19 November 2015
“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.... Places, places are still there. If a house burns, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it stays”(Morrison 43).
In a scene, Denver asks Sethe about her past in Sweet Home from when she was a slave. Sethe had told Denver that she did not believe in time because the amount of time passed being a slave and Sethe did not understand that. What Sethe meant was that because of the excruciating time spent on being a slave there was no time in hoping for better days. That there was also no hope in dreaming for a better future because the pain she felt as a slave felt never ending.
Sethe is struggling with an internal conflict because she has neglected to confront her past. She embodies the idea that in order to forgive oneself, one’s past actions, one must acknowledge their wrongdoings.
Toni Morrison uses diction through the word “Rememory” through the example of how Sethe pain is constant. The word itself has the prefix "re" which is something that reoccurs and happens again. Thus it leading it to mean that this memory [of slavery] keeps coming back and reoccurs to her when even though she does not to believe in time. You would think because of her not believing in time would allow her to not imagine pigments of her past because that would mean something in a place and time is reoccurring which could evidently be her past experience of slavery. Along with that, Morrison also uses diction through the word "believe" as Sethe is explaining her emotions towards time. The root of the definition of "believe" is to follow [something], but not to truthfully follow something in which can be subjectively factual since it is an opinion. By using the word "believe," it set the opinion of Sethe about time which is that she feels as if time is worthless and because of that she also feels as if her life is worthless. Due to the amount of not caring of life and time is quite a paradox. This is a paradox because Sethe seems to portray herself to her daughter Denver as a strong woman even though she internally views herself and life as worthless. This of course is a belief of hers whereas compared to how others view time in Beloved or even further about post-slavery. Furthermore this is an internal conflict because Sethe is at odds with the rest of the world because she does not believe in something that everyone else sees or accepts.
Another literary device Morrison used in this passage was imagery. The imagery she is painting is the house that is burning down but stays. The example of a house burning down was to explain how painful thinking about Sethe’s past is. The diction of a “burning house” gives a negative connotation about rememory. Furthermore, when a house burns down it will burn down, but the pictures and memories a person resonates with the house will never forget all of its aspects, so it would still be there mentally but not physically to the person. The same way Sethe thinks about how when a house burns down is the same way she feels about her old slave home called Sweet Home. Because she was talking to Denver about her past we can assume she was also talking about her physical experience in Sweet Home. Now that she is not a slave anymore she is experiencing mental experiences about her past. We could also assume she is experiencing PTSD if she is imagining things such as a house burning down.
Furthermore, Sethe’s pessimistic hopeless outlook in life follows through book such as in the decisions she makes, and it mentally haunts her as she tries to ignore her past more. 
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