Critical Commentary
Article: Approaching the Thing of Slavery: A Lacanian Analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved.
                                             By:Sheldon George

The main point of this article is based on the characters past experiences of suffering.The life of Sethe and what she had gone through in her past, and the ghost that still haunts her. When Sethe talks about "Sweet Home as a place from her past that is "still there," not just in her "memory," but "out there outside [her] head". Speaking of her traumatic enslavement at Sweet Home, Sethe asserts, "even though it's  over—and done for—it's going to always be there waiting," because "that place is real"(George 1). That is an example of how Sethe's memories from her past seem to be gone to her, but in reality will never leave her, "that things just stay (George 1). Which is also the case for other characters and what they went through. Baby Suggs was killed by her own mother, she will obviously have that trauma the rest of her life that she wants gone from her mind but will always be there with her. Paul D and what he went through in Sweet Home, finding about what Sethe had done. There is a lot of traumas that these characters went through which is what this article is greatly expressing. The writer Sheldon George also talks about the idea of repetition in Beloved. The "repetition plays in the lives of both it's African American characters and many of the members of it's contemporary African American Audience" (George 1). The repetition of the novel's African American characters and what identity they have. The characters used in Beloved like Sethe, have some real life character that they are based off of. Sheldon George also states that "Beloved, intended to the reader to feel and experience " what was happening (7). Reading this article helped me better understand the idea of the "ghost". How baby suggs is haunting Sethe's past and that a lot of the African American Slaves have also experienced haunting's in there lives because of the trauma they all went through dealing with slavery. This interpretation helped me better understand why Sethe acts the way she does. Why Denver thinks her mother is crazy, and why Baby Suggs is haunting her family member's and where she grew up at 124. I agree with the Author's interpretation. From all our in class discussions, I feel what he had to say was very accurate. The haunting's Sethe dealt with, the idea about trauma and racial identity's is seen throughout the whole book. Reading the book, we do get that "feel and experience" what is happening in the scenes.


Source:
George, Sheldon. "Approaching the Thing of Slavery: A Lacanian Analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved." MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO Host). N.p., 1 Mar. 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2017. <http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uwc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=758824ad-3511-4376-bd54-0c8e85356909%40sessionmgr101&vid=8&hid=102>.