As Stamp Paid approaches 124 to do
right by the family of Baby Suggs, he recalls the time when he confronted Baby
Suggs about resigning from her place as leader of the community and the
argument they had over her quitting the Word. In this dialogue, Morrison includes emphatic repetition,
rhetorical questions, and inverted syntax in order to emphasize the terrible
toll the actions of the slave catchers took on Baby Suggs. Stamp asks Baby Suggs if she believes
the “whitefolks won” to which Baby Suggs replies, “I’m saying they came in my
yard” (211). This response is
repeated three times throughout the dialogue to highlight that for Baby Suggs,
the worst of the slave catcher’s action was entering her property. However, it is not just there physical
presence that disturbs Baby Suggs so deeply, it is all the terrible experiences
of slavery she thought she was free of intruding into her home. Stamp then points out to her that
“Sethe’s the one who did it,” in reference to the killing of the baby, but Baby
Suggs responds by asking, “And if she hadn’t?” (211). This rhetorical question suggests that Sethe killing her
child may not have been the worst option in light of the slave catcher’s
presence. Baby Suggs shares the
sentiment with Sethe that the implications of having the children put back into
slavery are so unbearable that death is a reasonable choice. Stamp later asks Baby Suggs about her
current relationship with God wherein he suggests, “You punishing Him” to which
she responds “Not like He punish me.”
Morrison uses a
chiastic structure here in order to place Baby Suggs first as the subject,
acting upon God, and then second as the object. This device underscores the idea that she has been so
terribly victimized that she believes God, who she has had a close connection
with, is punishing her. Taken in
conjunction with Sethe’s earlier memory of Baby Suggs as a wise and powerful
preacher-like figure, this defeated image of her is in stark contrast,
revealing the drastic effects of the symbolic return of slavery.
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