3.2.2.2 Understanding inheritance
As the readers will see, this ghostly guidance helps Denver sort through her convoluted inheritance. According to Derrida, “an inheritance is never gathered together, it is never one with itself. Its presumed unity, if there is one, can consist only in the injunction to reaffirm by choosing. ‘One must’ means one must filter, sift, criticize, one must sort out several different possibilities that inhabit the same injunction”. For Derrida, the specter represents history and inheritance, and it is not until the readers wrestle with the ghost that they can come to a full understanding of our inheritance and what that inheritance means to they as individuals. As Derrida says, the “specter demands that one take its times and history into consideration, the singularity of its temporality or of its historicity”. Given that Denver stands outside hegemony, on the margins of the margins, her understanding and knowledge her inheritance is fragmented. As she does not understand why hegemony isolates and oppresses her, she also does not have full access to or understanding of her inheritance. What little she has managed to piece together is not to give her a full picture. Consequently, basing her identity on what little she does know, she forms negative, self-deprecating identities. It is only through the ghost that the girl finally comes to sort through and understand what her inheritance is, as the readers will see.
First, we will see how the ghost helps Denver sort through and understand her inheritance. Beloved’s consumptive possession is what guides Denver, forcing her to address her inheritance. Whereas before, Denver retreated into her own world of selfish need, she is now faced with Beloved’s even greater, unhealthy desire. In fact, Beloved immediately stakes her claim on Sethe, unable to take her eyes off Sethe. Stopping to shake the damper, or snapping sticks for kindling, Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by Beloved’s eyes. Like a familiar, she hovered, never leaving the room Sethe was in unless required or told to. When Denver tries to stake her own claim on Beloved, Beloved tells her “Sethe is the one. She is the one I need. You can go but she is the one I have to have’”. It becomes increasingly apparent that Beloved needs the same, unconditional love from Sethe that Denver craves from Beloved. However, Beloved also needs more; she needs Sethe to pay for what she did. Beloved becomes a vampire. Beloved cannot get enough love from Sethe, and her desire becomes consuming. Sethe devotes all her time and energy to Beloved. When she loses her job, she doesn’t even bother to search for a new one. Instead, Sethe played all the harder with Beloved, who never got enough of anything: lullabies, new stitches, the bottom of the cake bowl, the top of the milk. When there is little food left, Beloved gets it all. Thus, as she grows fatter, Sethe becomes thin and frail, as if Beloved is feeding on everything Sethe has.
Beloved’s possessiveness and demand for love moves beyond the point where there is nothing would satisfy her and it threatens Sethe’s very existence. Therefore, Beloved forces Denver to sift through her inheritance. Denver must decide whose actions are worse: Denver’s past or Beloved’s present actions. She now realizes that Sethe’s actions were motivated by love, whereas Beloved’s are based solely on revenge. As painful as her inheritance is, Denver finally stops seeing Sethe as the monster and understands how lonely her world would be without Sethe. Thus, Denver is forced to take action. Realizing she must seek help from outside, Denver “stood on the porch of 124 ready to be swallowed up in the world beyond the edge of the porch. . . .Out there where there were places in which things so bad had happened that when you went near them it would happen again”. Denver’s ideology mirrors that of Sethe’s: the outside world is fearful and danger lurks at every corner. However, Denver finally faces her fears, something she would not have done had it not been for Beloved. She soon finds that what had terrified her, what she had found overwhelming, is actually very small. As Denver progresses through the neighborhood, her confidence grows. Denver becomes self-assured in a way she had never been before. Emboldened, she picks her way through the Cincinnati streets, finding a job through which she can support Sethe and Beloved. As Denver comes to understand her inheritance, her self-confidence and self-reliance continue to grow. She even applies for a second job and goes back to school, with plans to attend college. Completely transformed, Denver not only comes to realize her own self-worth and capabilities, but she also comes to understand her inheritance. Realizing how family, community, and self all are tied to the same violent history, and how that history must be navigated before the self is empowered, the fearful, lonely child in Denver disappears forever.
In the end, it is only through the ghostly guidance that Denver comes to reassess both her self-view as well as her ideological outlooks on life. Previously, her ideology revolved around her own lack, which, in turn, paralyzed the girl, keeping her from exploring her full potential and realizing her own value. Through the spectral, the girl comes to realize her own self worth, something hegemonic oppression had previously obscured. Interceding, the ghost provides the necessary bridge between character in the story and community, allowing each character entrance into their community, while also helping Denver shift her ideological perspectives of self and the world around her. Setting aside the negative view of self she had developed, she finally grows as an individual. Following the guidance, Denver is finally able to take charge of her life. Denver finds the outside world is not as scary as she thought, delighting in her future work and education options. Furthermore, she also sorts through her mottled inheritance. In doing so, not only do she comes to an understanding about her community, but also about herself. The girl comes to realize how community aids in her development as an individual. Furthermore, Denver see how her inheritance influences her life and it is not until she navigates that inheritance that she understands the world around her. Thus, magical realism helps her set aside her fears, and the girl is empowered and strengthened through her ghostly encounters. As Derrida says of ghosts, “they are the untimely specters that one must not chase away but sort out, critique, keep close by, and allow to come back”. This is exactly what the Denver does, and, in doing so she open herself up to new worlds and possibilities, overcoming the stifling fears that kept her rooted in a stagnating perception of the world. Through magical realism, we see Denver emerges as strong, self-assured women in charge of her own destinies.
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