Heidegger and Ella by Zhong

 In both Being and Time and the Letter, Heidegger talked about the temporality of Dasein. It might be summarized in this way: Dasein is thrown out of its past, fallen into its present, and projected towards its future. Unlike some traditional metaphysics, Heidegger seemed to regard these three happening at the same time. Every single one of them takes place only when the other two are also present. Interestingly, one of Morrison's description of Ella and her attitude towards Sethe's situation also included all three dimensions of time: 


"The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn't stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out...'Sufficient unto the day is the eveil thereof', and nobody needed more; nobody needed a grown-up evil sitting at the table with a grudge. As long as the ghost showed out from its ghostly place...Ella respected it...but this was an invasion."(302)


To me, this is an ambiguous account on the three dimensions of temporality. The first sentence "the future was sunset" already makes it difficult to fully grasp. What does it mean for the future to be the sunset? What is more, one could read this account as something Heideggerian. That is, there is a respect that could be shared in common by all three dimensions; and that it is acceptable and perhaps necessary to some extent that they coexist in some way. However, there is also a delicate boundary that none of them should overstep. Once overstepped, an invasion took place. And the balance would be easily broken, as the balance between Sethe and the ghost of the Beloved was broken: the other two dimensions merely lived for the sake of the past. But one could also read this account as a counter-Heideggerian statement: the three dimensions should be seperated and kept in their own places. What concerns one most is the present: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew 6:34)


If it is possible to go with the first reading of it, the Heideggerian one, then I couldn't resist but think about Heidegger's other term: "Care." It seems that for him, the thrownness, fallenness, and the projection of the Dasein (the ecstasy of Dasein) are what makes its destined task, care, possible. And at the end of Beloved, we do see some kind of care coming from Ella, who didn't think very highly of Sethe, although in this case the "care" might be better understood in its traditional meaning. Is Ella's attitude towards the three dimensions of time the key to a "care" that surpasses boundaries, prejudices, and other impedements?

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