Rememory of Oneself
The world of literature is full different interesting things. They can be interesting because they might be intriguing or because some unknown secret is revealed. There are also some literary works which have a hidden meaning within them. That kind of literature is particularly curious because it give us an opportunity to learn more about the subject and ourselves. The novel "Beloved" by Toni Morrison is that kind of literature. It retells the history of the American slavery through supernatural events. He tries to explain not only the events of slavery, but how people felt themselves. He argues that people suffering in slavery had to divide their self-perception into two separate parts. They were living their lives as ones, but they were not themselves. In order to explain their feelings in slavery Morrison invented such words as "rememory" and "disremember". The reason for this essay is to explain why he uses these terms and the message of the author about memory, past and future.
The experience of slavery was horrible. It was destroying person's understanding of his or her personality and individual needs. It was not only difficult to go through slavery every day, but to escape from it and try to survive in the savage environment. People were acting like mad in order to survive or were creating images in order to fill in the empty place in their hearts. The characters of the novel try to keep their memory locked. They needed to disremember things that happened to them. They argue that there is "nothing better than that to start the day's serious work of beating back the past" (Morrison 73). This means that on order to carry on with their duties, they have to forget what they have been through and also who they are.
No matter what was the reason for the disremembering of certain facts or places that does not mean they get lost or disappear from existence. They remain the same. The things exist outside one's individual memory but are part of the common memory. So, what happened to one person remains like a scar on the memory of the whole nation. About this, the author says:
"If you go there - you who was never there - if you go there and stand in the place
where it was , it will happen again; it will be there, waiting for youEven though it's
all over - over and done with - it's going to always be there waiting for you"
(Morrison 41).
So the author suggests that although people might want to ignore their past, it cannot be erased from the common memory. And through supernatural means, it will finally return to those people. The best example is the image of Beloved. She has no exact identity in the novel because she is everything and nothing at the same time, she is a link between past present and future. Beloved shows the main heroes that for them to understand themselves and to evolve; they have to accept their past and their true identities. So although they disremembered in order to survive, for them to find themselves and happiness, they need to return their memory. Carolyn Rody explains that:
"For Sethe a "rememory" (an individual experience) hangs around as a "picture" that
can enter another's "rememory" (the part of the brain that "rememories") and
complicate consciousness and identity."Rememory" as trope postulates the
interconnectedness of minds, past and present, and thus neatly conjoins the novel's
supernatural vision with its aspiration to communal epic, realizing the "collective
memory"" (101).
Although Sethe understand how this complicated world structure works, it is still difficult for her to accept herself. Although she would like to let it all go and become a living creature, she was living in her self-denial way for too long and in order to return to herself, she needed help of the supernatural being - the spirit of her killed daughter. Forgetting the supernatural part of the story, the author wants to show that for the person to have the future she needs to embrace her past and in order to do that some external help of certain events should happen. It may seem that living in denial might not be that terrible, since people become protected from getting hurt (Tally 82). They do not feel anything and simply endure. But the problem is that they stop being human beings when they have no feelings and slavery was doing exactly that. People stopped thinking of themselves as people. From the point of Sethe, without accepting her past and her crime, she could not stop thinking of herself as a mother of the dead child but also as a woman and mother of an alienated girl (Rody 99). She needed to connect past and present for the benefits of the future; she had to begin feelings. The start was to be the pain of the past but the reward was love of today, love of Paul D.
The main message send by the author to us is not simply about the link between past the present, but also about the certain lack of information about past events, which was exchanged by imaginary stories. It is not an accident that the author uses fiction to describe history. She wants to show the spirit of the time and the meaning of common national memory of what was happening. This is done for the contemporary generation to appreciate what they have and understand that no matter whom their ancestors were, they should be known. It is important for one remember the past eve in the imaginary form, just in order to understand oneself. Rody writes that "she must work to "rememory" these ancestors who wish they could forget", but the common memory keeps everything, just as time itself (102).
On the example of Sethe, the author shows that in order to understand one's place, someone has to face the past and to find peace even through pain and sufferings of reality. Sethe needed to meet Beloved in order to see what she lost. She also needed to realise that her guilt was destroying her from inside. That is why Beloved was abusing Sethe's love and good attitude to her. It was not that Beloved was evil, but she was a lesson Sethe needed to learn. The lesson was that life is too short to die while are still living (Tally 76).
Overall, from all written above, it can be said that the author's message to the audience is in actual realisation of what time is. Time is not simply about one person living his/hers life, but it is in interconnection between people and that connection brings different experiences and builds new features in people and their societies. So, there are no negative experiences, there are just wrong interpretations of them. It is also important to understand that a person cannot live outside time, so denial of one's past cannot create anything good today and will build the future of tomorrow.
So, in order to become a complete person, one needs past. Without past there is no today, and so no future of tomorrow. So, no matter how horrible history of slavery was it should be known. Understanding of its terrible reality, gives contemporary people an opportunity to improve their lives and avoid cases when slavery can occur again. It should be so that people were able to belong to one community and preserve their personal dignity and common cultural belonging.
Works Cited
Morrison, Tony. Beloved. London: Vintage. 1997. Print.
Rody, Caroline. "Toni Morrison's Beloved: history, "Rememory", and "a Clamor for a Kiss""
American Literary History, 7.1 (1995): 92-119. Print.
Tally, Justine. Toni Morrison's Beloved: Origins. London: Routlegde. 2009. Print.
