Beloved - Memory, Rememory, and the Power of the Past (Chp. 9)

It seems as though one can never truly get away from one's past.  As a result of Beloved's extreme curiosity Sethe is constantly going back through the stories of her past as well as those of her relatives.  In an effort to clear her mind as well as regain some order in her life Sethe takes Denver and Beloved to the Clearing where Baby Suggs had preached.  She begins to feel calm until she felt the hands of Baby Suggs massaging her back.  While at first it felt good, it quickly turned bad when the hands began to strangle her.  Her past, she so readily became attached to, was causing her to suffer.  As Sethe was being strangled Beloved ran over to her and tried to calm her down by lightly placing her hands on Sethe's neck.  This frightened Sethe because Beloved's hands felt exactly like those of Baby Suggs.  Even more, Beloved had the scent of the dead baby which scared Sethe to no end.  Bringing back the past can lead to great pains if not filtered and controlled as demonstrated throughout the story.  Beloved is someone to truly pay a great deal of attention to because of her odd similarities to past relatives of the family.  We can only learn as the story unfolds.

Where Individuals Place Themselves in Society

On pages 24 and 25 of Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson states, "Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.  To be great is to be misunderstood."  He is saying that one does not need to "fit in" to be a contributing member of society, but rather the opposite; the less understanding people have of you, the greater amount of potential one may have to succeed in life.  According to Emerson, to be too much a part of society is to lose oneself among the rest.  This does not mean that one should make it a point to separate oneself from the rest of society.  One can live and even thrive in any environment alongside a multitude of other people, but to be sucked into one constant state of thought leads one to leave creativity and individuality behind.  To live as a conformist is to live someone else's life.  Be who you want to be, and no other.

Burning the Quran...?

After the radical Muslim attack on the World Trade Center, many Americans were quick to become patriotic.  Nine years later it has turned one man in particular into an American radical.  Reverend Terry Jones is an American preacher who seeks to put a quick end to the building of a Muslim mosque on ground zero.  He believes that burning the Quran will send a message to all Muslim Americans as well as those in the rest of the world.  In his mind, because the Quran is not the Bible, it is wrong.  "He cited his belief that the Quran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims."  I understand where he may come off saying such a thing, but burning one book will not prevent people from reading it in other parts of the world.  Destroying the holy book would only enrage extremists to another level and add unnecessary violence to the equation.  While I do not agree with the construction of a mosque on/near ground zero in New York, I think that Jones is taking the wrong route to preventing it from happening.  The Twin Towers were brought down by Muslim extremists in the name of Islam and to build a monument that is preaching the same faith in the same area does not make any sense to me.  It is disrespectful to those who have lost loved ones in the crashes.  In conclusion, neither Reverend Terry Jones nor the people who want to build the mosque is correct.  Peace, in this case, can only be found through respectful inaction.

"The American Crisis" by: Thomas Paine

As I read the exerpt from Paine's writing I quickly realized just how much he cared for the situation his country and, of course his fellow American citizens, were forced into by Great Britain.  He states "Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but 'to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,' and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there no such a thing as slavery upon earth."  While I do not agree with his choice in similies, I am able to better understand just how much torture it must have been to live under British authority.  The main reason that I find his comparison to slavery incorrect is because there were still many black slaves at the time this piece was published; to bring up British enforcement of "slavery" on Americans and not American enforcement on blacks is undoubtedly hypocritical.  While I do not yet know how Paine felt about black slavery, I believe that he contradicted himself when he compared the American people to slaves.  To continue, Paine believed that if one does not fight, one shall perish.  "It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all."  Not only did he want people to fight for their freedom from the British, he believed that any and all who didn't would be stricken with evil by G-d himself.  The power behind his words is what persuaded many into battle.  I am sure that his mantra (had he used one) would have been "you have to fight for your right to be free".  Do you agree with this?