Essay/ Beloved/ creative response

It seems like the more you see, the weaker your eyes become. Although I find it improper to reveal one’s age (especially when it is such a great number as mine is), I will tell you this: I have seen my fair share of everything, and it is about time that my weak eyes were closed to the world. I know I can’t help that along and I am certainly not saying that I wish I could, but I am sure you understand that all these years do tend to leave their marks on you and wear out your hinges quite a bit. Each branch of a scar, spill of a bruise, or discoloration of skin is another chapter, just as important as the rest. A person can go on until they are blue in the face about what time has done to them, believe me I’ve heard it. A grown man with a scar on his knee from when he fell from his bike decades ago. A woman with a map of stretch marks on her belly and wrinkles on her face gracefully sculpted in by her children. My, my, how I’ve seen it all.
In the beginning, I was very alone. As soon as I could stand without being held by my sides I was left to the world around me without a second thought. People would walk by, stop, stare for a moment in brief and distant affection, but they would never stay for long. I would find comfort and company in the sycamore trees that would bathe me with their shade even in the most brutal of the midday heat. They were more than generous to me, yet they too were weathered by time and now have barely enough leaves to notice let alone protect an inch of anything. I would watch the clouds waltz about the sun and sigh, hoping, wishing, praying for more companions than the still plants and distant sky. That was before I knew what was going to happen to me. And now… I truly did miss that beautiful, serene calm.
After the family was gone, I was able to fix my existence with something meaningful. I was one of the lucky ones back then and didn’t have to experience the brutal labor, utter mistreatment, and spilling of so much blood firsthand. You couldn’t help but be involved with the resistance once you heard about it though. If you were there I’m sure you would have been as desperate for people’s freedom as everybody else was. So when I caught wind of a trail way to the north, I offered my basement without them even asking. I remember it so vividly. A woman was walking down the street by herself one Sunday, most likely on her way back from church. Her face was raised high and her shoulders were open so that it looked like she was presenting herself to the world. You could tell that she was a strong, brave woman, although I still felt the need to help her. I opened my front door as she was passing it, and just in time to catch her eye. As soon as she realized that there was nobody occupying the property in any surrounding area, Miss Tubman claimed my basement as one of the stops in the Underground Railroad, and I felt complete.
I suppose I wasn’t trying to “fix my existence” as much as be rid of what had haunted me for so long. After those twenty-eight years of being a slave myself, I needed to spread the freedom that I had found after the rest of the family had fled the house and found their own. I was put to work at any time of the day or night- whenever my master wanted me to. And that work was destroying me. I was told to do things that no slave in any field had to. My business was to scare, to ward off, and to hurt. I was less than a slave; I was the heavy, metal chain that had bolted slaves to the boats, each other, and finally to their master’s land. I hated having to hurt so many people, but I had no choice. Yet now I am punished for how I had obeyed, doomed to remain here on 124 until somebody has the heart to tear me down. Tear down the body that had housed an invisible master: the ghost child. Tear down the body that had made slaves invisible: the Underground Railroad. Tear down my body, on Bluestone Road.



Rationale
I chose to write a passage from the eyes of Sethe’s actual house. While choosing a topic for this reader’s response, I had two quotations in my mind: “It’s the ghost that haunts, not the house,” and “If these walls could talk.” I felt that I could try to draw parallels between the institution of slavery and the relationship between the ghost and the house, and then the house and Sethe’s family. Here, the ghost is a slaveholder where the house is the slave in that the house was unable to escape this ghost and was involuntarily assigned the job of keeper of this dead child. Then I looked at the house as the physical restraint that is keeping Sethe and Denver attached to this “slaveholder” (shown in that the house is the chain that bolted the slaves to their master’s land).  Another reason why I chose to write about this is because it is still very early in the book and the reader does not know what is going to happen to the family or the ghost. So, I was able to create a sort of alternate story line and ending for this house where I had talked about the Underground Railroad. One last parallel that I created involving all of these aspects was a connection between Sethe and the house. Sethe was a slave, escaped, and now is trying to protect the ones she loves- just like the house does in this story. This was a very interesting and fun piece to write!