A Comparison of Beloved and Don Quixote Essay - 1683 Words

On reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and Don Quixote by Kathy Acker, there seem to be quite a few similarities in themes and characters contained in these texts, the most prevalent of which seems to be of love and language as a path to freedom. We see in Acker’s Don Quixote the abortion she must have before she embarks on a quest for true freedom, which is to love. Similarly, in Morrison’s Beloved, there is a kind abortion, the killing of Beloved by Sethe, which results in and from the freedom that real love provides. And in both texts, the characters are looking for answers and solutions in these word-shapes called language. In Acker’s Don Quixote, the abortion with which the novel opens is a precondition for surrendering the†¦show more content†¦In Morrison’s Beloved, Sethe has two abortions. The first and most obvious is the act of infanticide in killing Beloved. The second abortion is Sethe getting fucked by the grave-digger. This abortion, like Acker’s protagonist, creates a name. The name is Beloved – a word-shape representing true love, or freedom. For Sethe, to love also becomes a testament of freedom. For having been owned by others (like Acker’s patriarchy) meant that her claim to love was not her own. She could not love her children, love ‘em proper in Kentucky because they wasn’t [hers] to love (Beloved 162). Paul D understands that to get a place where you could love anything you choose †¦ well now that was freedom (Beloved 162), but he is also bound to his slave mentality to overcome his fear. He considers Sethe’s unconditional love risky: For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love (Beloved 45). The far safer way was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you’d have a little love left over for the next one (Beloved 45). It is this compromised love that even Baby Suggs accepted – despite her magnificent sermon in the Clearing on loving one’s self – knowing that her slave master would take her children away. And it is this weak love that Paul D tells Sethe she must accept (a patriarchal love, as AckerShow MoreRelatedEssay Prompts4057 Words   |  17 Pagesselect a work from the list below or another novel or play of comparable literary merit. Alias Grace Middlemarch All the King’s Men Moby-Dick Candide Obasan Death of a Salesman Oedipus Rex Doctor Faustus Orlando Don Quixote A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man A Gesture Life Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Ghosts The Scarlet Letter Great Expectations Sister Carrie The Great Gatsby TheRead Morewisdom,humor and faith19596 Words   |  79 Pagesand others, and an inferiority theory offered more recently by the philosopher Robert Solomon. Hobbes wrote that â€Å"that the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.† Conversely, Solomon thinks that in viewing folly (for example, that of the Three Stooges comedies) we can see our own tendency to unwise behavior and that it can help us become more modest