Memory, as defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary, is “a person's power to remember things.” Memory is also a “recollection.” Everyone is capable of remembering or choosing to forget, but memories themselves, both horrifying and pleasant, incessantly linger. In Toni Morrison's Beloved and Jean Toomer's Cane, memory and the repression of memories reflect characters' hesitation to face the past, and often their inability to escape molds erected by a prejudiced society. Memory and the desire to forget are portrayed in Morrison's characters Denver, Sethe, and Beloved and Toomer's Becky, while the houses in both books encapsulate the characters in memories they cannot omit. Both authors focus on older generations making efforts to erase slavery-filled pasts, but subtly insist through younger characters the need for history to be taught and accepted if society has any chance at progressing.
House 124 in Beloved and Becky's house in Cane represent areas of refuge and isolation. The books' characters seek isolation as a means of protecting themselves, rather than to simply keep piece of mind. As vehicles of the past, the houses allow Morrison's and Toomer's characters to embrace their memories or to flee the past temporarily, and they permit outsiders to gain new perspectives. As described in “Becky”: “White folks and black folks built her cabin, fed her and her growing baby, prayed secretly to God who'd put His cross upon her and cast her out” (Toomer 5). Becky's house, constructed out of guilt, serves as a permanent reminder of the cruelties committed by a judgmental society and the discrimination endured. “Through the dust we saw the bricks in a mound upon the floor” (Toomer 6). As Becky's house collapses, outsiders never inquire about Becky or lend a sympathetic hand, symbolizing their inability to accept the past. In Beloved, on the other hand, 124 represents a haven and a hell, internally as opposed to externally. Within its confines, Sethe and Denver can live peacefully away from the glaring eye of a prejudiced environment, even while Sethe battles her own memories and demons (well, demon). “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom. The women the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter were its only victims” (Morrison 3). Sethe, by hesitating in teaching Denver her history, encapsulates herself and her daughter in the venomous wrath of memories long neglected. Acknowledging what once happened is crucial to living peacefully in the future.
There are those who thirst for understanding, and those who seek to remain in the shadows of the truth. Before Beloved's arrival, Denver's command of her family's history and her people's plight is limited to what outside sources have told her. Beloved sparks a change in Denver-a willingness to face slavery. “To go back to the original hunger was impossible. Luckily for Denver, looking was food enough to last” (Morrison 139). Denver represents those directly unaffected by slavery. Denver was born on her mother's journey to freedom, and she grew up without an understanding of what her predecessors unwillingly endured. She is disconnected from slavery and her past, and thirsts for the knowledge she lacks. Thanks in part to Beloved, Denver thrives off any knowledge she receives and the questions for which she has yet to find answers.
Beloved is a complex character. She is Sethe's daughter, but she is also something greater and more destructive. Beloved sucks all the life out of Sethe and all the positive energy out of 124's inhabitants. Beloved has no real identity, no real name. In this sense, she is representative of all slaves. She brings back the history that Sethe, Baby Suggs, Paul D., and Stamp Paid have attempted to escape. “So they forgot her. Like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep…This is not a story to pass on…By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what is down there” (Morrison 324). Because Sethe's memory of Beloved is traumatic and difficult to bear, the hampering of those recollections is necessary for Sethe to remain stable. That said, Beloved's relationship with Sethe is analogous to the relationships of former slaves and their memories of slavery. The past must be acknowledged in order to progress. In an imagined dialogue between Sethe and Beloved, Sethe's memory is questioned: “Tell me the truth. Didn't you come from the other side? Yes. I was on the other side. You came back because of me? Yes. You rememory me? Yes. I remember you. You never forgot me? Your face is mine” (Morrison 254). I discerned from this selection that Sethe was apologetic for not treasuring or appreciating her memories of Beloved, i.e. the past. Beloved's purpose is to serve as a memory; Beloved personifies the past.
