Brianna Miles: Week 2

Some major themes brought up in the first three chapters are mainly grief, bitterness, and regret. I say grief because of Sethe's pain over the loss of almost all of her loved ones. She loss her husband, her mother-in-law Baby Suggs, her daughter, and her two sons. She hasn't truly healed from all those losses. Bitterness is a theme because of the baby's spirit that's in the house. Sethe makes it seem as if the spirit is upset with her for letting her die. The baby's spirit does weird stuff with the house that eventually runs Sethe's two sons away. The spirit is bitter over it's death. Regret is also a theme because of the struggle that Sethe is having. She regrets not being their for her daughter when she sent her way, especially in regards to the breast milk. Even at the beginning of the book she regrets not putting more words on her daughter's tombstone.
I think innocence would describe Sethe's past. Besides being a slave, she was innocent. She hadn't loss any of her loved ones yet. In the book she said she was proud that Halle fathered all of her children. This made it seem as if she didn't know that it could be any other way. Also she didn't know exactly how to go about marrying Halle after he proposed. That was very innocent of her not to know that they needed a ceremony among other things. Experience would describe Sethe's present because she had gone through a lot of life's hardships by then. She has experienced a wife's pain, a mother's pain, and physical pain.