Read and annotate through p. 51 in Beloved, keeping in mind Winnicott’s theories
Blog #4: Choose one statement from Winnicott’s chapter “The Ordinary Devoted Mother”, and use a passage from the novel (p. 24-51), to support or disprove what Winnicott says. You must quote/cite both passages, from the novel and from the packet, and explain why you think that passage supports/disproves Winnicott’s statement.
Beloved: The last two pages of our reading (50-51) where Paul D talks to Sethe about Denver.
ReplyDeletePaul D says, "She's got a waiting way about her. Something she's expecting and it ain't me."
"I don't know what it could be."
"Well, whatever it is, she believes I'm interrupting it."
"Don't worry about her. She's a charmed girl..." (all on page 50)
and then on the next page Sethe says, "The fact that Paul D had come out of "that other one" into her bed was better too; and the notion of a future with him, or for that matter without him, was beginning to stroke her mind. As for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping her from the past that was still waiting for her was all that mattered." (51)
Winnicott:
"When a mother has a capacity quite simply to be a mother we must never interfere. She will not be able to fight for her rights because she will not understand. All she will know is that she was been wounded... It is the maimed personality of the baby. How often a mother spends years of her life trying to mend this wound which in fact was caused by us when we unnecessarily interfered with something that was so simple that it seemed to be unimportant." (18)
Winnicott's explanation that the bond between mother and child cannot be tampered with by outside forces is very much shown in Beloved during the end of pages 50-51. Instead of caring about her daughter, Denver as she did before Paul D came to 124, she just believes that she is emotionally and completely fine because of her superstition that Denver is lucky from everything that they have been through. On top of ignoring the fact that this has hurt Denver, she does not realize that Paul D is distracting her from becoming more isolated as Paul D And Sethe share this past that Denver knows nothing about. In addition, now that Paul D chased away the baby ghost, it adds on more to the interference in Denver's life, but also the baby ghost's actions. Sethe only really thinks about how Paul D will or will not affect her life rather than the ghost or Denver.
"So babies eight children had six fathers. what she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stop playing checkers just because the pieces included her children... The child she could not love and the rest she would not." (Morrison 28).
ReplyDelete"...ordinarily the women enters into a phase, A phase from which she ordinarily recovers in the weeks and months after the baby's birth, in which to a large extent she's the baby and the baby is her" (Winnicott 13).
If Winnicott had refrained from saying "ordinarily" this could have been a quote with which I could disagree with, according to Baby Suggs past with her children. The woman had eight children and all except for one were taken away from her over a long period of time. She had a baby with a man that told her she would not get pregnant, and she couldn't find herself to love the baby and those after it because she was too prideful ( I think). She had become so desensitized because all of her children were taken away from her, and even when Halle gave her freedom she still didn't care Because life was meaningless without the happiness of her children. This relates back to Winnicott quote because no matter how she felt about where the Babies came from, she still reflected their emotions, which were probably guileless and sad.
"How different they were without her, how they laughed and played and urinated and sang" (Morrison 27).
ReplyDelete"I do not go on further and say we as men and women ow anything to the women who did this for each one of us severally. We owe nothing" (Winnicott 16).
While Beloved confuses me a little, I believe I am using the quote above correctly. I think it was said in accordance to Sethe and how her friends and family members acted without her being around––they were happier, it seems. I think Sethe can either be viewed in a completely selfless slight or a completely selfish light, proved by the quote above. She takes care of her family, yet they are happier without her there. Is she overbearing? It seems that way. I presume we'll find out as we read along. Winnicott states that you don't owe anything to your parents if they're being proper ones––that's what they're supposed to do anyway. Why should they get a medal for it? Perhaps Sethe secretly feels that she should. After all, she does seem quite selfless. Maybe she's just being this way to guilt her children into wanting to be with her, thus them becoming happier when she is not around.
"I went to jail instead. Denver was just a baby so she went right along with me. Rats bit everything in there but her" (Morrison 50-51).
ReplyDelete"We owe nothing (as children to our mothers)" (Winnicott 16).
I think the quote in "Beloved" shows how much Sethe cares for her daughter, Denver. She had to take Denver with her to jail, and then she protected Denver from the rats, even if that meant the rats would bite her instead. This goes back to what we were discussing in class on Friday, and I feel like Denver appreciates everything Sethe has done for her, trying to protect her, and this is why she stays with Sethe in a haunted house. I think that even though Denver loves her mother, she would try to leave the house if she didn't feel like she owed it to her mother to stay with her. I think it's possible for Denver to leave the house and still show that she loves her mother, but instead she chooses to be miserable and stay in the house, because she feels she owes it her mother. Sethe never left Denver, and now Denver feels she cannot leave Sethe, which contradicts Winnicott's quote that children do not owe anything to their mother.
“How Sethe was walking on two feet meant for standing still. How they were so swollen she could not see her arch or feel her ankles. Her leg shaft ended in a loaf of flesh scalloped by five toenails. But she could not, would not, stop…” (Morrison 36).
ReplyDelete“There happens to be this useful nine-months period in which there is time for a gradual change-over in the woman from the one kind of selfishness to other” (Winnicott 12).
Although this section of the novel does not explicitly describe whether or not Sethe was selfish before having Denver, the quote above demonstrates Sethe’s selflessness while she carried her first daughter. Sethe refuses to have her child grow up in a violent environment with schoolteacher, and runs away to seek refuge. Sethe bears through the immense pain just to ensure a safe and free life for her child. During her pregnancy, Sethe is one with Denver, depending on her signals and luck for motivation to continue walking and crawling.
"And he had so little time. After his Sweet Home work and on Sunday afternoons was the debt work [Halle] owed to his mother" (Morrison 31)
ReplyDelete"I do not go on further and say we as men and women own anything to the women who did this for each one of use severally. We owe nothing" (Winnicott, 16)
Though Winnicott makes a strong argument for the importance of the mother (even going so far to argue that in the first few weeks after birth, the mother and child are one singular entity), he agues still that we owe nothing to our mother for holding us physically and intellectually and playing an indispensable role in the development of our egos. Toni Morrison, though not arguing Winnicott's thesis, provides evidence to the contrary. If children owe nothing to their parents in their adult lives, then it would not makes sense for Halle to be in debt to his mother (and so much so that he would spend all of his limited free time doing additional work to purchase the freedom of his mother). However, Winnicott writes about the so-called "ordinary" mother which is far from Baby Suggs. Because Baby Suggs is a slave and in no position to provide Halle with the proper support needed to develop his ego, it does not exactly support Winnicott's thesis but instead proves that is a mother in not ordinary, then the child will think he or her is in debt to their mother.
"All this implies that the mother was able to give herself over to this preoccupation with the care of her infant, but also that she was lucky" (Winnicott 15).
ReplyDelete"In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver's imagination produced its own hunger and its own food, which she badly needed because loneliness wore her out" (28-29).
I agree with Winnicott's quote that mothers must be lucky in order to be an ordinarily devoted mother, to be there for the sake of their children's development in their first two years. Unfortunately, Sethe wanted to be this type of mother, but slavery got in the way, causing her to be unlucky and putting her newborn daughter through strenuous circumstances while running away from Sweet Home. We can see this stunt in her child's development due to the "unluckiness" of slavery in Denver's regressive behavior. She likes to crawl in small spaces, such as the boxwood, and it always concerned about escaping from the world. She herself is boxed in the house, unable to have any type of social life, with loneliness literally creeping over her. Denver is so damaged that her only real form of companionship is the violent ghost of her baby sister, as she gets upset when Paul D kicks her out. If Sethe had not been a slave, and she was able to provide Sethe with a comfortable environment, able to become the ordinary devoted mother she would want to be, then Denver would most likely not be the socially backwards outcast she is today.
This is from the scene where Sethe is crawling to give birth to Denver. "Nothing of Sethe's was intact by the time they reached it except the cloth that covered her hair. Below her bloody knees, there was no feeling at all; her chest was two cushions of pins" (Morrison 41).
ReplyDelete"There happens to be this useful nine-months period in which there is time for a gradual change-over in the woman from the one kind of selfishness to the other" (Winnicott 12).
Winnicott believes that a mother that is pregnant will be selfish and not care about the others around her which could include her own child. Sethe contradicts Winnicott's idea though. Sethe being multiple months pregnant with Denver has only shown sides of selflessness not selfishness. She would risk her own life and literally destroy her body so that her chid could be born in a more appropriate setting. She put her life on the line to ensure the safety of her child, that is the most selfless thing a person can do for another human being.
“As for Denver, the job Sethe had od keeping her from the past that was still waiting for her was all that mattered.” (51) Denver relies completely on her mothers stories to stay in touch with the world and the people around her, thus she is completely dependent on Sethe
ReplyDelete"When a mother has a capacity quite simply to be a mother we must never interfere.” (18)
Winnicot argues that nothing is worse than when a mother’s parenting is interrupted, clearly this is false. In fact the exact opposite is true, when the mothers parenting is never interrupted, questioned or disputed it makes the mother seem invincible, which is how Denver sees her mother before Paul D comes. When this idealism is proved false it drives Denver to hate Paul D because he undermines Sethe. It also causes her to resent her mother who she feels has betrayed her because she is no longer a divine figure. If Denver had been exposed to other adults and by extension, other opinions at an earlier age this would have prevented her from getting so attached to her mother. The only reason Paul D’s appearance is bad for Denver is because is comes to late. Winnicot’s opinion is ridiculous as no parent is good enough to be the only influence on a child.
"And to get to the part of the story she liked best, she had to start way back: hear the birds in the thick woods..." (36)
ReplyDelete"...The baby becomes able to develop the capacity to have feelings that correspond to some extent with those of the mother..." (14)
Winnicott states that a child and its mother develop a bond with one another and that the child reflects the behavior which its mother displays. In the novel, Denver is able to give significant and an in depth recalling of an event Sethe had when she was six months pregnant with Denver. Although Denver is 18 years old when she is recalling the event of her mother meeting Amy, she does in fact support the argument of the bond a mother and child shares. Denver is able to empathize with Sethe and explain in great detail the amount of pain and emotions Sethe had while lying in the grass trying to runaway from Sweet Home, pregnant with Denver. Denver fits the model which Winnicott makes because of her lack of interactions with the real world and collection of her own personal stories. Denver places herself in the events and memories which Sethe shares with her in order to gain some sort of connection with her mother. The child Winnicott is describing grows out of the phase of mimicking its mother's emotions when they come into contact with their own experiences, however, Denver has not been able to do so because of the isolated environment in which she grew up in.
“to find herself pregnant by a man who promised not to and did. That child she could not love and the rest she would not,” (Morrison 29).
ReplyDelete“There are all manner of reasons why some children do get let down before they are able to avoid being wounded or maimed,” (Winnicott 15).
Some mothers ended up in a situation that prevents them from becoming the ordinary devoted mother as Winnicott argues. Baby Suggs for instance, who had eight children, was not able to love them as much as she should have. Of course that is beyond her control considering she was a slave, but the children themselves also have no control over this because they separate from their mother at an early age. As Morrison describes it as a game of checkers, Baby Suggs’ children are constantly being moved away and traded. Therefore they can never develop that bond mother and child bond with Baby.
"Anything dead coming back to life hurts." (Morrison,42)
ReplyDelete"Mothers and fathers blame themselves, but in another matter, and indeed they blame themselves for anything, for having a mongol child, for instance, which they certanly could not held responsible for."(Winnicott,15)
Here Winnicott is saying that parents are blaming themselves for everything. Comparing it to the book it seems to me that here Amy is putting blame on Seth, and by her saying that, she makes Denver questioning Seth. For Winnicott quote we can also say that children form Baby Suggs' weren't raised how the normal children would be, because she was a slave, ans somehow I think she was blaming her because of that, even though she couldn't do anything about it.
"So she raised up on her elbow and dragged herself, one pull, two, three, four, toward the young white voice talking about 'Who that back in there?'" (Morrison 38)
ReplyDelete"I think that by the time the baby is ripe for birth... she knows extremely well what are the baby's needs. It is here that she cannot learn from books" (Winnicott 13).
I would argue that Winnicott's assertion is correct - that by the time the mother is ready to give birth, she will have developed the ability to deeply understand her child's needs. However, as evident in this quote from "Beloved," this ability or connection does not always take the entire pregnancy to form. The connection Winnicott addresses seems, to me, to be a primal one - one that a mother "cannot learn from books." I think that Sethe's desire to save the unborn Denver, even before she saves herself, demonstrates the essence of this primal connection. The inherent knowledge that Winnicott claims comes with the baby's birth, presents itself when the mother first finds out she is pregnant. By the time the baby is born, the bond grows stronger and more intense.
"They play golf, they have a job that they lose themselves in, they quite naturally do all sorts of male things like being irresponsible, or taking everything for granted"(Winnicott 12).
ReplyDelete"Later he punctured her calf to simulate snakebite so she could use it in some way as an excuse for not being on time to shake worms from tobacco leaves" (Morrison 29)
and later on(to me these two quotes are reflections of one another)
"How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free"(33)
I think that the efforts taken to have sex, as shown by Sixo and the girl having to walk over 30 miles to meet one another and Halle's attempts of keeping the sex with Sethe private in the corn stalks, shows everyone's desperation for freedom.
The girl allowing Sixo to injure him and Sethe's infatuation with the corn's silk and its juice represents their taking safety for granted. They long for sex more because it is the ultimate portrayal of freedom than because of the pleasure retrieved from it. This mirrors Winnicott's statement that women must lose themselves in something and be irresponsible, more because it gives them freedom and a change of perspective than because it gives them a break from their kids.
From the Ordinary Devoted Mother, Winnicott describes that the mother, "in the weeks and months after the baby's birth, in which to a large entent she is the baby and the baby is her," (13) most directly correlates to the connection between Sethe and Denver, especially due to the lack of a father, Sethe in large has become the paternal figure. A closer analysis of Winnicotts quote, it's found that Denver, letting her mother go, "upstairs with the man who had gotten did of the only other company she had, Denver... Slowly, methodically, miserably... ate"(Morrison 23). She did not have the ghost baby in the house anymore and now the only other company she resided in and was protected of was having sex with a man that Denver felt robbed her of all her company.
ReplyDelete"'She's a charmed child ... Nothing bad can happen to her. Look at it. Everybody I knew dead or gone or dead and gone. Not her. Not my Denver'" (Morrison 50).
ReplyDelete"Any parent here will know what I mean when I say that although you subjected your baby to the most awful frustrations you never once let him (or her) down—that is, your ego support to the baby's ego was reliable" (Winnicott 14).
Winnicott is saying here that a good parent never attacks the child's ego, and even if the child suffers, his or her ego will be safe and he or she will continue to develop healthily. In Beloved, Sethe is talking about how Denver cannot be harmed. Whether or not this is true, Sethe is protecting Denver's ego by creating a sense of safety and invulnerability for the child. Sethe says that Denver came with her to jail, and, although this may be an "awful frustration," Sethe does not stop believing that nothing bad happens to Denver to keep Denver's ego intact.
The Ordinary devoted Mother : "the mother and the baby is her"(13)
ReplyDeleteBeloved: "This house he told her to leave as though a house was a little thing - a shirtwaist... you could walk off from or give away any old time. She who had never had one but this one"(27)
I see similarities between these two quotes because the mom is all the baby has and the baby is all the mom has, and the house is all that Sethe has, and the house is a symbolism of the baby. Which is why the mom can't leave and why the baby still haunts the house.
"That child she could not love and the rest she would not. 'God take what He would....then gave her Halle who gave her freedom when it didn't mean a thing"(Morrison 28).
ReplyDelete"But nature has decreed that babies do not choose their mothers. They just turn up, and the mothers have time to re-orientate...but it is the centre"(Winnicott 13).
Through Baby Suggs experience we see Winnicott's claim that children do not choose their mother and vice versa mothers do not choose their kids. If Baby had her way her kids would have been the change in her life, if she had a choice her children would have resulted to her progression, but they did not. All eight of her kids were born into the same pattern of slavery and had to undergo everything she had to throughout her life. If her kids had their way they would not have been born into such conditions and would have avoided such pain but unfortunately it was never either of their decision. This resulted to her not being able to love her children the way a mother should. Halle's actions towards his mother means nothing due to the pain and hurt she has experienced. This concept is so vital because the way Baby's family turned out can result to a continuous cycle involving Sethe and how her family may turn out. Sethe also did not choose her children or how things worked out but she seems stuck in this state of being unable to choose for her and her own children; we see this in her remaining in the same house and refusing to move out even if it's dangerous.
"Twenty years. A lifetime. Given to her, no doubt, to make up for hearing that her two girls, neither of whom had their adult teeth, were sold and gone and she had not been able to wave goodbye." (Morrison, 28).
ReplyDelete"It is necessary for us to be able to look at human growth and development, with all its complexities that are internal or personal...Mothers and fathers blame themselves, but that is another matter, and indeed they blame themselves for almost anything, for having a mongol child, for instance, which they certainly could not be held responsible for" (Winnicott, 15).
Baby Sugg's blames herself for losing her two daughters, so in order to cope with the pain she feels obligated to dedicate herself to Halle. Winnicott argues that parents are always putting the blame on themselves, even for the things they had no control over. Suggs had no control over losing her children yet she feels obligated to take the blame for it. With this, Suggs proves Winnicotts blame idea. In addition it's kind of a reverse of his idea that parents make their kids feel like they owe them something for bringing them to this earth. Suggs feels like she owes Halle something because she was incapable of caring for her two daughters.
"The dress and her mother together looked like two friendly grown-up women - one(the dress) helping out the other. And the magic of her birth, its miracle in fact, testified to that friendliness as did her own name." (Morrison, 36)
ReplyDelete"From the baby's point of view there is nothing else but the baby, and therefore the mother is at first part of the baby. In other words, there is something here which people call primary identification. There is the beginning of everything, and it gives meaning to very simple words like being." (Winnicott, 17)
Here, the quote from Morrison defends the statement made in Winnicotts theory because the child (Denver) is able to find the most beauty in the simplest thing. In this case, is the story of her birth , which brings together the mother and daughter relationship, in a way no one can understand but them two. This also shows that the child (Denver) is able to identify with herself with such a story that she is unable to relive again but find the most beauty and interest in that allows her to keep that loving connection with her mother.
"To make up for coupling with a straw boss for four months in exchange for keeping her third child, a boy, with her--only to have him traded for lumber in the spring of the next year and to find herself pregnant by the man who promised not to and did. That child she could not love and the rest she would not" (Morrison 28)
ReplyDelete"[W]e forget the importance of the very early relationships and we interfere too easily. This is something we must absolutely never do" (Winnicott 18)
I agree with Winnicott's statement, which stresses the fact that no one must interfere with the relationship between mother and child, especially in the early stages of development of the child. I agree because during these early stages the child is learning to rely on the mother and the mother wants to build the safe environment the child needs. By trading the child for lumber the owner of the house is interfering with the relationship between the boy and Baby Suggs, so the child lacks the care and attention he needs. Baby Suggs is also heavily affected by this interference because the role of a mother is taken from her, depriving her of the ability to demonstrate her love for her child. In doing so she is wounded and, as Winnicott states, she "spends years of her life trying to mend this wound" (18). Baby Suggs is trying to mend the wound caused after her boy was sold by avoiding becoming pregnant again, thus preventing the possibility of failing to properly care for a child and to avoid the pain of not being able to be a good mother for her children.
"...some of the failures of development that we meet sprang from a failure of the ordinary devoted mother at a certain point or over a phase. This has nothing to do with moral responsibility" (Winnicott 15).
ReplyDelete"Denver had taught herself to take pride in the condemnation Negros heaped on them; the assumption that the haunting was done by an evil thing looking for more" (Morrison 45).
In this instance, the quote from Beloved proves Winnicott's theory because in Beloved, Denver has a presumption of self-doubt that could only have come from her mother, who was most likely a failure in Denver's early life. Winnicott also specifically addresses the fact that this failure of a "ordinary devoted mother" is not related to the "moral responsibility" of the mother. Beloved somewhat disproves this point, because I think it would be hard to argue that Sethe has an excellent moral compass and has instilled that in her young daughter over time. Overall, I think Denver's self contempt and her ability to make excuses for herself and her situation are very representative of the failure Sethe has committed, even though it is somewhat tied to Sethe's lack of morality.
Beloved- "Whatever they were or might have been, Paul D messed them up for good. With a table and a loud male voice he had rid 125 of its claim to local fame.
ReplyDeleteWinnicott- "...when the relationship between the baby and the mother is satisfactory, object begin to turn up which the baby can use symbolically; not only the thumb for sucking but also something to catch hold of which eventually may become a doll or a toy." (18)
These two quotes support each other.Although, the relationship between the mother and daughter is being interrupted negatively, it is not the Sethe's fault. Paul D is the person who should be at fault. He tried to be a hero and take on the baby ghost, which messed up things, for both Denver and Sethe. Ofcourse, some of the blame should be on Sethe, who has sex with Paul D. Denver going through all of this experiences change of feelings towards her mother and her life.
“To find herself pregnant by a man who promised not to and did. That child she could not love and the rest she would not,” (Morrison 29).
ReplyDelete“There are all manner of reasons why some children do get let down before they are able to avoid being wounded or maimed,” (Winnicott 15).
Although Baby Suggs showed both selflessness and devotion with her early children and did what she could to assure their well being or try to keep them as long as she could, they were always taken from her in some way. She gave up parts of herself for them and was still betrayed, after a certain point she understandably became more selfish, realizing that she cant put herself through the pain of sacrificing so much for children she would eventually lose. Because of this she did not allow herself to love or devote herself to the children that followed (except maybe for Halle) and although the reasoning is understandable, it is an example of what Winnicott explains as a child being let down by the parent in a way that will affect them (most likely negatively) when they are older.
“There happens to be this useful nine-months period in which there is time for a gradual change-over in the woman from one kind of selfish to the other” (Winnicott, 12).
ReplyDelete“Sethe had the amazing luck of six whole years of marriage to that “somebody” son who had fathered everyone of her children. A blessing she was reckless enough to take for granted” (Morrison, 28).
I think that this passage supports Winnicott’s statement because Sethe is thinking about her wants and desires in this passage which is something we haven’t seen her do throughout the whole book. Before the flashbacks to when Sethe did not have any children, she constantly thought about her children and made sacrifices for them. The fact that Morrison says that Sethe took something for granted seems completely out of character for her, now. Like Winnicott said, Sethe has stopped being selfish for herself, and begun being selfish for her child.
Beloved (28): "The child she could not love and the rest she would not."
ReplyDeleteWinnicott (16): "I do not go on further and say we as men and women owe anything to the women who did this for each one of us severally. We owe nothing"
Baby suffered through eight children, all of whom were taken away from her. Both quotes show a severance from possession. The children were forcibly removed from Baby's possession, which resulted in Baby's loss of the ability to feel and show emotion. Winnicott strongly states her opinion on the debt she believes she does not owe. The children, I imagine, would also feel very removed from their mother, both literally and emotionally, causing them to believe they owe nothing to Baby.
Page 46. (Entire paragraph) " Yet the morning she woke up next to Paul D..."
ReplyDeleteWinnicott "Or a mother becomes depressed and she can feel herself depriving..." (15)
Sethe is stuck in the position where she either puts her needs of sexual desire first or the needs of Denver. Sethe wants Paul D and desires him because she has missed the touch and warmth of a man and being feminine and loved by someone. However, it troubles her because she has focused on Paul D a little more than Denver, which has created tension and trouble. Both Paul D and Denver are fighting for her attention. Sethe cannot help the onset of feeling sexual desired. These tensions has created an unsettled environment for Denver and even herself.
"Mothers and fathers blame themselves for almost anything, for having a mongol child, for instance, which they certainly could not be held responsible for" (Winnicott 15).
ReplyDelete"'Don't worry about her. She's a charmed child"' (50).
As Paul D describes Denver, he says how she is a little strange. Sethe defends Denver by saying she is "charmed" a word that has a positive connotation. Sethe cannot accept that Denver is at fault for her behavior. She beliefs that if there is a is fault in Denver, then it only happened because of her. Throughout Denver's life, she was mostly exposed only to Sethe. This leads to Sethe believing that if there is a fault with Denver, it happened because she did not raise her to her best abilities.