Beloved: Narrative Structure and Sethe’s Iron Wall
Beloved by Toni Morrison has a very interesting narrative structure. The novel circles around its core themes, its mysteries, getting ever closer with each chapter. The question then rises, why did Morrison choose to write like this? An easy answer: it’s simply a unique structure that makes the novel more interesting to read. However, there’s a much more complicated answer that deserves a closer look.
There are two main memories that Morrison hints at slowly throughout part 1 until the full scene is finally revealed; those being the moment in the barn where Sethe’s milk is taken and the moment in the shack where Sethe kills the baby. The narrative structure of both moments is interesting, but here I’ll just focus on the first one as understanding Sethe’s response to the second event is too much for me to cover meaningfully here. The first event is more clear-cut, an intensely traumatic moment for Sethe.
Sethe is an iron wall. From the very beginning of the novel, Paul D associates her strongly with this metallic strength, pointing out her “iron eyes and backbone to match” (10). As we slowly learn more about the novel’s story, we are also seeing Sethe’s iron wall, built up to protect herself from her traumatic past at Sweet Home, pushed to the brink and beginning to crack.
When Sethe meets Paul D she begins to be dragged back into her time at Sweet Home, dragged into her “rememory”. Paul D not only takes her back to her trauma, he expands it. Slowly the truth of the night of Sethe’s escape is revealed to us. The image of rememory is painted in Morrison’s words. Sethe is forced to remember her milk being stolen by talking with Paul D about the moment, allowing the readers to also experience that traumatic moment. At the same time, Paul D reveals additional information that fills out the story. Watching Sethe from the hay loft is Halle, going mad as he sees how powerless he is until he completely breaks, smearing butter on his face in his delirium. Paul D also is nearby, choking on a horse bit, the intense desire to swallow pushing him toward the brink of insanity as well.
With Paul D’s additional information, Sethe’s rememory is expanded. It is no longer just her perspective on the events, but the whole scene, three people tortured by the powerlessness of slavery. These three characters respond to this trauma in different ways. Halle just breaks, losing his mind and his will to fight. Paul D hides his feelings away, forcing them into a “tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut” (86). But Sethe is different. Sethe pushes through the pain. She builds up strong iron walls around her heart, pulling her children into the walls as well to protect them with her love.
Up until the point where everything is revealed to the reader, little references to the scene are dotted around—Sethe proclaiming that her milk was stolen, a quick mention of Halle at the churn, and more. These small moments are rememory pounding on Sethe’s iron wall. However, when Paul D reveals Halle’s position in the story, Sethe’s wall is cracked by the memory. Her brain takes in the new information, adding onto her trauma and bringing it back into the forefront of her mind, where we can see it.
The narrative structure leading up to and including this revelation allows the reader to experience a modicum of Sethe’s trauma. The reader gets to see these knocks on the past and the flood of traumatic memory at its culmination. This structure pulls the reader closer to Sethe, forming a connection that is absolutely imperative for reading the rest of the novel with sympathy for Sethe. Morrison had to form this connection very strongly. It had to be strong enough that we could see Sethe killing her child with absolutely no remorse and understand that she did it out of love. And while that seems like an impossible task, Morrison is completely successful, and a large part of that success comes down to this narrative structure.
I think this is a really interesting post. The way that Morrison describes "rememory" it kind of seems like it is a communal form of memory. It's a type of memory that is shared between people and built on with new information, as you say in your blog post. I really like how you highlight the ways that the book itself mirrors this idea.
ReplyDeleteI would also add that it is by definition somewhat supernatural - it's not like a communal form of memory by people talking about their memories. I think it makes sense that Sethe, having experienced and been around supernatural forces, conceptualizes a somewhat supernatural form of memory. But as Denver, hearing this from Sethe, I would be skeptical of "rememory"...
Delete@rake, I think I imagine rememory being kind of like a 3 dimensional memory that you can walk around in and that grows as more people add onto it. It's definitely seems like a really supernatural concept, but at the same time, aren't we as readers of Beloved also kind of drawn into the rememory? We get to visualize all these different angles and perspectives of the memory, building up a scene from a birds-eye view. I think we can imagine that other characters who weren't there, like Denver, have a similar experience with rememory, being swept into it from other people's knowledge. Though perhaps that isn't completely consistent with the way that rememory can also just latch onto a place, hmm... it's certainly a very complicated concept
DeleteGreat post! I love your depiction of Sethe surrounding herself by the iron wall, especially with her bringing her children in too. I definitely agree that observing some of these traumatic events is important in order to find some sort of understanding as to why Sethe did what she did. The idea of Sethe protecting her children and staying strong for her children is especially evident when Paul D tells her how Halle seemed to lose his mind after seeing what happened to her from the loft, and she says she wished she could lose her mind too, but she had children to watch over. This idea that the driving reason for Sethe's strength is to protect her children helps readers see why she immediately knew, or believed, that when she saw Schoolteachers hat, she would kill her children because even though it would be a hard thing for her to do, she had to (at least in her mind) do it to keep them safe.
ReplyDeleteGreat job! I really enjoyed reading this analysis of Sethe, and how Paul D and her together end up diving back into their rememory, and finding fresh horror in their trauma when their experiences combine. It's a heartbreaking story, and rememory portrays the very much living and changing nature of trauma perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI would completely agree with you on your analysis of Morrison's narrative structure. I think that a huge part of her writing style, at least in Beloved, was to allow the readers to understand what the characters went through as much as possible. She wanted it to be as graphic and true to the experience, and thus, the element of switching between memories, and at random moments being forced into remembering a traumatic event is incredibly important to the novel.
ReplyDeleteThis is great and very detailed, and I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I think also the narrative structure is important because it conveys organic-ness. It flows in the way that memory does - back and forth without structure. To me, this is Morrison's response to mainstream historical accounts. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHey Doren, great post! I think the narrative style in Beloved is one of the most unique aspects of the book, so I'm glad you wrote about it. The novel's elusive plot building and withholding of information reminds me of Sethe herself, almost like the book's format and word choice represents Sethe's relationship with her past memories and her iron will slowly breaking down. Just like Sethe initially keeps Paul D at an arms-length and doesn't reveal what happened to Beloved, the narrative does the same to the reader. Only when the reader settles in to their understanding and characterization of Sethe is the main incident revealed, which recontextualizes the reader's perspective, or "rememory," of Sethe. Great job!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's really interesting that much more of Sethe's perspective is revealed to the reader as it appears her iron wall is breaking down. Almost like all of the trauma that she was holding outside comes rushing in and Sethe must battle with it. The reader too must battle with those memories.
DeleteI really like this post, and I completely agree with how the narrative goes hand in hand with the iron wall. I think by following along with Sethe's state, it makes the story all the more immersive. I think highlighting this is really important, and I feel like this aspect of the novel would make a second reading really interesting as well. The book is confusing, but the characters themselves are confused at times too.
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