Swallow the Lake

This poem was especially interesting to me because it was one of a few poems that used very unorthodox structure.  It also made no direct reference to race or racism, which tends to open poems up quite a bit to various interpretations.  This poem is particularly cryptic.
My interpretation is that the Lake is symbolic of something inescapable.  In this case it is not slavery, but his anger and hate ultimately resulting from slavery.  The author uses a subtle suicide dynamic as a metaphor for killing his restraint and calm persona.  The first stanza establishes the premise of the poem; the narrator is contemplating as he looks "up-down" into Lake Michigan.  I think it's reasonable to assume that the author lives somewhere near Lake Michigan, but I'm not sure if it has any other significance.  The body of water is referred to simply as "the Lake" in the title.  The phrase up-down implies that although he is physically looking down into the Lake, perhaps he is anticipating his change.  From there on out, the poem is structured as broken thoughts.  The second stanza is describing his life experiences, perhaps with racism, but not necessarily.  However the line "More deaths!  Stupidity and death," (11) somehow makes me think directly of hate crimes; he mentions that this causes him great strife and anger.
When one finally gives in, and is "released" from the quiet bearing of that pain "One becomes immune to the bricks / to the feelings / One becomes death / One becomes each one and every person I become," (32-35).  The narrator becomes something powerful, angry, pure.  Yet this release comes with another release: the release of his peace and innocence.  He will be cursed to live a life of restlessness, and there will be no escape.  "I could not whistle and walk in storms / along Lake Michigan's shore / Concrete walks. Concrete deaths / I could not — / I could not swallow the lake," (39-43).  

Sethe's Insanity

The scene where Sethe attempts to kill all of her children is shocking to say the least, and is certainly intended to get the reader to start asking some serious questions, not the least of which is whether Sethe is to be considered a sane character or not.
In my previous post I addressed the manner in which Sethe dealt with her traumatic past at the hands of racism, how she was able to find a state of something close to peace.  This event definitely seems to dispute that hypothesis.  Yet Sethe does not seem to express great regret or guilt from her actions, or at least, she refuses to admit it.  To her, that act of desperation was also an act of love: the only option to prevent the enslavement of her children.
In retrospect, Sethe's behavior in the early chapters of the novel seems to indicate that she had been scarred.  She is often distant and rarely animated.  When she does speak for extended times, there's a cryptic, almost ghostlike quality to her.  I am especially reminded of that paragraph where Sethe tells Denver that "nothing ever dies".  I assumed that Sethe had been left as a shell of a person due to slavery, but I think it has become clear that the scene in the woodshed was the primary cause.
I still stand by my original opinion that Sethe was able to find peace.  She found peace not by burying the past, but by keeping it close to her in daily life.  It seems that she had almost forgotten the event on the surface--she doesn't acknowledge Beloved as the ghost of her deceased child, even though it's painfully obvious to the reader at times--but the past nonetheless remains attached to her.  What is clear is that Sethe sacrificed her humanity in order to protect her children.  The question is if she is insane for being able to live on.

Racism in Beloved

I think racism is portrayed in a pretty distinctly different way in Beloved in contrast to the other novels we've read this semester.  I think this has a lot to do with the time period and specific situation of the main characters of the novel.  They experienced the extreme racism of slavery firsthand.  Other characters such as Bigger, the Narrator, and especially Gunnar, experience a more nuanced prejudice. However it's not quite clear which type of racism results in more pain for each protagonist.  Although Sethe had highly traumatic experiences (arguably greater than any events that other protagonists experienced in this class), they occurred in the past; her daily experience with racism seems to be nonexistent.  Instead, she has been scarred, forced to relive her pain through re-memory.  Yet Sethe has found a state of being that could be called peace; she acknowledges the impossibility of a future, and is satisfied with living a quiet life in the past.  She allows the past to haunt her, yet she also takes comfort in it.  The writing style of the author intentionally tries to pull the reader into that same psyche that the characters in this world share.  For them the past is real, physical.
Characters like Bigger who experience daily oppression also have no future, but Bigger comes to terms with his fate in a very different way than Sethe does.  I think a key part of this is the fact that Bigger wasn't able to physically escape racism in the same way that Sethe did.  It was only after Sethe no longer had experiences to add to her stack of re-memories that she could find mental closure.  At the same time, I have trouble envisioning Bigger escaping Chicago and venturing out into the country to live a humble life with his family.  Beloved introduces another distinct character in Sethe who is unique in that ability to live without living.  For Bigger, it seemed that death was the only escape from racism.