Destroying What You Love

Beloved has heart-wrenching drama. So much that my mother hates the story. Set after the American Civil War, the narrative follows Sethe, a former slave who comes to live in a house the reader knows as 124. Without giving too much away, as a runaway slave Sethe destroyed something very close to her rather than allow it to come back with her to enslavement. That conflict between love and destruction evokes emotion from the reader, and voila: drama.Beloved has a curious opening line. 124 was spiteful. I'll pass over Morrison's effective use of providing too little information to draw the reader in. As the opening progresses it becomes clear that "124" is the house, and that 124 has a mind of its own. The setting in the story performs actions. It is a character. It helps to create the tension.Today's exercise is a combination of the two lessons from Beloved: describe the details of a place you love by recounting its destruction. And have the place you love fight back, and fail.***The hands pulled flowers up by the roots. They pulled the levers that bulldozed the playground and gathered the pieces of the fallen trees into the mouth of the wood-chipper. The roar of their machines drowned out the trickle of the fountain that had once gushed from the mouth of a copper frog who now lay in the mud on the bank, face buried in the grass as if unable to watch. The bees stung hands that strayed to close to nests. But their defense did not last long. A flame rose up and burned the hive and the bees slept in the smoke and crisped when the fire found them. The old oak that had protected children from the rays of the afternoon sun was the last to go. First the hands removed the picnic bench chained around his trunk. Then they chained him to a machine that pulled and he groaned and strained to keep his roots in the ground but he fell with a low bellow. And the land was bare.***Tomorrow, I'll pull all the lessons so far together.Getting Started: 1Character: 1Point of View and Tone: 1Plot and Narrative: 1Dialogue and Voice: 1Descriptive Language and Setting: 1Revision: 0Overall: 0