Thematic Evaluation

Background Information

Beloved Discussion Forum

Annotated Bibliography

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Toni Morrison's Beloved offers the reader an opportunity to take much away from the experience of reading the text.  We feel the following images are important to understanding the novel. The text is full of imagery, and room does not permit that we explore them all here in our explanation. As the reader explores the text of Beloved, it is important to keep in mind that we will each find imagery and that each of these images might have differing results, depending on the reader. 

Water

The character Beloved, may be seen in some people's reading as a ghost; however, she may be even more than that. Morrison herself says of the mysterious Beloved that she, "is a spirit on one hand, literally she is what Sethe thinks she is, her child returned to her from the dead…[S]he is also…a survivor from the a true, actual slave ship," (Koolish p. 171).  When Morrison writes, "A fully dressed woman walked out of the water," she may be, according to many, symbolizing through the image of water in this and other passages, the crossing of slaves from Africa on board the slave ships (Morrison p.50). 

Another example of this theme may be read in the passage that Morrison writes of Sethe, Denver, and Paul D's first encounter with the mysterious young woman who, after being offered water by Denver, cannot seem to quench her thirst. Morrison writes, "Four times Denver filled it, and four times the woman drank as though she had crossed a desert" (Morrison p. 51). The "desert" may not be that of sand, but of an ocean crossed by the slaves aboard the slave ships and their being forbidden water due to short supplies. Beloved's consistent need for water in later passages may represent not only the thirst for water the future slaves suffered, but it may also represent the thirst for freedom they must have longed for. 

Chokecherry Tree

The tree Sethe describes  to Paul D. "I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms" may represent the pain and suffering her and slaves like her carry with them forever (15). These memories will be carried throughout their lives and the lives of descendants that follow. 

Birds

Beloved contains many mentions of birds and humming birds.  The obvious things birds might represent is freedom.  Having wings, birds can go wherever they want.  However, hummingbirds are kind of belligerent.  The hum they make is not necessarily a peaceful sound.  The humming can be interpreted as the voices of the "angry dead" that Stamp Paid talks about on pages 198-199.  In death they are free, but they resent what they were put through in life.

Loneliness

Denver is often talking about being lonely.  I think that when a culture is marginalized, as in the case of slaves, there must be an overwhelming sense of loneliness that accompanies it.  Therefore, community is even more important.

The Bit

The bit worn by Paul D in the novel may be seen as a representation of pain carried on by former slaves throughout their lives. This kind of torture cannot be forgotten. Former slaves who have escaped the tortuous life of slavery will carry this memory forever. As Paul D shows he is fighting against this and other memories as he attempts to assimilate himself into free life. According to Elizabeth Lofgren Nutting, "As the characters reluctantly peel away these thin, transparent layers of their stories -- seven of Baby Suggs' children lost to the auctioneer's block; her last son, Halle, butter smeared on his face, driven mad by watching the slave owner suck the milk from wife Sethe's breast; Sethe's back permanently scarred in the dense shape of a chokecherry tree; Paul D enduring the humiliation of the iron bit in his mouth -- -what is revealed is the pile of human wreckage wrought by slavery" (Remembering).

Chain gang

Paul D. tells the story of being on a chain gang.  In the pouring rain the prisoners decide to make their break for freedom (110).  The chain is representative of the need for the prisoners to work together.  If one had tried to escape he would fail, when they all ran they were successful. 

Milk

Milk represents motherhood, which is significant because slavery destroyed families.  Mothers couldn't love their children too much because their children were often sold away from them.

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