Evolving Loyalties

When Beloved enters Sethe and Denver's life, she messes up the dynamic even more than when Paul D did. Many readers in my class at least, believed that she was the living form of the dead baby that had haunted 124.  On page 89 we get confirmation.  Denver figures it out, and Beloved admits it.  But when Denver tells Beloved not to tell Sethe about who she is, Beloved snaps, saying, "Don't tell me what to do.  Don't you never never tell me what to do" (89).  Beloved goes on to say, "She is the one I need.  You can go but she is the one I have to have" (89).  I was surprised by both characters reactions, but I didn't think much of it until later when they go to the clearing Baby Suggs used to preach at.  Denver believes Beloved caused Sethe to choke, and Beloved's only response is, "Look out, girl" (119).  This left me wondering why Denver doesn't immediately run and tell Sethe.  Beloved appears violent towards the one thing she wants, Sethe, so there's no telling what she'll do to someone like Paul D.  Instead, Denver chases after Beloved to try to make up.  She seems to care more about continuing a new friendship than protecting her mother, and sole companion of ten years.

This issue of loyalty has become somewhat of a theme throughout Beloved so far.  When Paul D first arrives,  Sethe must pick, does she remain loyally alone, in solidarity with Denver's perpetual loneliness, or does she welcome this man from her past.  She must then completely abandon her loyalty to Halle, when she invites Paul D to stay a while.  I didn't find either of these decisions to override total loyalty too strange.  When she decides to show more love attention towards Beloved than Denver, I was a little more surprised.  Denver has been the loyal daughter towards Sethe, she hasn't run away like her brothers, nor does she make trouble, she's just is a constant in Sethe's life.  But as soon as Beloved comes, Sethe begins to open up to the stranger more so than she ever did with Denver.  Maybe Sethe has figured out who Beloved is, she surely must have her suspicions, and that's why she is so openly loving towards Beloved, versus her normal shortness with Denver.  Whatever her motives, it's clear that Sethe is no longer as loyal towards Denver as she once was, and in that context, Denver's lack of loyalty towards Sethe is much more understandable.      

Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog

Your typical love story depicts romantic love, a bond between two people that through trials and tribulations grows over time.  It seems like the characters you want to get together always do, and they ride off into the sunset together.  All the Lonely People is not that kind of love story.  Dennis, the protagonist, at every turn is telling us how pathetic and dependent everyone else around him is, except Gerald, yet he isn't a "lion" like he says, he's what he would deem a "real hunter," or maybe not even a member of that group.

We first meet Dennis in a cafe, late at night, talking with Alfred.  Alfred immediately seems like the down-trodden one of the pair-spilling his guts to this man he doesn't really know in a coffee shop.  We see Dennis attract the attention of a woman, causing him to leave the cafe after her.  Dennis lights her cigarette, but then walks immediately away from her.  What I initially took as aloofness on Dennis' part, by the end of the story I think was a lack of confidence.  He left her before she could possibly leave him, therefore maintaining his belief that he can be selective about who he goes out with.  Betty, the girl who Dennis expects the night Alfred comes over, doesn't come, instead postponing their rendezvous, but he is so desperate for her he said he, "was prepared to lie relentlessly just to have her there that one night" (148).  That's not quite the type of behavior you would expect of a lion who is being hunted.  Dennis becomes so desperate that week, that he needs his friend Gerald to set him up with Gloria, a "community chest" as they described her.  Yet Dennis can't even close this deal, one that Gerald has practically set in his lap.

Dennis isn't a lion.  He is not hunted by others, and he's too ashamed to be a real hunter so instead he subtly uses his friends to hunt for him.  He judges everyone around him, which to me makes him worse than anybody who he's deemed below him.  Even in the last section when he finally begins to examine himself, he still has to judge Alfred for not being home at 2:00 a.m. though he then goes to the old coffee shop at 3:00 a.m. and sits alone.  Dennis is the saddest character of them all, not because he doesn't have girls hunting him, but because he has to put down everyone else to construct his self-superiority.