Close Reading: Mother & Daughter Relationship

“The bigger Beloved got, the smaller Sethe became; the brighter Beloved’s eyes, the more those eyes that used never to look away became slits of sleeplessness. Sethe no longer combed her hair or splashed her face with water. She sat in the chair licking her lips like a chastised child while Beloved ate up her life, took it, swelled up with it, grew taller on it.”

(Pg. 295)

This excerpt is found towards the ending of Beloved going more into depth on the relationship between Sethe and Beloved. It explains metaphorically that while Sethe gets smaller Beloved gets bigger. Its as though Beloved is absorbing Sethe’s energy like a towel making her weak and weak. Beloved it taking in all that life out of Sethe by reminding her of her past and making her feel terrible about herself. Beloved would bring up past memories that Sethe always kept hidden because she didn't want the truth to come out and expose her. Everything that Beloved is doing is making Sethe weak and weak. She became sleepless because she thinks and thinks of what’s going to happen next. She worries that Beloved will take over her life and she will never have a life how she wished. It basically says that Beloved to over her like “ate her up her life” and is diminishing her own mother. What could have caused this was Beloved knowing her mom killed her when she was little and she doesn't recognize that her mother did out of love. In this passage Beloved is portrayed as a strong force of nature brought to destroy everyone in 124 especially Sethe.

Sethe is going through all of this because she love Beloved so much as a daughter. She is willing to do anything for child to happy because she doesn't want to see her leave how Buglar and Howard left 124 and never came back. She lost beloved once and she doesn't want to lose her again she wants to cherish every moment  with her. Sethe doesn't realize that with being with Beloved its killing her. Her love towards Beloved to blinding her from reality and she can't see past Beloveds dark past in which Paul D has noticed. Thats because as a mother she has a lot of love towards her no matter what she does.

This compares to real life because mothers when they have their first child they lose sleep and their social life because they become very invested in there kids. Its their responsibility to feed the baby in the middle of the night when the baby screams of hunger creating sleepless nights. Also she just giving away 18 years over their own lives to raise a child and leaving their own lives for their children gets tiring and eventually parents get used up and become very old with no energy because they have invested so much time and dedication to their kids.