ReadingResponseJournal

Vocabulary List
The words which you are required to know for this unit are listed below in the context in which they appear. Look up and record the meaning and the part of speech for each word. There will be a quiz on the terms at the end of our unit.
Part One
1.perfunctory- "Together they waged a perfunctory battle against the outrageous behavior of that place…"
2.palsied- "Not only did she have to live out her years in a house palsied by the baby‟s fury…”
3.rebuked- "Rebuked. Lonely and rebuked."
4.bower- "In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver's imagination produced its own hunger…"
5.incontinence- "Denver…hid like a personal blemish Beloved's incontinence."
6.lumbar- "'I thought we'd wait till her breath was better. She still sounds a little lumbar to me.'"
7.familiar- "Like a familiar, she hovered, never leaving the room Sethe was in."
8.reveries- "…Sethe gave short replies or rambling incomplete reveries."
9.cadence- "Just outside music it lay, with a cadence not like theirs."
10.indigo- "'…I didn't see her but a few times out in the fields and once when she was working indigo.'"
11.clabber- "There is also my husband squatting by the churn smearing the butter as well as its clabber all over…"
12.eddy- "…like an ice pond…that, once melted, had no choice but to swirl and eddy."
13.roiling- "…he saw nothing…the roiling blood was shaking him too and fro."
14.feldspar- "…through the woods to a trail that ended in the astonishing beauty of feldspar…"
15.copse- "Daylight came and they huddled in a copse of redbud trees."
16.indolent- "Where she was once indolent, resentful of every task, now she is spry, executing, even extending the
assignments."
17.spry- See #20.
18.surreptitiously- "Surreptitiously, Denver pinches a piece of Beloved's skirt between her fingers and holds on."
19.offal- "… if he could breathe the stench of offal and stand up for twelve hours…"
20.rife- "A route that took him smack dab through the middle of a cemetery as old as sky, rife with the agitation of dead
Miami no longer content to rest in the mounds that covered them."
Part Two
21.conflagration- "…he thought he heard a conflagration of hasty voices-loud, urgent, all speaking at once…"
22.cistern- "Once Stamp Paid brought you a coat, got the message to you, saved your life, or fixed the cistern he took the
liberty of walking in your door as though it were his own."
23.soughing- "The live oak and soughing pine on the banks enclosed them and absorbed their laughter…"
24.jostle- “She didn‟t want to jostle them or be jostled by them.”
25.petition- “The Colored Ladies of Delaware, Ohio, had drawn up a petition to keep me from being hanged.”
Reading Assignments and Study Questions
Directions:
-Read all of the assigned pages referred to in each assignment.
-Answer all of the questions in complete sentences.
-Record answers to each set of questions on a NEW SHEET OF PAPER.
-Title each entry as “Assignment 1,” “Assignment 2,” etc.
-Turn in each assignment on the next day. To evaluate your writing, I will check to see if your entries a) accurately answer the question asked, b) use quotes or specific examples to support your claims, and c) offer thoughtful or insightful interpretations of the reading.
Preliminary Assignment
Read from the beginning of page 3 and stop at the bottom of page 7.
1.What is the setting? Describe it specifically.
2.Who is who? Make a list of characters and identify what you know about each.
3.What is 124 and why is it “spiteful” (3)? Do you see the symbolism of this number?
4.Explain the significance of the word “Beloved” as re vealed in these pages.
5.What motifs (images that recur in a story) do you notice? Also, look for colors. What words or images evoke
color? Quote them.
6.Look up “chamomile” and record its definition. Next, explain of what chamomile reminds Sethe.
7.Draw a line across the entire length of your paper. Create a timeline of the events you know have occurred.
Including as many events as you can and ordering them correctly is more important right now than knowing
the time spanning between the events.
ment on Morri son‟s writing style. What do you notice? Use a quote to explain what you observe. Assignment #1 (20p)
Book One
Pages 3-23 (Vintage 2004 edition)
1.Write a journal entry as Sethe or Denver, describing how you feel about Paul D‟s arrival. How do you think i t will
change life in 124?
2.What do you think Baby Suggs means when she says, “What‟d be the point [of moving?]... Not a house in this
country ain‟t packed to the rafters with some dead Negro‟s grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby.” (6)
3.Explain the signifi cance of trees in Sethe‟s memory.
4.Explain the significance of the quote, “What she knew was that the responsibility for her breasts, at last, was in
somebody else‟s hands” (21).
Assignment #2 (27p)
24-33
1.What are Paul D and Sethe remembering about Sweet Home? Why do you think Morrison gives us the
information little bit by little bit?
34-51
2.Morrison‟s story develops unpredictably, just like the behavior of our thoughts. Explain how Denver‟s solitary
walking outside of 124 leads her to remembering the story of how she was born. In your tracing of the narrative on pages 34-37, identify what it is that you think Denver sees through the window.
3.What new information do we learn about Sweet Home in this chapter, specifically about Denver‟s birth?
4.Retell the night of Denver‟s birth, from Amy‟s point of view.
Assignment #3 (23p)
52-59
1. For the following quote, explain:
a. What does it tell us literally about the characters and what they are experiencing?
b. What is significant about the quote? What deeper meaning does it hold in this context? Does it
contain any literary devices that make it beautiful or interesting?
“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you‟d have enough love left over for the next one.” (54)
2. For the following quote, explain:
a. What does it tell us literally about the characters and what they are experiencing?
b. What is significant about the quote? What deeper meaning does it hold in this context? Does it
contain any literary devices that make it beautiful or interesting?
“They were not holding hands, but their shadows were.” (56)
4. Explain who is being discussed in the following quote, and why you think it is significant:
“If there had been an open latch between them it would have closed.” (67)
68-75
5. What does Sethe remember about her mother? Why does it upset her to remember? Why do you think Beloved keeps asking her questions?
Assignment #4 (26p)
76-86
1. Explain what information the following quote provides about both characters:
“Beloved was shining and Paul D didn‟t like it.” (76). Make a prediction about what will happen in the future based on the events between them in this chapter.
2. What new information do we learn about Sweet Home in this chapter? What information can you guess at which is not clearly revealed?
87-100
3. Who does Denver think Beloved is? How does she feel about it?
4. Why do you think both girls are so interested in the story of Denver‟s birth?
Assignment #5 (23p)
101-124
1. Why does Sethe go to the Clearing?
2. Describe the gatherings which used to take place in the Clearing.
3. Find a quote which reveals how Beloved feels about Sethe. Interpret the quote. Is this a healthy relationship for Sethe? Why or why not?
4. Find a quote which reveals how Denver feels about Beloved. Interpret the quote. What do you predict will become of Denver, considering her life‟s past and current feelings, n eeds, and desires?
Assignment #6 (21p)
125-133
1. “Eighty-six days and done. Life was dead. Paul D beat her butt all day every day until there was not a whimper in her.” (109) How does this quote explain Paul D‟s emotions while on the chain gang?
2. Why does Morrison compare Paul D‟s heart to a “tobacco tin lodged in his chest”? What does this metaphor tell us about his emotions?
134-136
3. Explain the significan ce of the quote: “She moved him” (129). Think carefully about the words in the quote and look for a meaning beyond the literal.
139-146
4. Write a journal entry as Denver, explaining how you feel about Beloved. What are you afraid she will do? How does she make you happy?
Assignment #7 (26p)
147-156
1. How is Paul D‟s problem sleeping in the house solved? What predictions can you make about the future of the conflict between Paul D and Beloved?
157-158
2. What is starting to happen to Beloved? Why do you think she cries?
159-173
3. Explain what the following quotes refer to, and what their significance is:
“Her friends and neighbors were angry at her because she had overstepped, given too much, offended them by excess.” (163) “And when she stepped foot on free ground she could not believe that Halle knew what she didn‟t; that Halle, who had never drawn one free breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this world. It scared her.” (166)
174-180
1. Who thinks this to himself? “But now she‟d gone wild, due to the mishandling of the nephew who‟d over beat her and made h er run.” (176) What is he talking about? Do you agree with him?
181-186
2. Imagine you are Paul D walking home from talking to Stamp Paid. What have you just found out? What are your feelings towards Sethe? Will you talk to her? If so, what will you say?
187-195
3. For each of the following quotes, explain:
a. What does it tell us literally about the characters and what they are experiencing?
b. What is significant about the quote? Does it have a deeper meaning than the one it holds in this context? Doe s it contain any literary devices that make it beautiful or interesting?
“So you protected yourself and loved small. ...A woman, a child, a brother -- a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia.” (191)
“”You got two feet, Sethe, not four,” he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet.” (194)
Assignment #9 (36p)
Book Two
199-235
1. Was Stamp Paid right to tell Paul D about Sethe‟s past? He argues with himself about it. Give one reason it was a good idea, and one that is was a bad idea. What do you think?
2. “Now, too late, he understood her. The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the Word, didn‟t count. They came in her yard anyway and she could not approve or condemn Sethe‟s rough cho ice. One of the other might have saved her, but beaten up by the claims of both, she went to bed. The whitefolks had tired her out at last.” (212)
Who is this quote about? How was she “beaten up”? Did she react the way you think she should have to Sethe‟s action? 3. Why did Sethe decide she had to run away from Sweet Home? Use a quote from the book to in your explanation.
Assignment #10 (21p)
236-241
1. Who is the narrator in this chapter? Who is she talking to? How does this narrator feel about Beloved‟s return?
242-247
2. Who is the narrator in this chapter? Who is she talking about? How does this narrator feel about Beloved‟s return?
248-252
3. Who is the narrator in this chapter? Who is she talking about?
4. Can you describe the style of this chapter? Why do you think Morrison made it so difficult to understand?
5. What images does the narrator describe? What do you think she is referring to?
253-256
6. Who are the narrators in this chapter? What do they keep repeating?
7. What is the mood in this chapter? Based on the last three chapters, how would you predict life is changing at 124? Assignment #11 (20p)
257-270
1. What new information do we learn about the attempted escape from Sweet Home in this chapter?
2. “Paul D hears the men talking an d for the first time learns his worth. He has always known, or believed he did, his value -- as a hand, a laborer who could make a profit on a farm -- but now he discovers his worth, which is to say he learns his price.” (267)
3. Why is this such an impor tant moment for Paul D? How do you think it affects him to hear “his worth”?
271-277
4. How does Stamp Paid try to explain Sethe‟s actions to Paul D? Do you agree or disagree with him? Explain. Assignment #12 (28p)
1. Describe life i nside 124 from Denver‟s perspective after Sethe figures out who Beloved is.
2. Write a journal entry as Mrs. Lady Jones on the first day Denver comes to see you. How do you feel about her visit? How will you help her?
3. Write a conversation between Jane y Wagon and Ella about Denver‟s situation in 124, and what the townspeople should do about it.
4. Compare the climactic scene in this chapter to the first climax in the story. How is it similar? How is it different?
Assignment #13 (14p)
310-322
1. Expla in what you think Denver means when Paul D asks Denver, “You think she sure …nough your sister?” and she replies, “At times. At times I think she was -- more.”
2. Who is Paul D talking about and what do you think he means when he says, “There are too many things to feel about this woman” (321)? Do you agree with his assessment of her, or do you think she is “simpler”?
323-324
3. What is the tone of this final chapter?
4.. What is the significance of the line: “This is not a story to pass o n” (324)? Has Beloved left any trace? Why write a story that should not be passed on?。