"They Took My Milk" - Rodrigo Cuevas-Kells

Toni Morrison’s novel, “Beloved” is constantly trifled with the theme of rape and how that affects the main characters in the novel. Sethe is affected because it clouds her judgement of what is morally right and wrong when it comes to pivotal moments in the novel. Paul D himself is a victim of rape and is psychologically affected because after the traumatic event he thinks of himself as less of a man. Every person is affected by extreme trauma in their own forms and for both Sethe and Paul D it's something that they struggle to deal with.

Assistant professor of English Pamela Barnett, goes into detail about these events and goes into an analytical analysis of the psychological aspect of the characters survival of the events. Barrett mentions how,“Sethe kills her child so that no white man will ever "dirty" her, so that no young man with "mossy teeth" will ever hold the child down and suck her breasts”Morrison(80). This can be explained with Sethe psychological trauma of her past from being constantly raped at sweet home. For a person who experiences extreme forms of trauma like rape in this instance it's difficult to think like others in terms of what you believe is a necessary action for critical event because they see other drastic measures that need to be taken. When Sethe attempts to justify her actions to kill her daughter is because she know how dehumanizing the world really is. She knows what's in store for her if school teacher captures her and her babies specifically Beloved. Sethe like any other rational parent wants to protect her child from the horrors of the world but the way she choses to go about this is questioned. Paul D calls her out on her judgment by saying that Sethe’s love,“is too thick” Morrison(164). Paul D believes that Sethe’s love for her children is too strong for her own children's sake. She went so far as to kill her baby so she would not have to face the horrors that she once had to face at an earlier point in time. This relates to the theme of traumas of rape because Sethe herself mentions several times,“they took my milk” Morrisson(19). She wants Beloved to not have to experience someone stealing her milk as well, continuing the constant nightmare that rape victims face. Sethe cannot think as logically as other characters like Paul D because she is traumatized by her passed and that clouds her judgement, to Sethe being raped is a fate worse than death so she thinks she needs to take it upon herself to protect her baby like any mother would, its nurturing in the most deadly way possible.

Barnett mentions in her analysis that Paul D is himself a victim of rape and how that forces himself to see himself as less of a man and to repress his history to try and move past it. She uses the phrase, “not man enough” to bring this point across. Paul D feels like he isn't the person he should be a strong man instead of weak. Beloved forces herself on Paul D and in a way also forces Paul D’s self respect to leave him. He tries to constantly forget the traumatic events that happen to him but Beloved’s forceful sexual assault on him makes him relive it all over again. She triggers the bad memories that he has tried to suppress, and it's interesting to note that he’s remembering these event not after the event but during. Victims of rape usually try to have the event blocked in their mind because it triggers something strong in their mind. Paul D is having all of his horrors relieved again because of Beloved and how she made him less of a person similar to how school teacher made him feel like,“less than a chicken sitting in a tub” Morrison (102-103). She makes him recall the events from his past that he has tried to repress and forget about to move on with his life but cannot because his event were triggered. Psychologically Paul D is somewhat damaged but not to the extent of Sethe. Paul D has done a better job of repressing his past. Beloved opens up old wounds for him that he wished to keep locked away but forces them to the surface, making Paul D feel how he used to feel when he thought of himself as less of a man.

"I heard your mother is a killer" - Kayleigh Becker

“She was so happy she didn't even know she was being avoided by her classmates… It was Nelson Lord--the boy as smart as she was--who put a stop to it; who asked her the question about her mother that put chalk, the little i and all the rest that those afternoons held, out of reach forever. She should have laughed when he said it, or pushed him down, but there was no meanness in his face or his voice. Just curiosity. But the thing that leapt up in her when he asked it was a thing that had been lying there all along. She never went back. The second day she didn't go, Sethe asked her why not. Denver didn't answer. She was too scared to ask her brothers or anyone else Nelson Lord's question because certain odd and terrifying feelings about her mother were collecting around the thing that leapt up inside her.” (120-121)

Reading a text through the Psychoanalytic lens requires the reader to pay attention to the internal and emotional conflicts of characters. The lens focuses on the subconscious goings-on of the characters -- the things that they might not be outwardly expressing. The Psychoanalytic lens explores why characters act they way they do and what hidden desires and fears the characters, author, or reader might have. A common way to look through the psychoanalytic lens is by showing how each of the characters represents a piece of something inside all of us.

In the book Beloved, main character Sethe’s daughter, Denver, flashes back to a time in her life when she went to a school run by an African American named Lady Jones, who reaches out to the underprivileged colored children of Cincinnati. Denver remembers it as a time when she was truly happy; happy to be learning, happy with herself, and happy to be making her mother, grandmother, and brothers proud. Happy until, that is, she is confronted by classmate Nelson Lord about her mysterious family.

In this flashback, a portion of Denver’s inner conflict is revealed. Denver knows that there is something not quite normal about her family and the house they live in, but as a little girl at school surrounded by her “normal” peers, she longs to be normal and unnoticed. When she is confronted by Nelson Lord, the “thing” that leaps up inside of her is her id. An id is the part of the mind that is the passionate, impulsive, and irrational. It is subconscious and hidden, but can influence the whole body. The feelings, experiences, and truths about Denver’s family are collected in her id, and she has tried to suppress and hide them. At Nelson Lord’s questions, they “[leap] up in her”, and she runs. Even in the safety of her home she struggles to suppress “the thing”. Denver’s conflict leads her to run and hide instead of face her peers. She gives up the thing she loves the most because her id is irrationally afraid and too embarrassed to deal with the questions Denver is faced with at school.

Although it is not specifically stated (a gap of evidence in the quote), it is implied that the questions Denver is asked by the innocently curious Nelson Lord are about her mother, Sethe, and the infanticide that takes place when Denver is a newborn baby. This horrific event would impact any child’s emotional development and growth, even more so if the act was committed by a close family. Denver has to cope every day with the well-known fact that her own mother killed her sister and attempted to kill Denver and her older brothers to prevent them from being captured into slavery. This is a main theme in Beloved, Sethe’s love for her children, her sacrifice, and how her actions in the past continue to haunt her in the present.

Denver goes to school, struggles to fit in, and hopes that the subject of her infamous mother will not be discussed. As soon as it is, Denver copes by running away and secluding herself in her house where the subject is not touched. Her desires of a normal life and a relationship with her dead sister are again swept under the bed, and Denver is once again a vulnerable little girl. At home, her knowledge of what happened “collects” around “the thing” inside that can not rest--her id-- and she struggles silently, too afraid to ask about it

"Hell was a pretty place too" - Rodrigo Cuevas Kells

“It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves. Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her—remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys. Try as she might to make it otherwise, the sycamores beat out the children every time and she could not forgive her memory for that.”

― Toni Morrison, Beloved (page 7)

Sethe suffers from PTSD through the events that transpire in the novel and we are able to see cracks into her psyche and get examples of how Sethe’s PTSD affects her personally. There are several instances in the novel to help the arguments claim that Sethe is traumatised by her past. When she tries to remember what her two boys Buglar and Howard were like she cannot recall what they were like. When Sethe does remember about being at Sweet Home she can only focus on the dreadful moments and memories in an indifferent matter showing how she's become numb to human violence. She then unconsciously places mental barriers to not be able to look back at the good times from her past.

Sethe is reminiscing about her and her boys, she wants to remember what her boys were like and Morrison delivers an anecdote about Sethe’s life. The passage then delivers the line,“and suddenly there was Sweet Home.” Then she compares sweet home to hell and how they are both similar. Sethe believes that if sweet home did not look as bad as the events that happened then then maybe hell doesn't look as bad as everyone makes it out out to be. Typically when people talk about hell it's about damning someone to it expressing how it's an extremely unwanted. The general image of hell is high flames, people suffering and eternal damnation, but according to Sethe it probably looks prettier than the events that can happen there. This is a small glimpse into Sethe’s psyche as we get to see that even though she considers Sweet Home to be hellish she wouldn't call the scenery hellish as well. 

Sethe is conflicted with her thoughts of Sweet Home and her boys. She remembers when people were hung from a tree there and remembers the type of tree instead of the personalities and traits of her children. Her brain is wired to have her remember traumatic moments in her life. It's a form of PTSD that war veterans have where they relive the horrors of war sometimes and it affects them in a negative way. Some people have certain ways of coping with PTSD, some focus on beautiful aspects of something that pushes the traumatic event into obscurity. Sethe subconsciously chooses to forget her children and the truth is she even relates that back to baby suggs when she can't remember her’s either. Sethe explains to Suggs that her anecdote of the one child is, “all you let yourself remember," Sethe had told her.” Sethe exhibits this herself as she states that the trees beat out her children any day. Even though Sethe is physically free of her slave ridden past, she is still mentally chained up by the past at the same time. Her mind is still chained by having her memories affect her subconscious, she can't remember her kids because she doesn't let herself, she’d rather focus on horror she does want to remind herself. She doesn't want to forget the type of past that she had at Sweet Home because she doesn't feel like she’s free. When she was a slave back at Sweet Home where some of the most dehumanizing things happened to her, and she can't let herself forget that feeling, even if she doesn't want to. Even if Sethe wishes to become free and live her life to the fullest with her daughter, her troubled past continues to haunt her in her current living situation.

Milk and Blood??? - Elias Acosta Mendoza

The Milkmaid- Johannes Vermeer

In the novel Beloved, Sethe is the main character who is trying to escape from a past that is filled with remorse and bitterness. However those memories of the past only exist in her mind, the one place she cannot escape. By using the psychoanalytical lens we can see what is going on in the minds of the characters as these unimaginable things happen to them. One event that traumatized Sethe was when she was sexually assaulted in Sweet Home. Schoolteacher whips Sethe and lets two boys assault her, “two boys with mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading teacher watching and writing it up”(83). Sethe claims that they were taking her “milk” all in an act of sexual pleasure. When looking at the connotation of milk, we can see that it represents nurture and innocence as a mother nurses a baby when it is very small. One could make an allusion to Macbeth and state that milk represents kindness as Lady Macbeth says, “milk of human kindness.” It is evident that milk would create a juxtaposition in this scenario. It is as if her intimacy was taken away and the worst part was that her husband witnessed the whole event. By looking on at what is going on in the mind of Sethe, we can infer that she is feeling humiliated because the boys have objectified her and made her feel inferior to them. They treat her a an animal and proceed to milk her, like a cow. This shows that at the time the mindset was extremely racist towards black people. They felt like they can do whatever they want and have no consequences. Halle, Sethe’s husband, is driven to insanity over witnessing someone else abuse over his wife and feeling like he is incapable of defending her due to the implications of doing so. Sethe doesn’t find out that this happened until Paul D tells her. She reacts in a negative way, “‘He saw them boys do that to me and let them keep on breathing air? He saw? He saw? He saw?’”(81). She's enraged at the thought that her husband did not defend her over this terrible situation. She implies that she expected her husband to kill the boys to defend her. However since that was not the case she is upset at the whole situation. Paul D then reveals that Halle started smearing butter all over his face after seeing them take his wife’s milk. Sethe then thinks, “There is also my husband squatting by the churn smearing the butter as well as its clabber all over his face because the milk they took is on his mind. And as far as he is concerned, the world may as well know it. And if he was that broken then, then he is also and certainly dead now”(83). Morrison uses butter as a way to connect Sethe and Halle in this situation since butter is obtained from churning milk. Halle was driven insane and in his insanity, he was smearing butter over his face as a form of release. Morrison expands on the thoughts of Halle by stating that they took the milk from his mind. It could mean that the event had a traumatizing effect on Halle as if they were violating his brain in the same way they were violating Sethe’s breasts. It can also symbolize insanity, Sethe then states, “Other people went crazy, why couldn't she? Other people's brains stopped, turned around and went on to something new, which is what must have happened to Halle. And how sweet that would have been: the two of them back by the milk shed, squatting by the churn, smashing cold, lumpy butter into their faces with not a care in the world. Feeling it slippery, sticky--rubbing it in their hair, watching it squeeze through their fingers. What a relief to stop it right 42 there. Close. Shut. Squeeze the butter. But her three children were chewing sugar teat under a blanket on their way to Ohio and no butter play would change that”(83-84). She shows the butter is sort of like a state of being unaware of evil in the world. When she says that they can be playing with the butter, it gives the impression of child like behavior and innocence since they are mindlessly playing around. It can serve as a form of release since she says that it is relief. When she talks about her brain turning around, it reminds me of leaving the world and entering a blissful alternate world. This however would imply that they were insane. It seems that Sethe is running away from her past since she is trying to disregard what happened and play with butter. She also says “no butter play would change that” meaning that butter could be like sugar coating the situation and trying to make the best out of it. Insanity is something that Sethe is trying to avoid since it has already consumed her husband, and the only way to do so is to disregard the past or else it will consume you.  

Why Did I Choose This Lens? - Kayleigh Becker

The psychoanalytical lens in particular really interests me. I love learning about the brain and our subconscious thinking. The psychoanalytical lens focuses on the internal and emotional conflicts happening inside of a character’s mind; things that might not be outwardly expressed. Through a psychoanalytical lens, a reader also investigates the Id, ego, and superego of a character and why they act the way they do.

This lens is super interesting to me as I often wonder what secret fears, passions, dreams, and thoughts the people around me have and what motivates people to act the way they do. The psychoanalytical lens can help discover and unveil these things, and I believe that it is such a fun process.

I am hoping to receive a better understanding of both the author and her characters by the end of this project. I want to comprehend, not just know, the Freudian concepts and be able to use them to thoroughly analyze characters. I hope to understand the mind better and perceive how our decisions are made--conscious and subconscious--using the psychoanalytical lens.

Why Did I Choose This Lens? - Rodrigo Cuevas Kells

The reason I chose the psychoanalytical lens is because understanding how and why someone either acts or thinks a certain way based on mentality or past experiences is extremely interesting to me. To me being able to understand a person's way of being, how they tick in a sense is very important because you are able to understand why they act or are a certain way. Most of the time it's from traumatic experiences that occurred in someone's past that cause them to have some forms of barriers from having block those things from their minds. Another example would be how sometimes people have a ritual like thing that they always remember to do. If you are run over while jaywalking odds are you're not going to jay walk again because of that traumatic experience or be more cautious about doing that. The other topics seem too 2-dimensional, not really any depth to those forms of analysis. With psychoanalytical it about people, not ideas or ways of a time period, but of the mental state of a character, that pulls me in more into this lens than any other. My personal experience with this topic is fairly simple, none. I have never gone out of my way to spend lots of time analyzing a character's thoughts, actions, speech patterns, mental state, opinions on certain subjects or anything of that matter. It's mostly just been me realizing these are things while watching TV or movies but never from books. I hope that through this project that I will be able to fully explain and give a rational explanation for a character's actions and thoughts throughout the book. Be able to understand why Sethe, Paul D, Denver and Beloved act the way they do, think the way they do, speak the way they do. Be able to pick apart a character's brain through direct and indirect characterization throughout the novel. To have the knowledge and analytical skill capable of taking note of a character's movements described in the story and explain why they move in that format. These are the kinds of things that will help me in real life understanding why a person has a certain point of view on a subject and how their past may be mapped or accurately guessed to certain events that explain the belief. This is a type of skill that unlike most of the other lenses can be extremely applicable to real life situations. When you get into a heated argument with someone you can better understand from what side they are coming from and why they feel passionate about a certain subject by noticing small mannerisms that they have. This is a skill that helps with the real world and literature world, real life by understanding another person and literature by getting a deeper understanding of the characters and their past and present.

War In My Mind? Why I Choose This Lens - Elias Acosta Mendoza

The psychoanalytic lens is more interesting to me because it is the one that goes deep into the character's mind and motives for their actions. Since every character has their own struggles then it is interesting to see what is going on in their mind. Also since this is literature, then the author is giving us the characters thoughts directly. I have never had previous experiences with critical lens but I know that this particular lens can be applied to works like Macbeth, and Antigone. Since both are works of tragedy then there is always some form of an ethical dilemma and by looking at the motives for the actions then we can fully understand why they would do something that was considered crazy. In the case of Antigone there is a clash of doing the right or wrong thing and we as the audience through characterization and soliloquies can see the mind of the person playing out the thought process. She defies the law for a proper burial and in exchange is exiled to a cave where she hangs herself. By doing such an act, she is able to cause a chain of events that ultimately lead up to Creon’s downfall. I was also thinking about the racial and cultural lens but I really liked the psychoanalytical because it goes more into depth on the subject. I am hoping to get a deeper understanding of the book from looking through this lens and hopefully find myself really engaged in the book.