Dance and Cry with your Heart: A Third Analysis of Beloved

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Third Beloved Analysis: Dance and Cry with your Heart

            In Beloved, as Sethe ventures into the clearing with both Beloved and Denver, Sethe reminisces about Baby Suggs’ preaching to the local black community and the aid that Baby Suggs brought to people who endured slavery. In this particular scene, Toni Morrison couples visual imagery with reoccurring images in order to recreate one of Sethe’s positive memories and further develop Baby Suggs’ character as a caregiver. Sethe recalls that the scene comprised of “laughing children, dancing men, crying women” (103). Morrison utilizes parallel structure between the participles “laughing,” “dancing,”– a motif– and “crying,” and employs asyndeton in order to demonstrate the multitude of emotions evoked by Suggs’ preaching. Using powerful verbs, Morrison is able to simply illustrate a vivid picture, or better yet, a memory in which Sethe has not rejected. Furthermore, Sethe continues to remember how “Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart” (103). Morrison incorporates the repetition of Baby Suggs’ “great big heart,” a reoccurring description from earlier in the recollection of the memory in order to explain both Baby Suggs’ compassion and selflessness. To further the characterization of Baby Suggs, Morrison portrays Suggs as “holy,” which plays off the reoccurrence of religion while possibly suggesting that Sethe sees Baby Suggs as almost god-like or a sanctified being able to bring joy and peace to “them,” or her black audience. Moreover, when Baby Suggs instructs her disciples, Baby Suggs commands, “Love your hands… love your mouth… love your heart” (103-104). Using imperatives, Baby Suggs suggests that one must learn to self-love and appreciate these god-given gifts. The fact that Morrison selected the body parts: “hands,” “mouth,” and “heart” is imperative to the scene and idea of slavery as a whole, for during slavery “hands” were fettered, “mouth[s]” were unable to speak, and the “heart” was not able, or told, not to love. Ultimately, Sethe routinely stores the unspeakable memories within herself, yet Sethe is able to recollect this helpful memory wherein Baby Suggs taught Sethe to love and to rebuild her broken self.