1. what defines one’s home? - english 4ap · pdf file1. what defines one’s home?...

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba The Home Group ENG4AP, Period 2 1. What defines one’s home? “This house he told her to leave as though a house was a little thing a shirtwaist or a sewing basket you could walk off from or give away any old time. She who had never had one but this one; she who left a dirt floor to come to this one; she who had to bring a fistful of salsify into Mr. Garner’s kitchen everyday just to be able to work in it, feel like some part of it was hers, because she wanted to love the work she did, to take the ugly out of it, and the only way she could feel at home on Sweet Home was if she picked some pretty growing thing and took it with her” (Morrison 27). A house cannot easily become one’s home it takes time for one to make it their own, have their own life in that house to be a home. Sethe did not want any house to call home but something special which she gives it a home meaning. (BAB) “In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver’s imagination produced its own hunger and its own food, which she badly need because loneliness wore her out. Wore her out. Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear, and salvation was as easy as a wish.” (Morrison 35) The way a place makes you feel defines one’s home. (RA) A home is a place where one’s hopes and desperation can wander off into the infinite possibilities in the world, it’s a place away from all the evil in the world. (BAB). “Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place the picture of itstays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world” (Morrison 43). A house is not defined by the physical objects inside the home rather based off of the memories made in that home which makes it close to heart and a home forever. (BAB) A house is defined not by the physical and worldly aspects of the place, but by the imprint it has on a person or the world that keeps the feeling of a house as a home alive. (NC) “‘I got a tree on my back and a haunt in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running – from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much’” (Morrison 19). The amount of hardships and trouble that Sethe had to go through to get to 124 raises the significance of it being her home. (TL)

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Page 1: 1. What defines one’s home? - English 4AP · PDF file1. What defines one’s home? ... tell you something, Paul D Garner: ... A building that you live in is a house. The memories

Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

The Home Group ENG4AP, Period 2

1. What defines one’s home? “This house he told her to leave as though a house was a little thing­­ a shirtwaist or a sewing basket you could walk off from or give away any old time. She who had never had one but this one; she who left a dirt floor to come to this one; she who had to bring a fistful of salsify into Mr. Garner’s kitchen everyday just to be able to work in it, feel like some part of it was hers, because she wanted to love the work she did, to take the ugly out of it, and the only way she could feel at home on Sweet Home was if she picked some pretty growing thing and took it with her” (Morrison 27). A house cannot easily become one’s home it takes time for one to make it their own, have their own life in that house to be a home. Sethe did not want any house to call home but something special which she gives it a home meaning. (BAB) “In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver’s imagination produced its own hunger and its own food, which she badly need because loneliness wore her out. Wore her out. Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear, and salvation was as easy as a wish.” (Morrison 35) The way a place makes you feel defines one’s home. (RA) A home is a place where one’s hopes and desperation can wander off into the infinite possibilities in the world, it’s a place away from all the evil in the world. (BAB). “Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place­­ the picture of it­­stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world” (Morrison 43). A house is not defined by the physical objects inside the home rather based off of the memories made in that home which makes it close to heart and a home forever. (BAB) A house is defined not by the physical and worldly aspects of the place, but by the imprint it has on a person or the world that keeps the feeling of a house as a home alive. (NC) “‘I got a tree on my back and a haunt in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running – from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much’” (Morrison 19). The amount of hardships and trouble that Sethe had to go through to get to 124 raises the significance of it being her home. (TL)

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“Now 124 was back like it was before Paul D came to town­­worrying Sethe and Denver with a pack of a haunts he could hear from the road” (Morrison 200). “Whatever is going on outside my door ain’t for me. The world is in this room. This here’s all there is and all there needs to be” (Morrison 215). A home becomes a place where nothing outside the four walls matters, the most important place to be and the most important memories are those that are made within the four walls of a home. (BAB) “He shook his head. ‘But it's where we were,’ said Sethe. ‘Altogether’"(Morrison 20). Being together with the loved ones of your life is what home is within Sethe’s eyes. Living and breathing at that particular moment in a certain setting for many years with friends and family is what a definition of home perceives to be. (LP) A home is a place where people are allowed to come together as one­­ whether it be friends, family or strangers. 124 acted as a place where Sethe and her family desired to be because they were free to be together and away from all the dangers. (BAB) A home doesn’t have to be a place. It can be people that you love and that comfort that surrounds you from their presence, makes it a home. (TL) 2. Does our geographical location determine our understanding of what home comes to mean? “Not a house in the country ain’t packed to its rafters with some dead Negro’s grief” (Morrison 6). Baby Suggs doesn’t see the point of moving because anywhere they go would have a house filled with grief. The house that they remain in is their home and a ghost is not going to change that. (NC) “Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place­­ the picture of it­­stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world” (Morrison 43). The geographical location does not determine how one comes to understand the definition of home rather based on the memories made, shared and remembered. (BAB) A building that you live in is a house. The memories created in it make it your home. (TL)

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“In that bower, closed off from the hurt of the hurt world, Denver’s imagination produced its own hunger and its own food, which she badly need because loneliness wore her out. Wore her out. Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear, and salvation was as easy as a wish.” (Morrison 35) The emotional connection of a location is what determines one’s idea of a home. (RA) (TL) “‘We could move,’ she suggested once to her mother­in­law. ‘What’d be the point?’ asked Baby Suggs. ‘Not a house in the country ain’t packed to its rafters with some dead Negro’s grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby’” (Morrison 6). In this part of the novel, home is distinguished by the residue slavery left behind onto the black communities. Either by residing as a slave within these areas or by carrying the severe burdens of their enslaved memories, physical and mental footprints are left behind and branded onto their homes and environments. Especially after slavery’s abolishment, fresh memories of slavery are soaked within every aspect of the country as the nation thrived upon the abusement of enslaving people. (LP) If they moved it would make no difference because they are always going to be home, as a long as they stick with their family or the people they loved most. (BAB)

3. Does Sweethome act as “home” for the slaves? “[...]the only way she could feel at home on Sweet Home was if she picked some pretty growing thing and took it with her” (Morrison 27). The flower or beautiful plant wasn’t home, but it did distract Sethe for quick moments that she was at Sweet Home. (TL) A home is a place where people love both the people and the possessions in that home and Sethe feels that since nothing at the plantation belongs to her, she does not feel at home. (BAB) “A blessing she was reckless enough to take for granted, lean on, as though Sweet Home really was one. As though a handful of myrtle stuck in the handle of a pressing iron propped against the door in a whitewoman’s kitchen could make it hers. [...]A bigger fool never lived” (Morrison 28).

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“Sethe could not imagine since she had never seen one. Sethe guessed it must have been an invention held on to from before Sweet Home, when she was very young. Of that place where she was born (Carolina maybe? or was it Louisiana?) she remembered only song and dance” (Morrison 37). “The one set of plans she had made­­ getting away from Sweet Home­­ went awry so completely she never dared life by making more” (Morrison 46). “The boy had done what Sweet Home had not, what working like an ass and living like a dog had not: drove him crazy so he would not lose his mind” (Morrison 49). A home is a place where the mind is at ease, and at Sweet Home unlike any other plantation the slaves were treated with respect and trust, allowing them to ignore the fact that they worked tedious hours for little pay. The slaves only wished that they would not lose their mind and head to some silly mistake by both their part and a white person’s part. (BAB) “A meal maybe, where me and Halle and all the Sweet Home men sat down and ate something special” (Morrison 70). I feel that if Sethe was able to get this wedding that she wanted, Sweet Home could have been more of a home for her. (TL) “Sweet Home was tiny compared to the places she had been. Mr. Garner, Mrs. Garner, herself, Halle, and four boys, over half named Paul, made up the entire population” (Morrison 164). “Sweet Home was a marked improvement” (Morrison 165). Although the slaves did not see it as their home, they believed that it could transform to one. (BAB) Sweet Home was not home; however, it was an improvement from other types of places that were cruel. It gave a sense of home while not completely having freedom. (NC) “The Garners, it seemed to her, ran a special kind of slavery, treating them like paid labor, listening to what they said, teaching what they wanted known. And he didn’t stud his boys. Never brought them to her cabin with directions to ‘lay down with her,’ like they did in Carolina, or rented their sex out on other farms” (Morrison 165). “She hates anything about Sweet Home except how she was born” (Morrison 239).

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Sweet Home acts as a shelter for the slaves. They don’t feel that is it a home but it is where they stay and it is part of their organic process as slaves because they were forced into slavery. (RA) Sweet Home was not a place where the memories brought laughter, hope, love or joy to them, it was a place of the past that they wanted to keep in the past. (BAB) "How come everybody run off from Sweet Home can't stop talking about it? Looks like if it was so sweet you would have stayed. “...”She's right, Sethe. It wasn't sweet and it sure wasn't home” (Morrison 20). Here, Sethe explains thoroughly with Denver that despite fond memories at the plantation, the setting wasn’t comfortable both physically and mentally to be called home. The miniscule flashbacks of daily moments were not always a living hell for the slaves, as they found little things to appreciate in. However, the sad and painful memories do indeed overshadow the greatness in the aforementioned appreciation, especially for the slaves since the memories of pain drowned them to the point of long term traumatizing effects while the short sweet memories make up for short term satisfaction. (LP) Sweet Home was not there home. Even with Mr. Garner’s “enlightened viewpoint”, it still wasn’t home. The schoolteacher made it even worse. The only part of home from Sweet Home was the good memories that were created there. (TL) The reason one constantly talks about something is not because they enjoyed those memories, rather they were embedded into them for such a long period it is hard to forget about it. The only way they knew to help release them from the past was to stop living in it and run away, far away (BAB) “They were only Sweet Home men at Sweet Home. One step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race. Watchdogs without teeth; steer bulls without horns, gelded workhorses whose neigh and whinny could not be translated into a language responsible humans spoke” (Morrison 127­148). Sweet Home was not home, but it gave an illusion of a place where men could feel like men instead of like beasts. (NC) Sweet Home acted like a home because it gave them the possibility to some respect, freedom and trust which would not be given anywhere else for a negro slave. (BAB) “You could tell his mind was gone from Sweet Home” (Morrison 233). Although they were physically there, emotionally, mentally and spiritually they were pondering about other places they would much rather spend their time. (BAB)

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“Like Sweet Home where time didn't pass and where, like her mother said, the bad was waiting for her as well” (Morrison 287). Sweet Home was a place for only tedious labor and cruel punishments, it was just like bad luck floating in the air waiting to hit someone unexpectedly. Sweet Home was not a home for the slaves because no one was happy to be there or felt safe to work on the plantation. (BAB) 4. Does Mr. Garner’s “enlightened viewpoint” of his plantation allow for a more sympathetic view of slavery? Or, has he merely gilded the cage? “Now at Sweet Home, my niggers is men, every one of em. Bought em thataway, raised em thataway. Men every one” (Morrison 12) Mr. Garner chose to give the slaves the title of being a “man” not because he cared about how the slaves were being raised rather to make him out to be more of a man than they are or will ever be. (BAB) This aspect of thought is unorthodox for a slave owner. Usually, slaves are degraded to animalistic or immature status. However, Mr. Garner doesn’t apply those rules to the slave’s recognition. Moreover, in my opinion, Mr. Garner’s sole purpose wanes more onto his value of his reputation and name. He believes that with this, he is perceived as a better human and man than the other whites that own slaves, kind of an egotistical outlook. (LP) “I wouldn’t have no nigger men round my wife” (Morrison 12). Mr. Garner gives his respect to his slaves by leveling them to a human level and calling them men. Not only does he do this, but he also belittles the other slave owners by raising another level by saying that he would feel comfortable if his slaves were around his wife. This isn’t gilding the cage or giving a sympathetic view. It is just giving his slaves the direct respect that another human should give to another. (TL) “Words Sethe understood then but could neither recall nor repeat now. She believed that must be why she remembered so little before Sweet Home except singing and dancing and how crowded it was” (Morrison 74). “No. In their relationship with Garner was true metal: they were believed and trusted, but most of all they were listened to” (Morrison 147).

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

Unlike any other slave owner, Mr. Garner showed some compassion especially towards the women when it came to their everyday labors, allowing the slaves to feel like they fit in. (BAB) Garner did put up a false persona of Sweet Home. It may have been enlightened however they were not completely free therefore being a gilded cage. (NC) “One step off that ground and they were trespassers among the human race” (Morrison 148). Mr. Garner’s plantation allowed the slaves to have some type of freedom, mobility and safety because without Mr. Garner they would easily be captured and resold. (BAB) “I don’t know where I’ll be. Mr. Garner­­that’s him what brought me here­­he say he arrange something for me. And then, I’m free, you know” (Morrison 169). Although Mr. Garner was a slave owner and did treat the African American poorly because they were slaves he gave them something that no other slave owner gave their slaves, hope. Mr. Garner gave them the ability to dream and hope that one day they would be free. (BAB) “After Mr. Garner died, [...] everything they touched was looked on as stealing” (Morrison 225). Without Mr. Garner their trust and hope was gone, because now they had become what they always were, Negro slaves. (BAB) Mr. Garner “enlightened viewpoint” allows for a more sympathetic view because he treats the slaves more as people than as slaves working for him. (RA) “After Mr. Garner died with a hole in his ear that Mrs. Garner said was an exploded ear drum brought on by stoke and Sixo said was gunpowder, everything they touched was looked on as stealing (Morrison 225). Without Mr. Garner the slaves would have been treated like any other slave on any plantation, being accused of helping somebody or walking with a friend, they would no longer be men who could be trusted. (BAB) “Garner called and announced them men­­but only on Sweet Home, and by his leave. Was he naming what he saw or creating what he did not?” (Morrison 260). The only reason Mr. Garner gave the slaves the confidence to believe that they were men, because he felt like he was higher and better than any man. He believed to be more of a man­­ hold more authority, power and responsibility. (BAB)

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“What would he have been anyway­­before Sweet Home­­without Garner?” (Morrison 260). They cannot and will not imagine how their life could be without Mr. Garner and his leniency at his slave plantation, without Mr. Garner Halle, Sethe, Sixo and all the Pauls would have been either treated with harsh punishments or dead. (BAB) “When he looks at himself through Garner’s eyes, he sees one thing. Through Sixo’s, another. One makes him feel righteous. One makes him feel ashamed” (Morrison 315). Although Garner was not like them, a slave, he did give them a sense of purpose in which their own community could not give to one another, Garner made them feel like hard working humans. (BAB)

5. How does 124 epitomize home? “For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims” (Morrison 3). 124 was Sethe’s and Denver’s home because not only is that where Denver grew up but also the place that Sethe sacrificed so much to be there. (TL) Despite the past and the haunting of 124, it had transformed into a home because it seemed to be the only place where Sethe could actually attain some family bonding and relationships. (BAB) “None could appreciate the safety of ghost company” (Morrison 45). 124 had already become a home for both Sethe and Denver, yet this haunted ghost seemed to extend the feeling of the house as a home. (BAB) “Before 124 and everybody in it had closed down, veiled over and shut away; before it had become the plaything of spirits and the home of the chafed, 124 had been a cheerful, buzzing house where Baby Suggs, holy, loved, cautioned, fed, chastised and soothed” (Morrison 102). (NC) “124 and the field behind it were all the world she knew or wanted” (Morrison 119). (NC) Denver only knew of 124 because that’s the only place that she remembers living in. (TL) Since 124 is the only place where Sethe lives, Denver considers it the home she wants it to be and will always be because of her mother living there for such a long period of time. (BAB).

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“Also in this house­fit there was no anger, no suffocation, no yearning to be elsewhere” (Morrison 136). 124 epitomize a home because that is where they feel the presence of beloved. It is where they have created their own memories and lived their lives. (RA) 124 served as a home for this family of Sethe’s because there never seemed to be any altercations or arguments and if there was they would be quickly resolved, which is exactly what a home is like, peaceful and happy. (BAB) ‘No moving. No leaving. It’s all right the way it is’” (Morrison 17). Sethe is confronting Denver about how the house is not to blame. Bystanders can condemn this house to be the blame, but not Sethe. She has lived in this house for many of years, and after her escape from slavery, 124 has become a permanent safe haven for her. In a way she is expressing that a house haunted by her baby child is far better than enduring the adversity of being an enslaved woman. With this sense of comfortability and protection, Sethe is intensely biased when it comes to the judgment of the house. (LP) When a house becomes a home, a person overlooks all the flaws that were and are on that building. In this case, despite the fact that the house was haunted and people have died there like Baby Suggs; Denver and Sethe still find comfort in the fact that they now have an actual place to call home and create new memories with the family back together. (BAB) 6. How does it not? “Neither boy waited to see more […] Nor did they wait for one of the relief periods: the weeks, months even, when nothing was disturbed. No. Each one fled at once – the moment the house committed what was for him the one insult not to be borne or witnessed a second time (Morrison 3). Home is a place where you are supposed to feel safe and that was the complete opposite for Howard and Buglar because the house was haunted. (TL) “It’s hard for a young girl living in a haunted house” (Morrison 17). It had become hard for Denver to live in a house that she wanted to consider home, how she found it frustrating that her mom’s past was haunting the house and it was something no one could control. (BAB) “He wanted her out, but Sethe had let her in and he couldn’t put her out of a house that wasn’t his” (Morrison 79). Paul D. has just arrived had 124 so it can’t be his home. He hasn’t had the memories that Sethe and Denver had for all the years that they have lived in it. (TL)

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

“The roaring in Paul D’s head did not prevent him from hearing the pat she gave to the last word, and it occurred to him that what she wanted for her children was exactly what was missing in 124: safety” (Morrison 193). A home should be a place where people feel safe to live there, and without safety a house is no home it’s just a regular building because. When there is no safety there is no freedom to live one’s own life. (BAB) “When Sethe locked the door, the women inside were free at last to be what they liked, see whatever they saw and say whatever was on their minds. Almost. Mixed in with the voices surrounding the house, recognizable but undecipherable to Stamp Paid, were the thoughts of the women of 124, unspeakable thoughts, unspoken.” (Morrison 235) It is not a home because at times Denver goes to the bushes and trees and finds that to be more of a home than 124 and later in the story 124 is seen as a house more than a home because of how they feel inside 124. (RA) A home serves as a place for both freedom and safety, because usually in the world one is judged or punished for expressing themselves too freely. In this case behind closed doors or within those four walls of 124, she was able to unwind for all the discrimination around her. (BAB) “"Years ago­­when 124 was alive­­she had women friends, men friends, from all around to share grief with. Then there was no one, for they would not visit her while the baby ghost filled the house, and she returned their disapproval with the potent pride of the mistreated. But now there was someone to share it, and he had beat the spirit away the very day he entered her house and no sign of it since"(Morrison 112­113). It does not feel like home because everything that made her feel safe had gone away for a period of time because of the effects of Sethe’s actions. It started slowly to feel like home again when Paul D shows up. (NC) 124 did not act as a home, because people did not feel welcomed or safe to be near or around it even when it used to be a place filled with laughter and joy. (BAB) “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spit in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old. […] Sethe, their mother; and their little sister, Denver, all by themselves in the gray and white house on Bluestone Road” (Morrison 1). 124 doesn’t epitomize of what a home is and should be because the house is placed under an odd and peculiar situation. The situation being that the house being haunted is known to all the inhabitants in the home. However, they still endure its

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

hauntings and supernatural aura on a daily basis, well for Denver and Sethe that is. It is quite obvious that a ghost wandering the home’s premises is already a conflicted and unorthodox lifestyle so just with the ghost sole presence, the house is already proven not to be categorized as a stereotypical home (LP). “Unloaded, 124 is just another weathered house needing repair” (Morrison 311). Without the family in the home, or without the memories created at that home, it could just be seen as any old house that needs some fixing up to do. Similar to 124, without Sethe, Denver and Beloved that house is just an old raggedy place where people used to hang around. (BAB) 7. What of “the clearing”? Does this space in the forest allow for “home” for the free slaves who attend services there? “With Baby Suggs’ heart in charge, the people let go” (Morrison 111). The Clearing was an escape for some of these slaves because it freed them in a spiritual way. (TL) “Bit by bit, at 124 and in the Clearing, along with the others, she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another” (Morrison 111­112). (TL) It gives a sense of home because it gave freedom to the slaves. They were able to express themselves here instead of being captive in a fake place of freedom. (NC) “Maybe that was where it had gone to. After Paul D beat it out of 124, maybe it collected itself in the Clearing. Reasonable, she thought” (Morrison 116). (TL) Even when one leaves home, their home is emotionally and mentally still connected to one’s heart, the Clearing is the heart and when Paul D left home the only thing he knew to do was stick to the home in his heart. (BAB). “[...]thinking of the Clearing where Baby Suggs’ commands knocked the pods off horse chestnuts” (Morrison 194). The Clearing is a place where people can discover who they are and want to be without anybody else judging them, especially threatening them for being who they are already. (BAB) “She is not so afraid at night because she is the color of it, but in the day everyday sounds is shot or a tracker’s quiet step” (Morrison 91).

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

They felt safe in the forest, because they knew that their complexion mixed well with the darkness around them. (BAB) “Why is she and hers always the center of things? How come she always knows exactly what to do and when? Giving advice;passing messages;healing the sick, hiding fugitives, loving, cooking, cooking, loving, preaching, singing, dancing and loving everybody like it was her job and hers alone” (Morrison 161). The clearing is a clear spot in the middle of the woods where Baby Suggs led all the black people in the area. I think this space does allow a sense of home for the people because it is almost like their escape from reality to go to the words and learn about grace from Baby Suggs. (RA) The Clearing served as a home away from home, although there one know four walls to feel physically protected, they felt at home with the community coming together as a family while listening and being influenced by the thoughts of the head of the family, Baby Suggs. (BAB) “When warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every black man, woman and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the Clearing­­a wide­open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of a path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land in the first place” (Morrison). This place serves as a safe haven to many slaves or to their descendants. As the Clearing is the only place not corrupted by the white man or to the least any man, it is the most placid place described in the novel. (LP) “It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart” (Morrison #). The Clearing is enslaved people’s private “settlement” where everything within is compatible to all blacks and the desired lifestyle and culture is enforced by this setting. (LP) The Clearing allowed the slaves to actually be humans and express their emotions, to show each other that not only do white people feel, but so do they and they should embrace every heartbeat. (BAB) “Sethe and her daughter were dry­eyed on that occasion. Sethe had no instructions except ‘Take her to the Clearing,’ which he tried to do, but was prevented by some rule the whites had invented about where the dead should rest” (Morrison 201).

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

Not only was the Clearing a place for laughter, it was also considered a sacred place to mourn in peace, allow the dead to be with God in a proper and righteous way. (BAB) “Her authority in the pulpit, her dance in the Clearing, her powerful Call (she didn't deliver sermons or preach­­insisting she was too ignorant for that­­she called and the hearing heard) ­­ all that had been mocked and rebuked by the blood spill in her backyard” (Morrison 208). “Fondle the day and circumstances of Beloved’s arrival and the meaning of that kiss in the Clearing” (Morrison 213). “No Clearing, no company” (Morrison 217). The Clearing served as a place for the slave community to come together and forget the past, make new memories and moments through laughter. Without the Clearing, the slaves would have no voice to express themselves to Baby Suggs and rejoice their culture. (BAB). 8. What then do we know about the importance of the Home? “Her past had been like her present­­ intolerable­­ and since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness[...]” (Morrison 4) “He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose­­not to need permission for desire­­well now, that was freedom” (Morrison 191). We know that a home doesn’t need to be a building that covers your head because home can be found in the heart and it can be shared with others. (RA) The importance of home is the freedom that comes with having your own place where you can feel comfortable in making your own decisions. (NC) This is the definition of a home. That freedom and everything in that quote is what a home is. (TL) Although a home is enclosed, it allows the people inside the home freedom from the outside world to choose to do whatever they please without judgment or punishment. A home is a place where one sets their own rules and boundaries, it’s one’s own world within a world. (BAB) “Then home, supper, and God willing, the sun would drop once more to give him the blessing of a good night's sleep” (Morrison). The importance of home from what the novel has presented is that home, despite the different cultures and circumstances, all serves a certain purpose of comfort. Having a place to enjoy supper with family and to sleep safely under God’s grace is the desired home and most sequently the most necessary. (LP)

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba

A home is a place where everyone joins as a community, in this case whether alive or dead and enjoys each other’s presence for the past, present and future. (BAB) “Whatever is going on outside my door ain’t for me. The world is in this room. This here’s all there is and all there needs to be” (Morrison 215). When someone is home they usually do not care about the outside world, because at home there is love, comfort and joy to spend time with the people one cares deeply about. (BAB) “Now she wanted speed, to skip over the long walk home and be there” (Morrison 225). A home is a place desired, whether at work or school, people want to be free and alive, which is why Sethe wanted to be at 124 as quickly as she can. Sethe was able to be whoever she wanted with her kids whether a grown mother or a silly child. (BAB) “Down by the stream in back of 124 her footprints come and go, come and go” (Morrison 324). Although most people move out from their childhood home, it still serves as a home, because one has the ability and option to come back to the place they love and hold dearly to their heart. Even if one’s family is not there, the memory still lives on and that is what makes that house a home. (BAB).

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Nicole Chung, Brianna A. Baeza, Timothy Lee, Rosie Amado, & Lauren Pasaraba