LITCS 114
Teaching Associate: Patrick Mooney
Bldg. 494, room 160B
Winter 2016
Paul D had not trembled since 1856 and then for eighty-three days in a row.(21; v. 125ff.)>
regarding it, as [Sethe] always did, as a person rather than a structure.(35)
anything dead coming back to life hurts.(42)
the safety of ghost company(45)
Alfred had shut down a generous portion of his head [...] The closed portion of his head opened like a greased lock.(49)
The whites didn't bear speaking on. Everybody knew.(63)
Every mention of [Sethe's] past life hurt(69)
[Denver] could not hear Sethe's answer(121);
an answer she could not bear to hear(122)
Now [Denver] is crying because she has no self(145)
I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place—the picture of it—stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.
Can other people see it?asked Denver.
Oh, yes Oh, yes, yes, yes. Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it's you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It's when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else. Where I was before I came here, that place is real. It's never going away. Even if the whole farm—every tree and grass blade of it dies. The picture is still there and what's more, if you go there. You who never was there—if you go there and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there for you, waiting for you. So, Denver, you can't never go there. Never. Because even though it's all over—over and done with—it's going to always be there waiting for you. That's how come I had to get all my children out. No matter what.(43–44)
124 was a way station(77)
She knew Paul D was adding something to her life—something she wanted to count on but was scared to. Now he had added more: new pictures and old rememories that broke her heart.(112)
You disremember everything?(140)
I don't 'spect you rememory this, but ...(189)
to make and call his own n――s men(12–13; also v. 145ff.)
way past the Change of Life, desire in them ...(20)
They were a family somehow and he was not the head of it(155)