f I dont think about it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. (36) To both Sethe and Denver, the past is inescapable. Denver come to realize that the past is something that cannot be blotted out. It is the question of the past, asked by Nelson Lord, that makes her understand the present. She was so happy she didnt even know she was being avoided by her classmates-that they made excuses and altered their pace not to walk with her. It was Nelson Lord-the boy as smart as she was-who put a stop to it; who asked her the question about her mother that put chalk, the little i and all the rest that those afternoons held, out of reach forever....but the thing that leapt up in her when he asked it was a thing that had been lying there all along. (102) Denver, while attending school at Lady Jones, first comes to understand the past of 124. Ironically it is hearing this, which causes Denver to lose her hearing. It is her means of blocking out the past that is too painful for her to accept. Even when she did muster the courage to ask Nelson Lords question, she could not hear Sethes answer, nor Baby Suggs words, nor anything at all thereafter.... For two years she heard nothing at all and then she heard close thunder crawling up the stairs.... The return of Denvers hearing, cut off by an answer she could not bear to hear, cut on by the sound of her dead sister trying to climb the stairs.... (103-104) The past exists on its own and lingers in the air, haunting all those who live in the present. What is scary about this idea of rememory, however, is that it effects everyone, not just the person who experienced the event. The rememories are tangible. Sethe explains, Its never going away. The picture is still there and whats more, if you go there-you who never was there-if you go there and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there for you, waiting for you. (36) Sethe though tries to ...
