Color as a Symbol and Symbolism in Toni Morrison's Beloved Essay

Beloved is a well-known and powerful novel by Toni Morrison. It possesses many themes that reflect the effects that slavery had on African Americans. Morrison’s novel also displays slavery told in the third person as someone up close observing the effects, as well as taking up into the minds of the characters. This paper will address how slavery has played a part in the book and it’s terrible effects on people who have been through it.

After reading Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, I could not help but feel shocked and taken aback by the detailed picture of life she painted for slaves at the time in American history. The grotesque and twisted nature of life during the era of slavery in America is an opposite world from the politically correct world of 2016. Morrison did not hold back about the harsh realities of slavery. Based on a true story, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved about the life of Sethe, a slave and her family. Toni Morrison left no stone unturned when describing the impact slavery on had the life of slaves. She dove deeper than the surface level of simply elaborating on how terrible it is to be “owned” and forced to do manual labor. Morrison describes in detail, the horrors and profoundly negative impacts slavery had on family bonds, humanity of all people involved and the slaves sense of self even after they acquired their freedom.

Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, allows for one to experience slavery through three generations of women. The complex development of the horrors of black chattel slavery in the United States intertwined with a story a freedom helps the reader to understand the ongoing struggle of the Afro-American population after emancipation. Denver, although never a slave, is at first held in bondage by her mother's secrecy about her past and only sets herself free when her mother is forced to cope with her memories.

In the novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison uses color to show the reactions of some of the main characters. Color represents many things in the book. Freedom is an example because once the slaves were free, they noticed the beautiful colors all over. They see that the world is not just black and white and two different races, there are many beautiful things that were unnoticed. When Baby Suggs was free, she was able to spread happiness and joy to the community. When the community did not accept that, she fell into depression, but still enjoys freedom, in a different way, more by herself than with others. It was when she wanted to see bright colors. She loved color. In his journey to the

The color, red, symbolizes a variety of different meanings like the quote from an unknown source, “Red, the single most dynamic and passionate color, symbolizes love, rage and courage. Demanding attention, red has great emotional impact. Those who select red are aggressive, impulsive and strive for success.” In the novel, “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison, the author demonstrates the color red for the future, memories, and hope.

     Just as Paul D desires a better life after slavery, so does Baby Suggs.  As a slave, Suggs was suppressed and did not experience the type of life she desired.  Morrison indirectly demonstrates this by purposely leaving out any descriptions of color in Suggs's life when she was a slave.  Morrison uses this absence of color to express that Suggs had lived the life which she had longed for.  She did not experience independence, freedom, safety nor a sense of community when she was a slave.  However, after she was sold, she searched for color, or the life that she had wanted.  For, "she had never had time to see, let alone enjoy it before" (Morrison 201). Enjoying every color that she could, trying to compensate for the time wasted as a slave,  Suggs retreated to her room and concentrated on color.  It "took her a long time to finish with blue, then yellow then green"  (Morrison 201).  Making explicit the absence of color while Suggs was a slave and then describing the way she relished the colors of her newly acquired freedom, Morrison conveys Suggs's fulfillment of the life she had longed to have when she was a slave.  Finally, as her life ended, Suggs was happy with the freedom, sense of

Beloved is a novel by Toni Morrison based on slavery after the Civil War in the year 1873, and the hardships that come with being a slave. This story involves a runaway captive named Sethe, who commits a heinous crime to protect her child from the horrors of slavery. Through her traumas, Sethe runs from the past and tries to live a normal life. The theme of Toni Morrison’s story Beloved is how people cannot escape the past. Every character relates their hard comings to the past through setting, character development, and conflict.

In the book, Beloved, the author, Toni Morrison, writes about the memories of the past effecting the present. The masters of the slaves thought for the slaves and told them who to be. The slaves were treated like animals which resulted in an animal-like actions. Furthermore, the shaping of the slaves,by the masters, caused a psychological war within themselves during their transition into freedom. The beginning sections display how savage and lost a person can become due to the loss of their identity early on in their lives as slaves.

Beloved is a hauntingly convincing depiction of slavery. Often times depictions of tragedies of this scale can be overwhelming and they don’t seem real. One watches a movie like 12 Years a Slave and slavery seems fictional, the atrocities too great to have actually happened, but unfortunately the events depicted did happen, and even though Beloved is fiction it is more human and relatable than most works of nonfiction. What Morrison does brilliantly is she makes it palatable, and the reader can actually feel what the characters are feeling even though most don’t have the faintest idea of what it’s like to be a slave. Most Americans can’t fathom what it is like to tear up when one sees sheets but we can all understand the comfort and warmth

In Beloved, color is a common and important theme, especially the color red. This is because color can symbolize a variety of different things such as a specific emotion or a memory. Throughout Beloved Morrison uses color to give various meanings to various objects and spaces. The emotional qualities of the characters in Beloved are so strong that Morrison utilizes color as a way to express their feelings. Since the book tells a story about slavery and the color of a persons skin, color in the book is often used as a way to express conflict. In Beloved, color is seen as the cause of all the trouble and tension in the novel.

Literature concerning the lives of African Americans during and after slavery explores the many horrific acts of violence. Violence manifests itself in people both physically and psychologically. Physical wounds may heal over time, but it is the emotional scarring that begins to take a toll on the human mind. The novel, Beloved, by Toni Morrison revolves around the character of Sethe, an African American woman who recently escaped from a slave plantation. Sethe's home on 124 Bluestone Road is haunted by her daughter, Beloved, whom Sethe murdered in order to keep her from the life of slavery. Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, explores both the uses and effects of violence through multiple characters.

Beloved, written by Toni Morrison, is set after the American Civil War and tells the story of an escaped slave named Sethe who is trying to achieve true freedom for herself and her children. Unfortunately, she continues to be chained to her haunted past. In the novel, Morrison effectively illustrates the effects of slavery on Sethe, her family, former slaves, and the community. Morrison is also able to show how slavery dehumanizes those who are enslaved and those who support the institution of slavery. In the novel, the readers discover the story of the main character, Sethe, through fragments of the past and present.

Color moves us, and Beloved’s effect in entirety does the same. The story of the 124 inhabitants that suffer nearly unspeakable traumas employs elements of craft that are guaranteed to emotive question the readers, and if pictures are worth a thousand words, colors are worth at least that much, if not more. Literature is concerned with the visual, but not in the same way that other types of art are. Media of story like film, television, and theater are overtly visual; color is a direct and primary vehicle to alter the psychological effects of an audience member. Beloved doesn’t have the same luxury; Morrison had to write the color in correlation with the action of scenes to create intense thematic threads throughout the novel, of which I will define later. Morrison’s inclusion of color and her characters’ fascination with them illustrates the characters’ attempts to shatter the two-hue spectrum – black and white - of social construction in which they live. They

Destruction caused by slavery and development of identity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved In the novel Beloved Toni Morrison portrayed the shattering consequences that slavery leaves. It affects people not only on the physical, but also on the emotional and spiritual level. The characters in the novel who escaped slavery continue to have an enslaved mind-set and therefore are unable to claim their identity.

A private symbol that is often referred to in the novel is that of a tin tobacco box. The character that uses this symbol is Paul D. It is mentioned from the beginning through the end. When he refers to the tin tobacco box he's referring to his heart. Paul D used to be a slave and because of the horror he had went through in Sweet-Home and in a prison camp he no longer feels it deserves to be called a heart. It's depressing, reading about the torture he went through but it's also interesting. He is often disturbed by Beloved's presence because he feels that when she's there it causes "the tin tobacco box" to burst out all that is inside and turn red again. It seems as though beloved provokes memories from the past. Memories he wishes to forget.