Tree Imagery In Toni Morrison's Beloved

550 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Creative writing about trees

In Beloved, recurring images of trees serve as multiple sources of symbolism. The main usage of tree imagery is in connection to healing and life for some characters and death and pain with others. For Sethe, trees represent a suppression of horrible memories from her time as a slave and fugitive. Instead of remembering events from that period in her life, trees act as a shade, protecting her from the emotional scars that were left behind. In her times as a slave, Sethe saw two other slaves being hung in trees, but when recalling the memory, she remembers the trees instead of the individuals being hung. When describing the scene, Sethe recalls “boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world” (Morrison 7). This description puts an emphasis on the beauty of the trees rather than the fact that the boys are dead. Sethe strips the identity away from the boys, which emotionally pulls her away from the visual of seeing two boys, who she might have known, hanging dead in a tree. It also shows that her mind had the ability to protect her from these horrific images by blocking out certain details while bringing others to life. …show more content…

When Sethe finally escapes from Sweet Home and schoolteacher, she runs, even though she’s pregnant with her daughter Denver. Sethe runs through a forest, her legs almost giving out, when the white girl, named Amy Denver comes out of the trees (Morrison 220) and helps her rest. The appearance of Amy Denver from the forest is a beacon of hope for Sethe, who was on the brink of giving up. Without Amy and her willingness to help, Sethe probably would’ve died alone in the woods. It’s almost as if Amy Denver is Sethe’s guardian angel, appearing from the depths of trees to provide

Show More
Related

  • Loss And Renewal In Beloved, By Toni Morrison

    703 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Beloved, Toni Morrison focuses on the concept of loss and renewal in Paul D’s experience in Alfred Georgia. Paul D goes through a painful transition into the reality of slavery. In Sweet Home, Master Garner treated him like a real man. However, while in captivity in Georgia he was no longer a man, but a slave. Toni Morrison makes Paul D experience many losses such as, losing his pride and humanity. However, she does not let him suffer for long. She renews him with his survival. Morrison suggest that one goes through obstacles to get through them, not to bring them down. Morrison uses the elements of irony, symbolism, and imagery to deal with the concept of loss and renewal.

    Read More

  • Political Messages in The King of Trees

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    Symbolism plays a key role in the novella in allowing the author to relay his political ideals. In The King of Trees, Cheng uses many elements of nature to represent both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ideas. The king of trees - and trees in general - throughout the novella is a symbol of counter-revolutionary ideals, and the older Chinese customs. Li Li, and in turn, the followers of Mao Zedong/the Red Guard, believe that “In practical terms, old things must be destroyed” (Cheng 43). This is shown through the felling of the trees – getting rid of the Old Chinese cus...

    Read More

  • Red Symbolism In Beloved

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Christianity, trees were viewed as a primary source of life and knowledge, exhibited in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). Denver used trees as a safe haven for her; a safe place where she can hide from her mother after the trauma that transpired the night that crawling already? was killed. “Veiled and protected by the live green walls, she felt ripe and clear, and salvation was as easy as a wish,”(Morrison, 29). Contrasting with the safety of the trees for Denver, Sethe’s idea of trees has much darker connotations. As a child, she saw “Boys hangin’ from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her-remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys,” (Morrison 6). For Sethe, the symbolism of trees has been twisted into viewing trees not as hope, but as death, and the pain from her past. As Amy had observed, the scars on Sethe only served as reminders of her painful time at Sweet Home, where she had very little hope for the future. A lesson that should be derived from this book is that the perspective from which you look at the past could help it become less painful. Sethe is too focused on the pain of her past, so therefore she is unable to see trees as they were meant to be seen, while Paul D views them as a pathway to second chances. He views trees as “inviting; things you could trust and be ear; talk to if you wanted to as he frequently did since way back when he took the midday meal in the fields of Sweet Home,” (Morrison,

    Read More

  • Themes And Cruelty In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cruelty: the Double-edged Sword “Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell” (Francois Mauriac, Brainyquote 2016). These statements posed by French novelist Francois Mauriac can be applied to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The novel centers around Sethe, a former African American slave, who lives in rural Cincinnati, Ohio with her daughter named Denver.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Flowers In Toni Morrison's The Song Of Solomon

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Song of Solomon, flowers are associated with romance and love, and so the way in which the central female characters interact with flora is indicative of the romance in their lives. Flowers, red roses in particular, are a universal symbol for love and fertility. Though Ruth Foster, Lena called Magdalene Dead, and First Corinthians Dead are associated with different types of flowers in distinctive ways, the purpose of the motif stays the same; flowers reveal one’s romantic status and are a precursor for the romance that is to come. Throughout the entire novel, the flowers share in common that they are not real. Some flowers appear printed, others as fake substitutes, and some are imaginary. This is an essential

    Read More

  • Healthy Confusion In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    What is a healthy confusion? Does the work produce a mix of feelings? Curiosity and interest? Pleasure and anxiety? One work comes to mind, Beloved. In the novel, Beloved, Morrison creates a healthy confusion in readers by including the stream of consciousness and developing Beloved as a character to support the theme “one’s past actions and memories may have a significant effect on their future actions”.

    Read More

  • Symbol and Symbolism of Water in Toni Morrison's Beloved

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Powerful Symbol of Water in Beloved   Water.  It expresses its’ power in the form of hurricanes and flash floods.  It displays its gentleness, washing dirt off a child's scabbed knee.  Water has been used to quench the thirst of many longing throats; and it has been the cause of death to those who unfavorably crossed its path.  It possesses the power of total destruction, yet it holds the bases of all life.  Generally, is a natural purifier, washing the dirt from our bodies. Water is a symbol of transition from dirty to clean.  In Beloved, Morrison uses water to introduce a transition between stages in a character's life.  Water separates one stage of a character's life from another.  Paul D.'s escape from Alfred, Georgia was directly helped and represented by the rain that had fallen in the past weeks.  Paul D. was sent to Alfred, George because he tried to kill Brandywine, his master after the schoolteacher.  In Alfred, he worked on a chain gang with forty-five other captured slaves.  They worked all day long with "the best hand-forged chain in Georgia" threading them together.  They A man's breaking point was challenged everyday. It was hell for Paul D.  Then it rained.  Water gave Paul D. his freedom.  The rain raised the water level in the in-ground cell so they could dive, "down through the mud under the bars, blind groping," in search of the other side (p. 110).  One by one each of the forty-six men dug through for the ground.  They dug for breath, they dug for each other, and they three separate times to make the reader aware that water is the main cause of the transition in Paul D.'s life (p.109-10).  Paul D.'s is now a free black man.  A free black man traveling to 124. Water represents Sethe's transition from slavery to freedom.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Love In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1585 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, love proves to be a dangerous and destructive force. Upon learning that Sethe killed her daughter, Beloved, Paul D warns Sethe “Your love is too thick” (193). Morrison proved this statement to be true, as Sethe’s intense passion for her children lead to the loss of her grasp on reality. Each word Morrison chose is deliberate, and each sentence is structured with meaning, which is especially evident in Paul D’s warning to Sethe. Morrison’s use of the phrase “too thick”, along with her short yet powerful sentence structure make this sentence the most prevalent and important in her novel. This sentence supports Paul D’s side on the bitter debate between Sethe and he regarding the theme of love. While Sethe asserts that the only way to love is to do so passionately, Paul D cites the danger in slaves loving too much. Morrison uses a metaphor comparing Paul D’s capacity to love to a tobacco tin rusted shut. This metaphor demonstrates how Paul D views love in a descriptive manner, its imagery allowing the reader to visualize and thus understand Paul D’s point of view. In this debate, Paul D proves to be right in that Sethe’s strong love eventually hurts her, yet Paul D ends up unable to survive alone. Thus, Morrison argues that love is necessary to the human condition, yet it is destructive and consuming in nature. She does so through the powerful diction and short syntax in Paul D’s warning, her use of the theme love, and a metaphor for Paul D’s heart.

    Read More

  • Biblical Symbolism In Toni Morrison's Beloved

    2296 Words  | 5 Pages

    Toni Morrison’s Beloved follows the history of Sethe and her family from their enslavement at Sweet Home to their life post slavery. Despite their newfound freedom, tragic experiences haunt Sethe and the members of her family. These experiences limit Sethe’s ability to move forward in her life Within the novel, Morrison marks each pivotal moment, or especially graphic moment, in Sethe’s life with an underlying theme of biblical symbolism. Morrison seems to intentionally make these connections to imply that the characters have subliminally let these stories attach to their memories. This connection helps to minimize the characters’ sense of isolation; their trauma takes places within the greater context of stories of suffering familiar to them.

    Read More

  • The Water Motif in Beloved by Toni Morrison

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison writes about the life of former slaves of Sweet Home. Sethe, one of the main characters, was once a slave to a man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Garner. After Garner’s sudden death, schoolteacher comes to Sweet Home and takes control of the slaves. His treatment of all the slaves forced them to run away. Fearing that her children would be sold, Sethe sent her two boys and her baby girl ahead to her mother-in-law. On the way to freedom, a white girl named Amy Denver helped Sethe deliver her daughter, who she later names Denver. About a month after Sethe escapes slavery, schoolteacher found her and tried to bring her back. In fear that her children would be brought back into slavery, Sethe killed her older daughter and attempted to kill Denver and her boys. Sethe, along with Denver, was sent to prison and spent three months there. Buglar and Howard, her two sons, eventually ran away. After about eighteen years, another ex-slave from Sweet Home, Paul D., came to live with Sethe and Denver. A few days later, while coming home from a carnival, Sethe, Paul D., and Denver found a young woman of about twenty on their porch. She claimed her name is Beloved. They took her in and she lived with them. Throughout the novel, Morrison uses many symbols and imagery to express her thoughts and to help us better understand the characters. Morrison uses the motif of water throughout the novel to represent birth, re-birth, and escape to freedom.

    Read More

  • Use of Flashbacks in Toni Morrison’s Novel, Beloved

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... by how beautiful the trees were, and the terrible scar on her back is referred to as a cherry tree, full of life and beauty. It is images like these that characters memories draw for us, images that might not have been alluded to if their memories weren’t tapped.

    Read More

  • Setting In Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel “Beloved”, Toni Morrison who is the author used the setting of this book to keep the reader not only engaged but lost and thrown into an alien environment. By using the past and giving the reader pieces of the past to show why the future begins to alter. Along with Toni’s use of setting, she also gave a special significance for the ghost in house 124.

    Read More

  • Rememory in Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    To survive, one must depend on the acceptance and integration of what is past and what is present. In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison carefully constructs events that parallel the way the human mind functions; this serves as a means by which the reader can understand the activity of memory. "Rememory" enables Sethe, the novel's protagonist, to reconstruct her past realities. The vividness that Sethe brings to every moment through recurring images characterizes her understanding of herself. Through rememory, Morrison is able to carry Sethe on a journey from being a woman who identifies herself only with motherhood, to a woman who begins to identify herself as a human being. Morrison glorifies the potential of language, and her faith in the power and construction of words instills trust in her readers that Sethe has claimed ownership of her freed self. The structure of Morrison's novel, which is arranged in trimesters, carries the reader on a mother's journey beginning with the recognition of a haunting "new" presence, then gradually coming to terms with one's fears and reservations, and finally giving birth to a new identity while reclaiming one's own.

    Read More

  • The Style of Toni Morrison's Beloved

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 500 word passage reprinted below, from the fictional novel Beloved, Toni Morrison explains the pent-up anger and aggression of a man who is forced to keep a steady stance when in the presence of his white masters.  She uses simple language to convey her message, yet it is forcefully projected.  The tone is plaintively matter-of-fact; there is no dodging the issue or obscure allusions.  Because of this, her work has an intensity unparalleled by more complex writing.

    Read More

  • Universal Themes in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, Morrison uses universal themes and characters that anyone can relate to today. Set in the 1800s, Beloved is about the destructive effects of American slavery. Most destructive in the novel, however, is the impact of slavery on the human soul. Morrison’s Beloved highlights how slavery contributes to the destruction of one’s identity by examining the importance of community solidarity, as well as the powers and limits of language during the 1860s.

    Read More

More about Tree Imagery In Toni Morrison's Beloved

Open Document