Novel Analysis: The Beloved

In no more than six sentences, explore the connection between your two annotated passages in the following way.
Pick two passages from the novel Beloved, Pick one motif or technique shared by both passages and compare and contrast how this technique or motif is used in each. Then imagine what problem or question the novel is trying to think through in these two passages. Your claim should articulate your judgment about what important question or problem is at issue in these passages. You do not have to say how the novel solves this problem or answers this question. In fact, you should not attempt to. Your task is use close analysis of the language of the passages to identify that question with as much nuance and precision as you can.

In no more than six sentences, explore the connection between your two annotated passages in the following way.

Pick one motif or technique shared by both passages and compare and contrast how this technique or motif is used in each. Then imagine what problem or question the novel is trying to think through in these two passages. Your claim should articulate your judgment about what important question or problem is at issue in these passages. You do not have to say how the novel solves this problem or answers this question. In fact, you should not attempt to. Your task is use close analysis of the language of the passages to identify that question with as much nuance and precision as you can.

Hint 1: Perhaps the best way to make a claim about what question the passages are preoccupied with is to use the following template:

Through the motif/technique of _____________, these passages pose the question of what/how/why/to what extent/under what conditions __________________.

In the blank there should be at least one noun, maybe more, and at least one verb, and the noun should name the crucial topic that the passages are exploring. If you decide not to use this template, you may be avoiding the task in the prompt.

Hint 2: Motif should not be confused with topic or theme. Remember that a motif is a concrete image or phrase that is repeated across the novel and that out of which a significant pattern is made. Death or memory are topics; “rememory” or “chokecherry tree” or 124’s “white staircase” or “pieces” or “weight” or “A man ain’t nothin but a man” are motifs. A novel like Beloved says what it has to say about the topics it is concerned with by developing its motifs in the way that it does.

Hint 3: Although you do not have to focus on point of view as your technique, you should be mindful of which characters’ thoughts are being reported in the passages you’ve chosen. As we’ve seen, the narrative function within this novel is almost always to report the thoughts of particular characters.