Passage from Beloved
Summer Reading Prompted Writing Draft
"There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contain the rocker. It's an inside kind-- wrapped tight like skin. Then there is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own fear going seem to come from a far-off place.
Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don't know her name? Although she has claim, she is not claimed. In the place where long grass opens, the girl who waited to be loved and cry shame erupts into her separate parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter to swallow her all away.
It was not a story to pass on.
They forgot her like a bad dream. after they made up their tales, shaped and decorated them, those that saw her that day on the porch quickly and deliberately forgot her. It took longer for those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love with her, to forget, until they realized they couldn't remember or repeat a single thing she said, and began to believe that, other than what they themselves were thinking, she hadn't said anything at all. So, in the end, they forgot her too. Remembering seemed unwise. They never knew where or why she crouched, or whose was the underwater face she needed like that. Where the memory of the smile under her chin might have been and was not, a latch latched and lichen attached its apple-green bloom to the metal. What made her think her fingernails could open locks the rain rained on?
It was not a story to pass on.
So they forgot her. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep. Occasionally, however, the rustle of a skirt hushes when they wake, and the knuckles brushing a cheek in sleep seem to belong to the sleeper. Sometimes the photograph of a close friend or relative-- looked at too long-- shifts, and something more familiar than the dear face itself moves there. They can touch it if they like, but don't because they know things will never be the same if they do.
This is not a story to pass on.
Down by the stream in back of 124 her footprints come and go, come and go. They are so familiar. Should a child, and adult place his feet in them, they will fit. Take them out and they disappear again as though nobody ever waked there.
By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what it is down there. the rest is weather. Not the breath of the disremembered and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves, or spring ice thawing too quickly. Just weather. Certainly no clamor for a kiss.
Beloved" (274-275).
***It was not a story to pass on.
They forgot her like a bad dream. after they made up their tales, shaped and decorated them, those that saw her that day on the porch quickly and deliberately forgot her. It took longer for those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love with her, to forget, until they realized they couldn't remember or repeat a single thing she said, and began to believe that, other than what they themselves were thinking, she hadn't said anything at all. So, in the end, they forgot her too. Remembering seemed unwise. They never knew where or why she crouched, or whose was the underwater face she needed like that. Where the memory of the smile under her chin might have been and was not, a latch latched and lichen attached its apple-green bloom to the metal. What made her think her fingernails could open locks the rain rained on?
It was not a story to pass on.
So they forgot her. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep. Occasionally, however, the rustle of a skirt hushes when they wake, and the knuckles brushing a cheek in sleep seem to belong to the sleeper. Sometimes the photograph of a close friend or relative-- looked at too long-- shifts, and something more familiar than the dear face itself moves there. They can touch it if they like, but don't because they know things will never be the same if they do.
This is not a story to pass on.
Down by the stream in back of 124 her footprints come and go, come and go. They are so familiar. Should a child, and adult place his feet in them, they will fit. Take them out and they disappear again as though nobody ever waked there.
By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what it is down there. the rest is weather. Not the breath of the disremembered and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves, or spring ice thawing too quickly. Just weather. Certainly no clamor for a kiss.
Beloved" (274-275).
***
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Summer Reading Prompted Writing Draft
The last chapter of Beloved,
by Toni Morrison, contains a passage that is effective in resolving the tone
surrounding the encounter with the main character’s lost daughter based on its
use of syntax and figurative language to show universal themes of love,
strength, and diminished hope.
The passage begins with a unifying quote that ties
together multiple themes from the novel.
The three universal themes are married in the contrast between the two
types of loneliness mentioned. One, “…a
loneliness that can be rocked” (274), festers inside its rocker, while the
other “roams”, “alive, on its own”; it is a physical thing that is caused by
actually being alone in the world. This
personification of loneliness, sets the scene for the entire passage by
presenting the fact that the main character is physically lonely because she
has lost her daughter twice, but her true loneliness comes from the fact that
she has let this fester inside of her while so many others try to support
her. The love that the main character
showed for her daughter made her vulnerable to her parasitic needs, leaving her
both without her original strength, and the hope she showed in the beginning of
the novel.
To continue the
passage, the author expands on the cause of the main character’s
loneliness. I quote, “It took linger for
those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love with her, to
forget, until they realized they couldn't remember or repeat a single thing she
said, and began to believe that, other than what they themselves were thinking,
she hadn't said anything at all” (274).
The repetition of “her” in the beginning of this quote draws upon the
increasing stages of relationships that Beloved, the daughter, made as she
tried to implant herself back into the main character’s life.
***
Summer Reading Prompted Writing Final
The last chapter of Beloved, by Toni Morrison, contains a passage that is effective in resolving the tone surrounding the encounter with the main character’s lost daughter based on its use of syntax and figurative language to show universal themes of love, strength, and diminished hope.
The passage begins with a unifying quote that ties together multiple themes from the novel. The three universal themes are married in the contrast between the two types of loneliness mentioned. One, “…a loneliness that can be rocked” (274), festers inside its rocker, while the other “roams”, “alive, on its own”; it is a physical thing that is caused by actually being alone in the world. This personification of loneliness, sets the scene for the entire passage by presenting the fact that the main character is physically lonely because she has lost her daughter twice, but her true loneliness comes from the fact that she has let this fester inside of her while so many others try to support her. The love that the main character showed for her daughter made her vulnerable to her parasitic needs, leaving her both without her original strength, and the hope she showed in the beginning of the novel.
To continue the passage, the author expands on the cause of the main character’s loneliness. I quote, “It took linger for those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love with her, to forget, until they realized they couldn't remember or repeat a single thing she said, and began to believe that, other than what they themselves were thinking, she hadn't said anything at all” (274). The repetition of “her” in the beginning of this quote draws upon the increasing stages of relationships that Beloved, the daughter, made as she tried to implant herself back into the main character’s life. The syntax emphasizes the power that Beloved
held, yet the author’s choice to repeat the word “her”, showing the space that
the characters have already begun to put between themselves and this mysterious
girl who claimed to only offer love, but destroyed all strength.
Separating each paragraph, the author choose to implement
a form of the quote, “It was not a story to pass on” (274). The quote shows that the speaker feels
haunted by her encounter with Beloved, creating a tone of uncertainty. This translates to readers as they, too, feel the
eerie mood. Combined with the mood created by the author's choice of repetition, the final word of the passage echoes unnervingly in the minds of readers, and plays on the universal theme of strength as the strength of "Beloved".
The author of Beloved, Toni Morrison, effectively uses her ending passage to summarize the tone surrounding the main character's daughter. The universal themes used in the novel, through Morrison's syntax and figurative language revolve around the novel's tone. Repetition in her final passage built upon the feelings and understanding of the reader to create a mood based on the novel's overall tone. Enhanced by figurative language, the author balanced love and strength in the midst of a somber and haunted world where the main character also learns to balance these values.
The author of Beloved, Toni Morrison, effectively uses her ending passage to summarize the tone surrounding the main character's daughter. The universal themes used in the novel, through Morrison's syntax and figurative language revolve around the novel's tone. Repetition in her final passage built upon the feelings and understanding of the reader to create a mood based on the novel's overall tone. Enhanced by figurative language, the author balanced love and strength in the midst of a somber and haunted world where the main character also learns to balance these values.
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