Like many of the posts before me, I feel uncomfortable calling this text postmodern, especially since Morrison calls herself antipostmodern. \u00a0(What does antipostmodern mean anyway? \u00a0Against the idea of postmodernism? \u00a0Against the tenets associated with the term? \u00a0Or is she saying that she is anything other than postmodern? \u00a0All would be interesting avenues of exploration.) Regardless,there is one part of this novel that struck my postmodern chord: the rewriting\/ retelling of history in the novel. \u00a0<\/p>\n
This idea reminded me of Hassan’s discontinuity of history in”POSTmodernISM.” According to the essay, \u00a0“We reinvent continually the past…Or individually, each man dreams his ancestors to remake himself” (6). \u00a0Clearly, this reinvention of history is a major part of Beloved<\/em> not only with events happening out of order and the revision of the history through the mouth of a freed slave, but– more interesting yet– the reader sees several retelling of stories that happen to the characters in the novel. \u00a0A prime example is the narrative of Denver’s birth told (in part) to us by Sethe (31). \u00a0A more expanded version of Denver’s birth is told from Denver herself as she recounts it to Beloved. \u00a0“Denver spoke, Beloved listened, and the two did the best they could to create what really happened, how it really was, something only Sethe knew because she alone had the mind for it and the time afterward to shape it” (78). \u00a0This collaborative second-hand retelling of history based on Sethe’s story to them struck me as just the type of discontinuity of history that links Morrison to Hassan. \u00a0<\/p>\n Davis devotes quite a bit of her essay to Morrison’s rewriting, “rememory” as Sethe calls it, of history \u00a0though “origins, cycles, and reconstructing agency” (244). \u00a0While I don’t want to rehash her analysis of the novel, I did want to add on to her idea. \u00a0<\/p>\n The short two-page chapter on 133 and 134 appeared to be a beautiful metaphor of this very revision of history that Davis speaks of in Beloved<\/em>. \u00a0In this chapter, Beloved reaches into her mouth and pulls out a “back tooth” (133). \u00a0She ponders this action and thinks that “her arm, her hand, a toe” would be the next to fall off (133). \u00a0This pulling \/ falling apart of Beloved seems to be a nice extension into thinking about history. \u00a0At any moment the details of events in the past could suddenly be lost. \u00a0What then? \u00a0 Beloved appears to share these fears by saying that she has two dreams: “exploding, and being swallowed” (133). \u00a0 The threat of losing the past could very well meet the same fate. \u00a0The interesting part to me was Denver’s response to this tooth loss episode. \u00a0<\/p>\n “Must be a wisdom,” said Denver. \u00a0“Don’t it hurt?”<\/p>\n “Yes.”<\/p>\n “Then why don’t you cry?”<\/p>\n “What?”<\/p>\n “If it hurts, why don’t you cry?”<\/p>\n “And she did. \u00a0Siting there holding a small white tooth in the palm of her smooth smooth hand” (133-4). \u00a0So Beloved cries after the suggestion has been made that it might hurt and she should cry. \u00a0If this is an extension of the retelling of history, Morrison would be positing the idea that a mere seed of suggestion can alter and shape not only our reactions to events, but the very events themselves. \u00a0A terribly postmodern idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many of the posts before me, I feel uncomfortable calling this text postmodern, especially since Morrison calls herself antipostmodern. \u00a0(What does antipostmodern mean anyway? \u00a0Against the idea of postmodernism? \u00a0Against the tenets associated with the term? \u00a0Or is she saying that she is anything other than postmodern? \u00a0All would be interesting avenues of exploration.) … Continue reading Like Pulling Teeth<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-10-beloved"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}