Close Reading Blog Post: Beloved in the Minds of Others

"He could feel both Sethe and Denver pulling in, hold their stomach muscles, sending out sticky spiderwebs to touch one another. He decided to force it anyway.

‘I asked you who brought you here?’

‘I walked here,’ she said. ‘A long, long, long, long way. Nobody bring me. Nobody help me.’

‘You had new shoes. If you walked so long why don’t your shoes show it?’

‘Paul D, stop picking on her’" (77)

Toni Morrison writes this in the beginning of chapter 7. In which we first see Paul D idolize Beloved because of her physical appearance, something about Beloved really stood out to Paul D - he even describes her as “shining”. However, as Paul D continues to debrief his own internal conflict his ego takes action when Paul D begins to question this newly arrived lady who identifies herself as Beloved. This name is in particularly pondering to the reader because we Sethe herself has a baby that died whose name was also Beloved. Not only that but Beloved was described by Morrison to have risen from a nearby river and walk towards 124 - hinting at the idea of resurrection. Whether she is a physical character and is who she claims to be, or possibly a demon or ghost of baby Beloved in a physical body. Paul D and Sethe seems to have very different perspectives to first meeting Beloved. For instance, on chapter we can see as Morrison writes “Paul D wondered at the newness of her shoes” (63). Paul D’s ego takes into effect here, which is described by Saul McLeod in his article Id, Ego and Superego to be , "concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure". As a result since Paul D has previously been growing suspicious of Beloved he questions to her about her shoes to force an answer that would suit Paul D’s ego. For instance Paul D expects for her to admit that she just rose from the water and isn’t who she says she is, this is what Paul D’s ego wants. However Beloved simply replies that “I [Beloved] walked here” (77), which was not what Paul D wanted to hear. On the other hand, after Paul D asks about Beloved’s shoes we see how Sethe quickly reacts to try and defend her and Paul D and consequently becomes frustrated in response by saying “If you walked so far why don’t your shoes show it” (77).  

This interaction, however, triggers the id of Sethe who goes onto react to the consistent questioning of Paul. Sethe instinctively reacts to try and protect Beloved, because like any mother she wouldn’t want her baby being hurt or put in a uncomfortable situation, such as the scene being described on page 77. So Sethe’s id quickly reacts to tell her Paul D to stop harassing Beloved about her shoes. Additionally, we see how Sethe more noticeably is depicted during this trialogue because of her id. For instance, she is described to be “pulling in, hold their stomach muscles” as Paul D is about to question Beloved almost as if sensing something bad is happening or if she is about to get punched and she is instinctively feeling bad without having any rationale much like a baby. This is also particularly surprising because we see how early on, she is remind and almost flattered by knowing Beloved’s name quickly correlating her with Sethe’s own dead daughter. This shows a lot as to why Sethe possibly decides to defend Beloved. She unconsciously wants to be a better mom or be the mom she could not have been. Sethe might be more inclined to be more caring towards Beloved as she might feel that she needs to become a better person. She tries to do this by trying to help Beloved as much as she possibly could. Ideally, while Sethe throughout the most part suffers internally from memories of her baby Beloved, this new Beloved helps her heal these thoughts and give her almost a second chance to help her almost redeem herself from her mistakes.

Why I Chose This Lens

 Throughout the story Beloved I decided to look at how Toni Morrison would portray the life of Sethe through the usage of the psychoanalytical lens. What was particularly interesting to me about this lens was that it would give me an opportunity to look at how Sethe would be emotionally affected by the death of her baby. Last, year having read the Great Gatsby I was really able to look and understand how Gatsby was emotionally altered by his broken relationship with Daisy and was able to look at the psychology behind Fitzgerald's book. However, I didn’t really recognize the fact that I was doing this while using the psychoanalytical lens. This time around, I really want to get to understand why a charter might be emotionally effected by a certain event or be able to explain it in more precise detail. While, I did have the second option to look at the historical and biographical lens - I found that there might be a bigger influence in the character's personality and personal traits based on past experience rather than actual time and historical events. Personally, I also believe that this certain topic, especially the notion of slavery is greatly covered by the psychoanalytical lens. It would allow me to explore how slavery affects someone's personality, or reasoning behind certain actions.

From this project, I hope to get a better understanding of how to not only look at text through a psychoanalytic lens but look and understand the actions of others and the real world and how they are influenced by emotional and the characteristical aspects of someone's personality.

Why i chose this lens

I chose psychoanalytical lens, because I think it interesting to focus on characters conflicts with themselves, on oppose to focus on conflicts between characters. It is interesting to look at how characters make choices, consciousness and subconsciousness. In previous projects in psychology-classes I have used the freudian model to make characterizations in short stories and movies, but also how culture and norms affect the superego of real humans. I am interested in psychology is because I think it is interesting how culture and environment influences humans, how they think but also how they act.  

I also considered the historical and biographical lense, because I think it is two bigs factors in the shaping of a book, what the author's life experiences are, and what was going on in the time the story was written. I think it is interesting how research and background of the author and the time period, can make a big difference in understanding a book, and revealing the meaning behind it, and why that meaning is what chosen.

After this project i'm hoping to be better at reading a book through a certain lens, and be better at analysing complex books. Besides that i hope to better at psychoanalysing characters, and understand characters choice and thought better.

Why I chose this lens:

I would really enjoy reading this book through a psychoanalytic lens because I am fascinated by interpreting humans actions and behaviors, looking at internal conflict, as well as the subconscious mind. Last year for my expedition class I was in Psychology and really enjoyed it. We learned a lot about the id, ego, and superego, and explored many of Freud’s theories and ideas. In class we did a project where we took a character from a popular book or movie (I chose Harry Potter) and did an analysis on them involving the id, ego, and superego as well as analysis on other aspects of the character. This project seems like it ties in pretty closely to analyzing beloved from a psychoanalytical point of view.  I would like to look at the hidden desires or fears of the subconscious and the irrational desires of the id. Other things that I might look at through a psychoanalytical lens would be dreams and their interpretations as well as the characters’ internal monologues. All of these things can provide a huge insight on the character’s motivations and can propel the story towards a deeper meaning.

Behind a Beloved Mind: Why I Chose This Lens

I mainly chose this lens is because of my expeditions course in psychology last year which really sparked my interest in human behavior, thought, and motivation. I find the Freudian theories and ideas of the id, ego, and superego to be very intriguing, and while these theories are generally not accepted as valid or scientific theories of psychology, they pose some interesting claims about humanity. While the other lenses interest me as well, this lens is the most fascinating to me because it looks deeper into people’s actions and thoughts to understand subconscious motivations or desires. In my psychology class, we did a project in which we analyzed a fictional character from a movie or book and explained how the id, ego, and superego played a role in their thoughts and actions. 
Another lens I considered was the postmodern lens. This lens interested me because it looks at the text in a more philosophical manner and examines multiple truths expressed by the text. While this lens seems very intriguing to me, I felt that I did not have a sufficient understanding of it to be entirely comfortable with using in my analysis of the book. I am hoping to obtain a stronger ability to deeply and effectively analyze a challenging text from doing this project.