Baby Suggs' Last Words: a Beloved Analysis

Marisa Eng

Period 5

4/3/13

In Beloved, Toni Morrison’s description of the dramatic event causing Baby Suggs’ depressing death illustrates the theme of continual suffering slavery imposed by repetition of negations, a shift in tone, and ambiguous foreshadowing. When Sethe goes to the clearing to pay tribute to Halle and to look for clarity and advice from Baby Suggs, dark memories of her arrival at 124 resurface. Sethe recalls that right before Baby Suggs died, she said, “There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks” (105). By using the hyperbolic statement that the only “bad luck in the world” was “whitefolks,”Morrison emphasizes the magnitude of suffering “whitefolks” caused on Baby Suggs and as root of her misery. Furthermore, Morrison creates a dismal, empty, and lonely tone when she goes on to repeat the word “no” in a series of negative descriptions to describe the loss of friends, love, and happiness at 124 caused by the “bad luck”. Morrison then describes how “Baby Suggs, holy, believed she had lied”  (105). By saying that even Baby Suggs “believed” she had “lied” about overcoming the cruelty of “whitefolks” and to love oneself, Morrison highlights Baby Suggs’ defeated nature. Also, Morrison contrasts the image of “holy” Baby Suggs preaching about love and hope before Sethe arrived to the self-doubting Baby Suggs after, sadly displaying how even someone “holy” can be broken. Morrison emphasizes a quick change when everything for Baby Suggs “began to collapse twenty-eight days after her daughter-in-law arrived” (105). The ambiguity of the word “collapse” gives a double meaning that Baby Suggs fell apart physically and emotionally, drawing attention to the mysterious devastation created in the “twenty-eight days” Sethe was at 124. Morrison uses the dark change in Baby Suggs’ beliefs about post-slavery life to set the traumatic tone of the tragedy brought by arrival of Sethe.