Fruit of the Mulberry Tree

            In Beloved Toni Morrison plays with the idea that water resembles life and birth; she also uses allusions to Roman mythology to reiterate the idea that love is a forbidden fruit for slaves. When Beloved made her first appearance in the book, Morrison describes her as “a fully dressed woman (that) walked out of the water” (60). Morrison employs ambiguity when first addressing Beloved in order to make her appear mirage like and haunting. Morrison depicts Beloved walking out of the water to suggest that Beloved is being reborn and possibly is a reincarnation of Sethe’s dead baby. Furthermore, after Beloved surfaced from the water she “leaned against a mulberry tree” (60). The detail that Beloved rested upon a mulberry tree might allude to the Roman myth of Pyramus and Thisbe. This myth tells the story of how the red color of the mulberry fruit commemorates the forbidden and tragic love of Pyramus and Thisbe. The allusion to Pyramus and Thisbe insinuates that the love Sethe might develop for Beloved, or the love Beloved might form for someone else will cause insurmountable sorrow if the loved one passes.  The combination of Beloved’s spectral appearance and the eerie forbidden love of the mulberry tree create a subtle feeling of imminent death, and possibly foreshadow the death or haunting of a 124 resident.