Manipulating Language In Willie Lynch's The Making Of A Slave

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In controlling and manipulating language, slave-owners create the self-perpetuating mental bondage which binds slaves to slavery. From words to definitions to prices, a slave’s whole life is surrounded by definitions of themselves defined by slave owners. Schoolteacher, for instance, always carries around a notebook “measuring” body statistics and writing down “animal characteristics” (Morrison 228). Language is also controlled physically through contraptions such as the iron bit worn by Paul D. This system dehumanizes slaves and traps them into a vicious cycle of self-loathing. After wearing the bit, Paul D becomes very insecure about whether or not he is a real “man,” even thinking that the rooster Mister was more a man than he (Morrison …show more content…

Sixo, for instance, dances “to keep his bloodlines open.” As documented in the “The Making of a Slave,” Willie Lynch asserts that the survival of slavery requires the annihilation of “the heart of a people” (Finalcall.com). In dancing, Sixo is able to connect with his “bloodlines,” or the culture that is necessary for one’s sense of self-worth, identity, and stability. Similarly, when captured by Schoolteacher, Sixo begins to sing with “a hatred so loose it was juba,” in effect temporarily holding the captors at bay (Morrison 268). Baby Suggs preaching echoes this philosophy, preaching that the freed slaves should sing in a “four-part harmony” and dance to love their bodies and their mouths because “they” do not love them (Morrison 103-104). The slave system defines slaves’ bodies as the properties of their masters. Their bodies are considered pieces of property and do not legally belong to themselves. Because dancing evokes the full emotional involvement of the body and singing evokes the full emotional involvement of the mouth, through practicing these art forms, Baby Suggs and Sixo are able to take ownership of themselves. Thus, dance and song are extremely powerful, able to transcend the limits of language by providing the emotional outlets necessary to creating a culture. Although Sethe cannot remember much about her birth place, including the “ancient …show more content…

For example, although Stamp Paid likens the legacy of slavery to a large forest, acknowledges that the forest could be put down with “two heads,” implying that although hard, mental bondage can be overcome with teamwork (Morrison 234). That Baby Suggs’s call for a “harmony” also implies the necessity for a community, as a harmony cannot exist alone (Morrison 104). The soliloquies of Sethe, Denver, and Beloved reinforce this notion. In the beginning of their soliloquies, the three soliloquies exist as independent voices, each discussing their personal worries (Morrison 236-252). Nearing the end, however, the punctuation disappears as the words of the three women blend into one, until the identities of each fuse together, creating a harmony as Baby Suggs suggested (252-256). The voices also state “you are mine,” as if taking ownership of each other and themselves (Morrison 256). The necessity of the efforts of a community to self-ownership is fully demonstrated when the women of the community gather to sing. The women’s voices join together to create a “music” which is “without words,” escalating into a “wave of sound” that “broke the back of words” (Morrison 306-308). By uniting their voices, the community is able to break the bondage, or “back,” of the words defined by the white men. Sethe is “baptized in its wash,” finally able to break out of the bondage of her memories (Morrison 308).

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