Wanting in "Beloved"
Not Wanting
Wanting of Objects/concepts
Not Wanting to MIND Remember/Comprehend
Wanting to Action
Wanting of Essence/identity
Not Wanting Physiological/Corporeal/Flesh
... if you a man yourself, you'll want your niggers to be men too."
"Maybe she don't want to understand," said Denver.
Not wanting to be hurt
Not wanting to perform an action
...did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty.
BLACK SHEEP: AUDIAL
"I don't want to even hear 'bout it. Always did hate that stuff."
Wanting to be wanted
"But it's where we were," said Sethe. "All together. Comes back whether we want it to or not."
Either they did not want to take anything from her, or did not want her to see them eat.
She did not want to call Paul D's attention back to her, so she settled for crossing her ankles.
"I did, but now I want me some velvet."
She didn't want to be the only white person and a woman too.
"I don't want to hear another word out of you."
"I mean, did she have to ask that, or want to ask it, of anybody else before me?"
Wanting of Person
"You want me here, don't put no gag on me."
"No promises, if you don't want to make any."
She didn't want to meet Lady Jones or Ella with her head wrapped like she was going to work.
Not wanting of objects
Stuck pieces of candy she didn't want between her lips.
"I didn't want it to be just me moving over a bit of pallet full of corn husks."
She said,'I want you to have these, Sethe.'
"I don't want to know or have to remember that."
"I don't want to see your ugly black face hankering over me."
"Want some shoes?"
"You want it back, then go head and take it off that baby."
"Want some breakfast, nigger!"
It went on that way and might have stayed that way but one
evening, after supper, after Sethe, he came downstairs, sat in the
rocker and didn't want to be there.
He stood up and realized he
didn't want to go upstairs either.
It went on that way and might have stayed that way, except one
evening, after supper, after Sethe, he came downstairs and lay on
Baby Suggs' bed and didn't want to be there.
It went on that way and might have stayed that way except one
evening, after supper, after Sethe, he lay on a pallet in the storeroom
and didn't want to be there.
"What you want in here? What you want?"
"I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name."
"I want you to touch me on the inside part."
"You want cider or don't you?"
She doesn't want to offend and
she doesn't want to betray the panic that is creeping over her like
hairs.
"I don't want that place."
To buy a mother, choose a horse or a wife,
handle guns, even learn reading if they wanted to-but they didn't
want to since nothing important to them could be put down on
paper.
Fucking
her when he was convinced he didn't want to.
"I want you pregnant, Sethe."
What
did he want her pregnant for?
"Something men don't want to do, I reckon."
"My cousin say you get all the meat you want, plus twenty-five
cents the hour. "
And he didn't want to touch anything.
Its main job was to receive,
slaughter and ship up the river the hogs that Northerners did not
want to live without.
And
when he did get down to a little sleep, I didn't want to be bothering
him with all that.
Paul D did not answer because she didn't expect or want him to,
but he did know what she meant.
"What you want in there?"
"He took up with her and stayed in there and you don't
want nothing to--"
"Anything white floating around in the woods--if it ain't got a
shotgun, it's something I don't want no part of!"
She didn't
want any more news about whitefolks; didn't want to know what
Ella knew and John and Stamp Paid, about the world done up the
way whitefolks loved it.
...she just didn't want
the embarrassment of waiting out back of Phelps store with the others
till every white in Ohio was served before the keeper turned to the
cluster of Negro faces looking through a hole in his back door.
She
didn't want to jostle them or be jostled by them.
You don't have to listen
either, if you don't want to.
"All I seem to want is sleep."
"Don't he want it back?"
"He want something."
But he don't want me off Sweet Home
no more.
They said it was the bit that made
her smile when she didn't want to.
Like she didn't want to do it but she had to and it wasn't
going to hurt.
And she bearded up the back door that led to it because she said
she didn't want to make that journey no more.
She said they told
her visitors with nice dresses don't want to sit in the same room with
the cook stove and the peelings and the grease and the smoke.
...and he didn't want his mind messed
up.
She behaved and did every-
thing right in front of her children because she didn't want them to
see her knocked down.
I am not separate from her there is no place where I
stop her face is my own and I want to be there in the place where
her face is and to be looking at it too a hot thing
I
want the face that is mine
I want her face a hot thing
there is no one to want me to say me my name
I want the
face that is going to smile at me
so
much my dark face is close to me I want to join
she touches me she knows I want to join
I want to be the two of us I want the join
I want her face.
Wanting to
live out his life with a whole woman was new, and losing the feeling
of it made him want to cry and think deep thoughts that struck
nothing solid.
"Alive. Alive. I want him alive."
"I don't want to know it. I don't want to know nothing.
"First minute I saw her I didn't want to be nowhere around her.
"I want work, Miss Lady."
It was as
though Sethe didn't really want forgiveness given; she wanted it
refused.
"What you want?"
"What you want em for?"
Others
who believed the story didn't want any part of the confrontation and
wouldn't have come no matter what the weather.
"Who they think want a house out there? "
Anybody got the money
don't want to live out there."
Instead he nodded and asked the question he want-
ed to.
"Well, if you want my opinion--"
This little place by a window is what I want.
Want to Be Somewhere
Want to Perform
"You want to soak them? Let me get you a basin of water."
"You want to fight, come on!"
"Halle and me want to be married, Mrs. Garner."
"But I mean we want to get married."
Want to Comprehend
"What I want to know is, is she asking a question that's on your
mind too?"
"Sethe, if I'm here with you, with Denver, you can go anywhere you want. Jump, if you want to, 'cause I'll catch you, girl.
"You want to lay down a spell?"
"I want to know," he said, holding the knife handle in his fist like a pole.
"You want to tell me about it?"
"You will be where you want to be when they are gone."
He believed he was having house-fits, the glassy anger men some-
times feel when a woman's house begins to bind them, when they
want to yell and break something or at least run off.
...or want to hold it in his arms out of respect
She might want to be told a story in the
dark when Denver can't see her.
"Eat all you want; it's ours."
"What she want to go and
do that for?"
"I want to fix
on something harmless in this world."
"Want me to loosen it up with a little water?"
"What you want to know, Sethe?"
Maybe it was getting that close to dying made them want to fight
the War.
I want to go to sleep but I know if
I do I won't wake up.
I need to know what that thing
might be, but I don't want to.
She built around it
to make a storeroom, so if you want to get in 124 you have to come
by her.
All I want to
know is why did she go in the water in the place where we crouched!
how to have
privacy without losing the little light that might want to shine on
them.
But you welcome any-where you want to be.
I wanted, I didn't want to, I just wanted to be off by myself
They let you be if you
want em to.
On the
one hand, she wanted to remind everybody of what she was able to
do in the cooking line; on the other, she didn't want to have to.
"I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Bodwin."
"I don't want to
quit these people, but they can't have all my days and nights too."