In the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison, it is undeniable that space is a literal reality, which carries significance throughout the novel. The house of 124 Bluestone Road is the setting where the characters in the novel are seen locked in the endless memory of their haunting pasts. Gaston Bachelard’s, The Poetics of Space, similarly explain space in a metaphorical and literal sense. Bachelard uses memories, and inhabitance to see how these images influence someone’s sense of happiness and well-being.
From the beginning of the novel, it is clear that house of 124 Bluestone Road acts as more of a character than a setting. When Paul D moves into the house the other members living in the house are seen trying to settle with the space as the spirit …show more content…
He knew all about that—felt it lots of times—in the Delaware weaver’s house, for instance. But always he associated the house-fit with the woman in it. This nervousness had nothing to do with the woman, whom he loved a little bit more every day: her hands among vegetables, her mouth when she licked a thread end before guiding it through a needle or bit it in two when the seam was done, the blood in her eye when she defended her girls (and Beloved was hers now) or any coloredwoman from a slur. Also in this house-fit there was no anger, no suffocation, no yearning to be elsewhere. He just could not, would not, sleep upstairs or in the rocker or, now, in Baby Suggs’ bed. So he went to the storeroom.” …show more content…
Bachelard claims that, “our house is our corner of the world. As has often been said, it is our first universe a real cosmos in every sense of the word. If we look at it intimately, the humblest dwelling has beauty” (26). However, in regards to 124 Bluestone, the characters cannot find happiness within their dwelling. No matter what they do there is no escape from the feeling grief. “Stamp Paid abandoned his efforts to see about Sethe, after the pain of knocking and not gaining entrance, and when he did, 124 was left to its own devices. When Sethe locked the door, the women inside were free at last to be what they liked, see whatever they saw and say whatever was on their minds. Almost. Mixed in with the voices surrounding the house, recognizable but undecipherable to Stamp Paid, were the thoughts of the women of 124, unspeakable thoughts, unspoken.” (230) Even when left alone the inhabitance of 124 Bluestone could not find peace, there were constantly issues surrounding the house and the people living within it. The family could not look within the confines of their dwelling and find harmony or