Color In Beloved Research Paper

Color pervades our perspective on how we see the world, but in our minds color is used to represent certain feelings and sensations. In Beloved, however, the characters Toni Morrison depicts interact with color in various ways stemming from their own experiences and world views. However, in order for an understanding of color to appear, one has to understand the full breadth of the ideas behind trauma that Morrison conveys. Thus, in order to fully understand the characters and the horrors they have faced, Beloved has to be recognized and included in such a discussion because of how she plays a key role in the emotional state of every character in Beloved. She does so not only in her human form, but also as the ghost that haunts 124. Color

While Beloved is first encountered in the novel as red, she is first represented by the color pink on her headstone: “Pink as a fingernail [the headstone] was, and sprinkled with glittering chips. Ten minutes, he said. You got ten minutes I’ll do it for free” (5). As a physical being, through her headstones , Beloved is described with the color pink, drawing a connection with the liminal space between body and spirit. There is a tranquil and youthful nature of the color pink that is straight away distorted: one is alive and then dead, Sethe is lamenting on the pink chips and we are taken to a sad moment where Sethe pays for the engraving with sex. Pink’s place with Beloved is one that denotes how horror and beauty exist simultaneously in the lives of these characters; their trauma is always a part of them. Going further though, Beloved transitions into the color red when she is in her ghost form: “Paul D...followed her through the door straight into a pool of red and undulating light that locked him where he stood” (10). This transition denotes the change that pink represented: if Beloved as red represents traumatic experiences, the pink transitioning to it only furthers the idea that beauty can be turned into horror. With Beloved, red is most akin to the blood that Sethe points out: “I don’t believe [Baby

Baby Suggs’ exploration itself is an interesting one: “Took her a long time to finish with blue, then yellow, then green” (237). The progression of these colors and their order is significant. First, blue represents the shared horror that former slaves have experienced. In fact, the Cleveland black community in the novel all live on Bluestone Road. From here, a dialectic takes place to give way to green. Blue and yellow mix to make green. Blue is the old idea and mindset defined by the horrors at hand. Yellow is the confrontation with freedom and escape. And after struggling and rediscovery through Baby’s sessions in the fields, the green synthesis is created. Every black character in the novel undergoes this dialectical process somehow and Baby Suggs’ interaction with color embodies it. Baby Suggs, Holy’s analysis of color is a way of claiming herself psychologically and spiritually. When Stamp Paid and Baby Suggs are walking, Stamp’s perspective states, “God puzzled her and she was too ashamed of Him to say so. Instead she told Stamp she was going to bed to think about the colors of things,” thus Baby Suggs’ analysis of color is a part of process of reexamining and claiming the idea of god and the world entirely (209). By thinking of the color of things she denies the preset notion that she was given of the world