:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/?p=155"},"modified":"2019-09-23T08:48:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T12:48:05","slug":"return-of-beloved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/2019\/09\/23\/return-of-beloved\/","title":{"rendered":"Return of Beloved"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the arrival of Beloved, it is almost immediately assumed that this character represents the return of Sethe\u2019s baby that died years ago in some eerie, supernatural way. Apart from the obvious, that being her name, there are many other signs indicating she is in fact the child from Sethe\u2019s past. It began with a quiet devotion to Sethe that could only be compared to that of a child\u2019s devotion to its mother. Beloved wanted to spend every moment she could with Sethe, and often acted in ways that gave off a fear of potential abandonment by the older woman. She became enamored with hearing Sethe speak and tell stories of her past. Sethe noted that storytelling, \u201cbecame a way to feed her.\u201d (69) However, what Denver noticed in this is that occasionally Beloved would indicate she wanted to hear a certain story that she should not have been able to know about like in the case of the earrings. This leads to the sense that Beloved comes from Sethe\u2019s past and knows more than she is letting on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The language used to describe Beloved\u2019s connection with Sethe is well-suited to describe a mother-daughter like relationship. With words and phrases like \u201cdesire\u201d and \u201cpet-like adoration,\u201d the way Beloved feels about Sethe could be described as love. The words Beloved uses to describe where she was before staying with Sethe, Denver, and Paul D depict imagery in line with the idea she was in-fact Sethe\u2019s baby. When Sethe asks about where Beloved was beforehand Beloved responds, \u201c\u2018Dark,\u2019 said Beloved. \u2018I\u2019m small in that place. I\u2019m like this here.\u2019 She raised her head off the bed, lay down on her side and curled up.\u201d (88) Immediately, this description conjures up the image of a small child in the fetal position. Beloved goes on to describe the temperature where she was as \u201chot,\u201d and saying how there was no room to breathe or move as if she is describing her time in the womb, or also potentially, her grave. These eerie descriptions of Beloved\u2019s past only serve to compel and confuse the reader further on how this character could in-fact be Sethe\u2019s past child returning. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the arrival of Beloved, it is almost immediately assumed that this character represents the return of Sethe\u2019s baby that died years ago in some…<\/p>\n

Continue readingReturn of Beloved<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst390cnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}