All posts from here on out will be for African-American Literature

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Importance of Rememory in Beloved

Throughout the novel of Beloved, Morrison's idea of rememory plays a significant role in Sethe's journey of reliving every detail from Sweet Home that she repressed. This is crucial to the development of the story because Morrison chooses to write the novel in an unorthodox way by not starting from the beginning. Since the beginning of the novel is essentially the middle of the storyline, the act of rememory is Morrison's way of letting readers (and other characters) learn about the past events leading up to the present. Morrison further complicates the narration of the story by not only jumping to the past but also to the future. One of the main reasons why rememory is such an important experience to Sethe is because it is her way of remembering everything from her time in Sweet Home that she repressed. The most compelling aspect of Sethe'e rememory is that it makes it seem like we are living in the present with her. The sudden jumping back and forth sometimes makes ...
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Why I Had No Sympathy for Rochester

During class discussions, one of the debatable topics we came across was who we felt more sympathy towards: Rochester or Antoinette? Like everyone else, I was on Antoinette's side in the beginning of the novel because we were hearing her side of the story and experiencing things with her. In the bathing pool scene with Tia and Antoinette, while I did think that Antoinette was being ignorant about the social cultural issues at hand, I also felt bad for her for not knowing right from wrong because her mother never distinguished them for her. I felt that Annette was a relatively absent mother who is partly to blame for the way Antoinette turned out. However, Annette also dealt with her fair share of struggles, especially after losing Pierre to a fire that is solely her husband's fault. Because of this, Annette's spiral into "madness" was justifiable as any mother who loses a son would go crazy. Seeing that Antoinette's mother-figure was Christophine, I had sympa...
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Clarissa's Love Life

We kind of touched on this idea in class, but I was interested in comparing Clarissa's relationship with Sally, Peter, and Richard, especially how Clarissa acts and feels differently with each of them. Going off of our discussion in class, Richard reminds me of how a teenage boy would act when he likes someone but is afraid to tell the girl. The fact that Mrs. Dalloway is a third person narration makes us as readers like Richard more because we get to read about how he truly does love Clarissa, but he just can't find the courage to express it to her. Richard and Clarissa's relationship is tame in the sense that there is no passion between them. Earlier on, we read that part of the reason Clarissa likes her relationship with Richard is because he gives her space, but I also think that might be part of the reason she doesn't feel "fulfilled" with Richard. On the surface, Clarissa thinks that she would be happier with Peter and regrets saying no to his propos...
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