Metaphors In Beloved

I was talking about time. It’s so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it’s not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place - the picture of it - stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don’t think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened. “Can other people see it?” asked Denver.
“Oh, yes. Of, yes, yes, yes. Someday you be walking down the the road and you hear or see something
Sethe obviously has very unique ideas about the past. She does not see it as a linear phenomenon, but rather something that exists with her and has followed her throughout her lifetime. When Beloved appears as a manifestation of Sethe’s haunting past, this reinforces the idea that the past cannot, or does not, fade over time. The author also presents a strange idea, that events that have occurred in the past can be remembered by those who were not involved in them, again reiterating the idea that the past is a permanent thing that holds a constant position in either a memory or in a place. The ideas that the author presents of an inerasable past may represent a the much more significant idea that the nation’s history of slavery is irreversible and unforgettable. However, this idea seems to be somewhat contradicted at the end of the novel, when the author tells the audience that the story of Beloved is not “a story to pass on.” At the beginning of the novel, Sethe seems to be either holding on to hard to her memories, or hiding from them. Throughout the book, the character’s seem to be looking for a balance between remembering the things they have lost and moving on from the past and finding a