Nature Imagery in Beloved
Trees Trees play ... a prominent part in the novel, either in the form of the highly symbolic tree stamped upon Sethe's back by schoolteacher's whip, or as the real trees that the protagonists repeatedly turn to for spiritual support. Furthermore, one should bear in mind that trees, and in particular sacred groves, play a crucial role in African religion, where they are considered as intermediaries between God and man’. (Bonnet,1997) (see critic booklet on Moodle)
Task In pairs, read and analyse your allocated extract on tree imagery. Use the questions below as a starting point • how are the trees presented and what is the effect? • how does Paul D describe Sethe’ scars and what is the effect? What is the effect of the final phrase (after the comma)? • how does Morrison show the shift in Paul D’s attitude to Sethe’s scars? Why do you think he changes his attitude to them? How does he describe his favourite tree at Sweet Home and what is the effect? • how does Morrison present Sixo’s relationship with trees?
Water • Water links mother and baby (amniotic fluid) and also suggests rebirth (Sethe urinating; ‘A fully dressed woman walked out of the water’) • Linked to purity, cleansing and baptism. • Also linked to journeys – including the forced crossing of the slaves from Africa to America but also journeys to freedom (e.g. across the Ohio river). Beloved’s monologue is key here: l’ecriture feminine – fluidity of language/form and structure; sea (slaves crossed the middle passage); comes up through water (rebirth?)
Task In pairs, read and analyse your allocated extract on water imagery. Use the questions below as a starting point • how is the rain presented? How does Morrison describe the escape and what is the effect? How are the men presented and what is the effect? • how are the three women presented here? What is the effect of them skating on a frozen river? • how is the singing presented and what is the effect? What is the effect of the reference to the Clearing?
Nobody saw them falling. Holding hands, bracing each other, they swirled over the ice. Beloved wore the pair; Denver wore one, step-gliding over the treacherous ice. Sethe thought her two shoes would hold and anchor her. She was wrong. Two paces onto the creek, she lost her balance and landed on her behind. The girls, screaming with laughter, joined her on the ice. Sethe struggled to stand and discovered not only that she could do a split, but that it hurt. Her bones surfaced in unexpected places and so did laughter. Making a circle or a line, the three of them could not stay upright for one whole minute, but nobody saw them falling. Each seemed to be helping the other two stay upright, yet every tumble doubled their delight. The live oak and soughing pine on the banks enclosed them and absorbed their laughter while they fought gravity for each other's hands. Their skirts flew like wings and their skin turned pewter in the cold and dying light. Nobody saw them falling. Exhausted finally they lay down on their backs to recover breath. The sky above them was another country. Winter stars, close enough to lick, had come out before sunset. For a moment, looking up, Sethe entered the perfect peace they offered. Then Denver stood up and tried for a long, independent glide. The tip of her single skate hit an ice bump, and as she fell, the flapping of her arms was so wild and hopeless that all three--Sethe, Beloved and Denver herself--laughed till they coughed. Sethe rose to her hands and knees, laughter still shaking her chest, making her eyes wet. She stayed that way for a while, on all fours. But when her laughter died, the tears did not and it was some time before Beloved or Denver knew the difference.
Sethe opened the door and reached for Beloved's hand. Together they stood in the doorway. For Sethe it was as though the Clearing had come to her with all its heat and simmering leaves, where the voices of women searched for the right combination, the key, the code, the sound that broke the back of words. Building voice upon voice until they found it, and when they did it was a wave of sound wide enough to sound deep water and knock the pods off chestnut trees. It broke over Sethe and she trembled like the baptized in its wash.
Animals • The slaves are viewed as animals by schoolteacher. • The nephews treat Sethe like a cow when they steal her milk. • The slave men have sex with calves. Does this suggest they are animalistic, or does it show the level that slavery has reduced them to? They choose to have sex with calves rather than rape Sethe – what is the effect? • Paul D sees himself as less than a rooster. • Sethe is reduced to an animal when she escapes, crawling on all fours (but could this paradoxically make her less like an animal as she is saving her child?). She also likens herself to a snake when protecting her daughter. • Stamp Paid likens her to a hawk when the ‘four horsemen’ come: ‘she flew, snatching up her children like a hawk on the wing ... her face beaked, ... her hands worked like claws ... she collected them every which way’. • Denver in the womb is referred to as an antelope – she is strong and pushes her mother on (this foreshadows the fact that she saves her mother at the end). Sethe’s mother used to dance the antelope – this emphasises the link between mother and child. Therefore Morrison subverts the use of animal imagery to make it into something empowering.
Blackberries • Twenty days after Sethe got to 124 he came by and looked at the baby he had tied up in his nephew's jacket ... and, for some private reason of his own, went off with two buckets to a place near the river's edge that only he knew about where blackberries grew, tasting so good and happy that to eat them was like being in church. Just one of the berries and you felt anointed. He reached through brambles lined with blood-drawing thorns thick as knives that cut through his shirt sleeves and trousers ... Scratched, raked and bitten, he manoeuvred through and took hold of each berry with fingertips so gentle not a single one was bruised. Late in the afternoon he got back to 124 and put two full buckets down on the porch. • In pairs, find two techniques and analyse the effect of each
Summary • Trees are linked to heritage, freedom, escape and companionship. They are also linked to pain and suffering • Water is linked to birth; cleansing; baptism and freedom. It links to journeys: the first, painful journey of the slaves from Africa. Every other journey after that is also hard and painful • Rivers symbolise journeys into freedom– the Ohio River symbolises freedom. The frozen creek the three women skate on shows that their relationship is unhealthy – it has come to a standstill. This foreshadows the stream of consciousness monologues and the plot grinding to a halt • Morrison uses animal imagery in two ways: to show how the white treated the black slaves (and to show the lengths they are driven to), but also to link the slaves to nature and strength