d Bey the, (Ne, d an € theo g st na Wiese, sh “ang 72,11 icted in, in hig 20), 4 5 Flowers in the Dark: African American Consciousness, Laughter, and Resistance in Toni Morrison's Beloved | pnything that’s paradoxical has to have some humor in it orit'll crack you up. Youknow j that? You put hot water in a cold glass, it'll crack. Because it’s a contrast, a paradox. ‘And America is such a paradoxical society, hypocritically paradoxical, that if you don't have some humor, you'll crack up. . ..You have to laugh atit. —Nalcolm X, The Death and Life of Malcolm X* Other people call it humor. It’s not really that. It's not sort of laughing away one’s troubles... Laughter itself for Black people has nothing to do with what's funny ata. —Toni Morrison, interview Dancing around the room with Sethe's apron, Beloved wants to know if there are flowersin the dark. Denver adds to the stovefire and assures her that there are. —Toni Morrison, Beloved ‘Toni Morrison's Beloved, a novel set during the American slave era, pres- ents the story of Sethe, an African American slave woman who murders her own daughter in order to save her from a life of slavery. Conjoining “ughter” and “slavery; like combining “laughter” and the “Holocaust,” makes us react viscerally with discomfort and ethical apprehension. Our culture seems to have some type of “slavery etiquette” comparable to Ter- hat makes us uncomfortable to tence Des Pres’s “Holocaust etiquette” t ‘bh Speak of laughter in conjunction with events so shameful and horrible. Nonetheless, Morrison’s work unveils a profound relationship between 125an consciousness. Just as yw, frican Aor terpretation of Jewish laughin 7 aan Beloved occasions a much-needed Teinters te caust, Morrisons an ethical and theological Tesource, Ag Pret, black lavghtet oie nearly all critics simply ignore the 8h case for Wiesel a hen the novel was made into a film, the gy 8 in Beloved ri the strange but crucial narrative moments of laugh - ers omitted a cls ¢ the novel’s intensely tragic and disturbin a le, Why is this? aateabr away from the messy and seemingly “unser si i ie laughter in the story. Yet still we must ask, what don: t, hough fiction, has a profound historical epicenter even Beloved, t based on the historical era of African American ga" bend beng Margaret Gamer inspired Morrison to wtte ge? Arte editor of The Black Book in the 1970s, Morrison came across obscure article from 1856 in the American Baptist entitled “A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.’ In this article, Morrison discoy.. ered the following story that gave birth to her fictional character Sethe: Holo tion of She [Margaret Garner] said that when the officers and slave- holders came to the house in which they were concealed, she caught a shovel and struck two of her children on the head, and she took a knife and cut the throat of the third, and tried to kill the other—that if they had given her time, she would have killed them all—that with regard to herself, she cared but little; but she ‘sss unwilling to have her children suffer as she had done. cami if she was not excited almost to madness when she would aera No, she replied, I was as cool as I now am; and san berate Kill them at once, and thas end thett suffer: ings, than hi. piecemeal? © (Me™ taken back to slavery, and be murdered by Commentin, on tl 7 , . dered they ke ns couticle and its readers, Morrison states, “I wot™ back tion” The arth a4 Psychic power one had to exerci rect her's Tae Snot provide the complex context a1 Onstructs it through the a. e tale, so Morrison, much like the midrast» ov ch oe Sethe’ psychic struggle to cope wih el 7. BEES to resist slavery, along with the other characte TY and its devastating psychologicates : the ta the ter ak. ter. ect 1s” he n 5 Oe es N 7 tonal aftermath In the narrative, Beloved emerges as ba character 10 represents not only Sethe’s dead child but all «sit ed children of slavery who died midpassage. Morrison, then pcos pd Endo, writesto ell he untold stores ofthe margin, pe istary BOOKS and the media fail to tell. ular interest is the laughter of three of Beloved’s characters: ofp scan Paul Dal of whom struggle to endure the radically ny SUF perience of slavery and its consequences. Laughter functions sit sa creative, counterhegemonic mode of ethical and theologi- ia msance for the oppressed African American community. By engag- al with the works of James Cone, Dwight Hopkins, Patricia Hill ins, "andre Lorde, Mikhail Bahktin, Lawrence Levine, and others, { [aimtos how that laughter can function as an empowering and invaluable interruption ol ai io f both the system and the state of oppression. To appropri- eds own metaphor quoted in this chapter's epigraph, laughter ae Belov ‘ blooms within the story as an incongruous flower of resistance in the dark world of ‘dehumanization. Baby Suggs We turn first to the character of Baby Suggs, an especially interesting ase for our discussion of laughter. Although Baby Suggs, as spiritual Jader of her community, preaches laughter as resistance for most of her life she ultimately abandons laughter. If a collision of narratives engen- ders laughter, does this mean the narrative of tragedy has overwhelmed Baby Suggs? Has she let go of her narrative of faith? Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-in-law, was a slave at Sweet Home until her son, Halle, bought her freedom from the slave master by working overtime for five years of Sundays. Although Baby Suggs gained her freedom, she must leave her son behind, and her life remains scarred by the irreparable wounds inflicted by slavery: “In all of Baby’ life, as wells Sethe’ own, men and women were moved around like checkers. Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadnt run off or been bed got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, lortgaged, won, stolen or seized” (5)- , Insite of this tragic existence, Baby Suggs emerges fOr 8 ee Model of resistance and spiritual leadership for her community. Thot atound her refer to her ae Baby Suggs, holy. Rather than soe despas “pair, Baby Suggs decides that:Flowers in the Dark WW and emotional aftermath, In the narr; ‘site character who represents not onl cafeceaed children of slavery who died f ative, Beloved emerges ag R ges as 'y Sethe’s dead child but all a midpassage. Mor : Morrison, then, ol jesel and Endo, writes to tell i : ilar tO Wiesel a! Il the untold stories of the margin. simi 4 that history books and the media fail to tell, io particular interest is the laughter of three of Bel gaty Suggs Sixo, and Paul D, all of whom struggle to endure the radically negating experience of slavery and its Consequences. Laughter functions jn the text as a creative, counterhegemonic mode of ethical and theologi- cal resistance for the oppressed African American community. By engag- ing Beloved with the works of James Cone, Dwight Hopkins, Patricia Hill Collins, Audre Lorde, Mikhail Bahktin, Lawrence Levine, and others, Jaim to show that laughter can function as an empowering and invaluable interruption of both the system and the state of oppression. To appropri- ate Beloved’s own metaphor quoted in this chapter's epigraph, laughter blooms within the story as an incongruous flower of. resistance in the dark world of dehumanization. pit loved's characters: Baby Suggs We turn first to the character of Baby Suggs, an especially interesting case for our discussion of laughter. Although Baby Suggs, as spiritual leader of her community, preaches laughter as resistance for most of her life, she ultimately abandons laughter. If a collision of narratives engen- ders laughter, does this mean the narrative of tragedy has overwhelmed Baby Suggs? Has she let go of her narrative of faith? Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-in-law, was a slave at Sweet Home until her son, Halle, bought her freedom from the slave master by working “vertime for five years of Sundays. Although Baby Suggs gained her freedom, she must leave her son behind, and her life remains scarred by the irreparable wounds inflicted by slavery: “In all of Baby’ life, as Well as Sethe’s own, men and women were moved around like checkers. Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadn't run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, "ortgaged, won, stolen or seized” (5). n In spite of this tragic existence, Baby Suggs ¢ del of resistance and spiritual leadership for ound despair, merges for a time as the her community. Those ib to her refer to her as Baby Suggs, holy. Rather ha Baby Suggs decides that:” THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 128 id “busted her legs, back, heag, Because Sar A guer'she had nothing lft tony3¢° hang kidneys, eee jeart_—which she put to work at once, ‘Acs ti . Ving with but he before her name, but allowing a small gc ane title of hon unchurched preacher, one who visite pte she becom seat heart to those who could use it 1, Winterani td opened ae AMES and Baptists, Holinesses and Sanctifieg creeth of the Redeemer and the Redeemed. Unca rte Churel led, unr ah » Unto nointed, she let her great heart beat in their Presence, (8° unai 2 Baby Suggs therefore i he tradition of Ag, yy Suggs therefore is rooted in t i spirituality ibd takes the pulpit when called by the Spirit Metican spirituality Ai Laughteras Deconstruction of the Oppressive Consciousnesg ’s t-as-resistance manifests predominantly an ethical, human, Bac rstihiugh with subtle theological undertones, In other. wei, Morrison appears less concerned than Endo and Wiesel with God’s Silence and more preoccupied with the secular question: in light of. Slavery, what can be said about humanity and how we should live? Baby's laughter has the same critical purpose as African American spirituality:to deconstruct both white theology and the white hegemonic consciousness, Baby Suggs’ rootedness in African discerned in two main ways: woods and (2) the fact that, as a woman. cutdoor preaching in the Clearing has obvious roots in » slave worship tradition known as the bush arbor, a space in the woods created by slaves to be used for clandestine meetings of worship. We read, “When warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every black man, woman and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the Clearing—a wi ide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the B P Seminal text entitled ] igion: The “Ipicd stuiton’ in the Antebellum South, Albert 4 Religion: The “Invisible Institution’ i ity had pervaded trent Raboteau explains that although Christi age € slave commun; tensive reli 8lous life of their ow munity, slaves had an ex‘ Of the Warters of 4] head the institutional church, “In the ae th € seclusion of th “hush harbors ihe slaves made Christianity false le bush arbors ( Pin the white chy rch Y their Own.” Dissatisfied with we slave magt 8, many : es that ad nauseam preached subservience , r Slave e - : oot "the Words or tl eit liv, held their own worship services outd se 'VINg Space. In the words of one ex-slave, the YyFlowers in the Dark / 129 al clandestine worship Services i tok place « 5 e “ci spe" God in our own Way’ “ANSE We wanted to sey gpite its pervasiveness, slay pespite its P' © religion earned the later name th le ible institution,” both because : ter angind “a laships longstanding failure ty ane SUrreplitiousness Petition fl dere outdoor gatherings, of Which Baby Sugess meetings wey ese , Unrgy he feprings were entirely distinctive and responded to dicinontn ie ce, (87) ed, african American community by negating white theolo, Niet identity and being. Dwight BY and revalu- ng black identity a Bht Hopkins argues that by sein th sacred domain of the bush arbor or prayer Bround, Aftican American, Mericg helped sustain and constitute a distinetin, identity. mena Upon first arriving in the North, Baby Suggs refers to her involve- ment with the invisible institution, Responding to Ms. Bodwin's inquiry ical, hy about her churchgoing habits, Baby’s Styptic answer suggests that Sther na athough she has not set foot ina church for the ten years of he ens ods rd ment at Sweet Home, she has consistently worshiped with other African i Ssilence Americans in “some kind of way” She responds ambiguously, “I ain't set i” rd Wha foot in one [a church] in ten years. ... Wasn't none. I dislike the place I ‘ghter has was before this last one, but I did get to church every Sunday some kind construct of way” (146). Baby Suggs’s comment contains the implicit critique that white churches are not authentic churches at all; when asked why she on can be does not go to church, she replies, “Wasn't none” Undoubtedly churches ce in the in the South were available, but Baby Suggs’ response implies that, as first, her white institutions tainted with racism, they did not meet her worship worship needs. Baby Suggs’s comment that she nonetheless worshipped “every ated by Sunday some kind of way” most likely refers to the stolen prayer meet- “When ings of slave religion. ok \ d k man, Given Baby Suggs’s (and obviously Morrison's) knowledge .. t heart acquaintance with slave religion, she symbolizes and enh - obody mode-of-being-as-resistance that accompanied the traction. : ue a . Ina cally, slave prayer meetings often functioned as aoe A he in the Physical liberation as well as spiritual liberation. tas es stian- American theology developed by the slaves ms a vcsence: Nit reli- frequently crystallized into courageous seis ysis UE ohio’: recy janet and avast numberof other Alian Figious validation for ther ors’) for example, led slave revolts with explicit rel ieee ‘owed theologls vor- “prising. Understanding full well the i ical liberty, slave owners e to cal liberty and acts of resistance seen bidding slaves to prac- ors Passed Teactionary laws, punishable by death, ie tice Christianity on their own.THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED “ ge Cummings Hopkins and George C 88 Dwight Meclude cligion must be conside, es, slave religion ratives, SI ny Ted in an heir AsL Sly id Figg of slave narratives sistanc form of resist bled deep in the woods +» African America 8 fo Assembled ¢8 in which to thrive by maintaining Morale int worship ed hopeless; preserving mental sqy nae uations that rational white world . . . synthesizing me. ore of the ir reinterpret ‘CaN theo) logy ical ang cul face religious structures and practices with African African Amer} chris lief to build a unique A Cnaie organizing and plotting slave polit under slavery, tural resistance ins, “Bush arbors epitomized b Si a the poor to encounter the holy. aya” haa eie ret and novel approach to the divinity, but also resist and reinvent themselves over against oppressive structures” In the sac domain of the Clearing, the recently liberated Baby Suggs Provides jus such a place where the poor and black can come to collectively Testore thei strength to face a world of prejudice and socioeconomic oppression that persists even in the North. | Besides embodying resistance by. creating a distinct reli, ness and worship space for slaves, Baby Suggs rootednes, can be seen in a second way. In the Invisible Institution, most white mainline churches had ordained a single wes anyone, male or female, who was, only by the Spirit” Morrison describes unchurched. Delores Williams helps us the white. institutional church in the ant en the authoritative ican American Christi whilemen worked i on which Morrison based Beloved, lack hands Pa 1 only gious conscious. sin slave religion many years befae woman, a preacher as Raboteau describes, “licensed Baby as uncalled, unrobed, and understand that in stark contrastto ebellum period, black communities Voice for educating other slaves and lanity, as the women were the ones in the fields.° In the Black Book artide Margaret Garner's real-life mother- the inspiration for the character of Baby Suggs. Laughter as Grace 8 Baby Sugg, i can’ sige Meetings, then, she creates a space wherein the and reinvent themsel aby Ves under her spiritual guidane Am €t unconventional “service” trali- "orporate into erican fc °f Worship such as the ring shout dance call ant ou ns Aft het dre we ow am a me ee AD a BeFlowers in the Dark BI and response preaching, but also she extend: fends to her people the jprstation fo laugh, dance, and her people the adel > Sing in the midst of tragic suffering: ual a situating herself o ral . Ung Aneel a d sile nity jy Sits Ween come!” and they ran from the tre morieg “Let your Tee oh You laugh she told them, and the Mterpres ot woods rang. T pea ts looked on and could not help smiling theoig. 4 Then “Let the grown men come,” she shouted. They stepped and ¢, BY cut one by one from among the ringing trees ul 1 your wives and your children see you dance” she told them and groundlife shuddered under their feet Finally she called the women to her, “Cry.” she told them. “For "4 dnt an tneliving and the dead, Just cry.” And without covering their eyes, ‘Ot on} the women let loose. to) Tesist ang It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying sai women and then it got mixed up... . In the silence that followed OVides jsp Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart. ely restore She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no Pression more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. Onscious. She told them that the only grace they could have was the € religion grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would urs before not have it. (87-88) Preacher Ticensed Baby Suggs, therefore, much like the rebbe and Gavriel in Gates of the ed, and Forest, urges the people to laugh, as well as sing and dance—all alterna~ ntrast to tive modes of expression the dominant Christian theology and practice lunities doesnot embrace. Yet there is a noteworthy shift of emphasis from Wiesel’s ves and Gavriel and Endo’s Rodrigues to Morrison’s Baby Suggs: Baby's preoccu- e ones pation is not as much with the problem of evil and its relationship to article God, as it is with the problem of evil and its relationship to humanity. other- Baby Suggs in her sermon avoids God-language, probably because of its corruption by white Christians. In Baby’s sermon, grace is apparently not divine gift, because the human imagination creates grace. Baby's per- sonal experience transforms her religious tradition in this regard: in her 1 the understanding, liberation is ultimately a human possibility, rather than ance. a divine one. Or better: liberation comes both from humanity and from adi- God because either/or interpretations fail to describe the complexity of ince ‘he divine-human interaction within the Christian faith.THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 232 fier all, inaugurate her sermon above with a Pre Baby does 2 e address is solely to the community, Here, we the remainder of iel who both hopes and cannot hope, and Who eq avi reminded of Gi is true and everything is a lie; men love ang kit) ae 7S pray and yet their prayers change noth, 6) anates Co ater Baby Suggs abandons even this postion, it Although the i dca position that reveals a humanistic Teligious Baby — -_ at this point in the narrative, Baby might well agree sith the Hasidic aphorism that a person must pray as ifalldependca pe wi : God and act as if all depended on humanity. ments, Laughter as Alternative Black Consciousness and Identity Creation Baby Suggs therefore embodies a paradox and incarnates a fractured faith, much like her fictional counterparts Gavriel and Rodrigues. Also like Gavriel and Rodrigues, the laughter Baby Suggs preaches is born from a collision of narratives. Like Rodrigues who experienced multiple simultaneous collisions of narratives, Baby Suggs’ collision of narratives occurs on three different levels of experience, all of which rupture lan. guage and therefore engender laughter, First, Baby experiences the collision of an emerging black conscious- ness with white consciousness and ideology. In Baby Suggs’s preach- ing, she rejects the white consciousness, which aims to inculcate in the slaves feelings of subservience and inferiority and respect for a divinely sanctioned white dominance. White churches Preached ad nauseam to the slaves Passages such as Ephesians, 6:5, Colossians 3:22, and 1 Peter 2:18, are still struggling for from slavery | emotional, and Socioeconomic liberation Th YS Oppression, ‘0 The Failure of Whit black religion ; 7 VAite Theology, Patrick Bascio oint: towhite thee 8 religion of protest that functions asa critical = ut that BY and consciousness, “Black religion began the proce Processick Conscious. 18888 preach. Culcate in the for a divinely 1 nauseam to 1 1 Peter2:18 : in all things - theological straightfor- therworldly yt tell them yt tell them Flowers in the Dark 13, ag decolonizing theology when it insisted that God was the freeing one tho was at work in history setting the victims free?” Baby Suggs with her laughter, dance, and speech wants to decolonize white conscious. hess and theology and replace it with an African American conscious. ness of liberation, self-valuation, and resistance. Black feminist critic peborah McDowell notes that African American laughter often can be -jaw-breaking” and “truth-breaking,” and an expression of what Henri Bergson terms “topsy-turvydom!" In lieu of quietism, Baby hopes to incite protest. Her message unveils a theology of protest. To quote Hopkins and Cummings, “The slaves constantly had to struggle with unraveling the false theological consciousness existentially imposed by white definition."? Baby Suggs’ preaching is a conscious and delib- erate attempt at this unraveling. Her laughter is a conduit of protest essential to this end. Baby Suggs’s “preaching” and laughter, then, manifest a decolonized version of white theological anthropology, a new vision of who African Americans are and their created purpose. Baby Suggs attempts to con- ‘¢ her people that African Americans are not worthless, unintelli- gent, and subhuman as those within the corridors of power have tried desperately to make them believe. States Cone, “Black consciousness is an attempt to recover a past deliberately destroyed by slave masters. . .. There is only one course of action for the black community, and that is to destroy the oppressor’s definition of blackness.” Schoolteacher, for example, tells his nephews to list Sethe’ ‘animal characteristics” on a sheet of paper, and proceeds to allow his boys to rape her. The whites in the narrative conceive of blacks as “a people who needed every care and guidance in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they pre- ferred” (151). Morrison adds, “White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle” (198). In direct opposition to this white consciousness and anthropol- ogy, Baby Suggs provides the people with a new black consciousness. Through laughter and dance, she encourages the people to rediscover themselves as lovable, beautiful, and chosen. They are, she assures them, and here no doubt the novel’ title refers to the African American people as a whole—the beloved, of one another and of God. Writes Cone, “The essence of antebellum black religion was the emphasis on the sombodi- ness of black slaves. . . even though they were treated as things. ... To be enslaved is to be declared nobody."" In contrast to white preaching, Baby Suggs’s sermons and worship in the woods affirm the somebodiness of ‘African Americans. Her message incarnates the biblical verse Morrison‘Gosed THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED, 14 'sepigraph, Romans 9:25: “I will cat chose sitet poole and her beloved, which was nor ban ep, i ihe most important sermon in the novel, Baby Su, . ed es the people to laugh as she imparts to the comm of identity and self-worth, and fitingly repeats the ph “O my people” This sermon makes explicit Baby Sugg the false theological consciousness and false anthrop ology, as well as to replace it with a black understa; lovable, valuable, and self-determined: them S Once Unity a n, ein TaSe from dina SSeffort tours? ology of white ‘ id nding Of the gait If as “Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; fl laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despii love your eyes; they just as soon pick em out. love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. they do not love your hands. Those they only off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face tause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. ... And O my People, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. ... More than your life-holding womb an. life-giving private Parts, hear me now, love your heart. For the prize.” Saying no more, twisted hip the rest of wha opened their mouths and lesh that weeps, Cit. Love it hard. ise it. They don't No more do they And O my people use, tie, bind, chop d your this is she stood up then and danced with her t her heart had to say while the others gave her the music, (88-89) Here, as in Wiesel and Endo, Morrison's novel Americans too experience a linguistic rupture, cannot ever be fully said. No white person can Pain of the experience of slavery. Thus, Baby Suggs laughs and dances “with her ‘wine hip the rest of what her heart had to say” Racism and Oppression so distort language that the rupture it and iti of expressing the African American clit of: stficing eat rte the face of this crisis of representation, laughter hel x ; racist thinking, in Patricia Hill Collins’ s, concept as ideological or culturally coy or simple Teflection of, reality, Suggests that African for all they have suffered ever fully understand the— ys Vout Doaeeec me ié Sagan Mughtor WEEK THE WATE Nee ees Ime estate has the eth asta @ says negenwene tag Has guts ers tite Hage AKL ie MeN prea SENLORY twycteat DY easen tht ante Nate WHEN this ung ttations auc aat fooes Raby Sis vnyparts te her peayte a tatially Neve Nip hanmsstosniess anal horn ab tesitane, Wananist thenkggiany Kath Fraser Dragas terminals us that xtaveny was pant ota proaterieabaga Aracture. whiedy persuppposel Hotty hierarchical retationahype Between prannan Deiatgs anid the iatertardy af peaple of cakar” The dominant cut tyre taught Atria Americans sell hate, bow sell esteem, subset vtenes at subanissive aeveptanee of ar amnchangeate tater foeity, Atoreaver, white society hoped that Attican Americans woul inter nalize this valuation at thenselyes andl thereby accept subservience as nanitest destiny. Cone argues that white people did everything in their power to detine black reality as seevanthood and black existence as Non, being?" The prevailing definition of black as noubeing and worthy of death is the thrust behind Baby Suggs assertion. They do not love your neck unnoosed.” However Baby Suggs shatters precisely this talse tht cal consciousness of the white oppressive system, She etectively devant structs such an understanding of blackness by exposing it av externally imposed, entirely ungenuine, and theretore absurdly laughable, In its humanistic assertion of a radically autonomous will Thar can kill the beast of tradition and supposedly authoritative voices, Raby laughter in this “sermon” evokes coniparison to that of Beiedtich, Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Zarathustra states, "Not by wrath does one ki but by laughter.” Although Baby would reject Zarathustra nihilism and radical relativism and individualism, we can certainty imagine her saying along with him, “Verily, you who are good and just there is muCt about you that is laughable, and egpecially your fear of that which has hitherto been called devil." White consciousness demonizes the black person, and Nietesches use of laughter lends support for our interpretation that Babys laughter unmasks this consciousness of the putative “good and just” as mere ideology. Moreover Nietzsche helps us understand Baby Suggs’ Aaughter as annihilative. Her laughter counters the deleterious effects of tradition and civil and religious authority, For Nietasche as for Morrison, Laughter gives the unvoiced a voice of power, will, and self-valuation, Bor Morr son, however, the will-to-power embodied in laughter contains an ent nent danger, as the will-to-power can lead one to become an oppressor ARES atte an | Weal aul rag ee e; x Por, me vee 1 In ij , = 'S eg ne cop re i ny of 9) Bi 8 > aby St re ae I i 1 n h he ‘ey a . This on wines h th Le ine Se juxt iis Low, 0 one i hy or wate ark > eit sell hte alos mu ns ‘ive sil n Th ith srt ade aed sth andor hey Sou gy faces ssthe whit re di on str wm Wve, B d by cisex fect orci che; at om be sas edie nae , bing ‘ han be is rer by Sug white h ther sig ar re eit Sse ise dae and 3 et Ati pres orm of plea gem former Bs ah the hop se Afri dee that vesilanee hatred, aan omen er, at i for sive ican inf sed slave an hen nd ple nant ith You seat aus ace ‘Ami feriol bot! ery ce, hee Wit eh hege erie th, ke a ve acer uesiau Dany Wa er po wie kerthe Bot = co Vou pow st d Suton aera fp etree ania is i eoltan nd b rer esti tior soci of elt e0) chi tof rad inne ioe ere! cin society ‘aa hat ple ical it tes nation ‘unn ea death 16 deed f the hop. unch: te, eotcak ee logia ly n n it ose neck wihed pri ad He ‘ate cae ‘diol cae ) > Stroke ‘el uni e thi Bsc ves at Ai able fs The ip le lly and col no rus lin, lit th an fri in ste “dc 8 be Bic Fi yo str sci othr aa aca oe cestecm, ps bet al ‘or this x ea ‘iousnes H ing dttion hite hereby aoe sete een ie Seach oe ten a ikon we Pea Ameri sn cl he ie kill In its ae SS the wt Gah ae te oe tay ne would ee, ; e lens lau; the ‘nnn ane Dente a Soe asset as eee verything| 2 inte aa ea ni inge in pp gs SI tio onbs exi i nc T i eee sti athe re hi rn, “ existe is ea h oe nie tra S eettiin able ates ‘They ence thei at Ari a it by es Z: is“ iti tio nd a ystel baat oe nom ve an ind lau rat] ‘seri lonsal mn of eref ess by im. ey on af ma ce ng 0p radical ‘bs expos bec ni ve 7 ‘ effect ind vo soa nee aul ty ineh td ath aci ue itherto be ee em ugh ee ——- Tee gn a ue at i im, and i aby stat aris ‘orital ous le. rnalh -incape™ use it en s laugt Ver individ woul Ney tive will ly u of fe cor call ghal rily, ali ld rej lot 0 th oe proves nm: lau: a ble, ,, you ant, reje by at ces, cal id a lsh ciou! fable ae wh we set Zi i ra ach uct woe eol t er I sne' es es| 0 ar e cal rath 4 ried: y's as og: his lend: ss di speci € 90% nce ust loes ri a fi saa Moré cate arene moni jelly me ea hl a : ilati e0) iol rt ze qu giv civil lative cia eyes pee the and eee a ai or the! inte lack Sarai he wee se , ee vel uth uu 5 Ut re ene nd a jal T, avoil ori nt thi ' nget, pe eine “ on on core cd mt a Mies as the ito Po Ore ot ee ao oe ian, ches ill-to- wer emt will och as sha tas ghee power "bodie and # * for M Ste a fe cal ed i elf orti of ght Ie ink adi eaten ad aus luati ison, iti on ight ion a ion et er Fe vught 10 bi con! ‘or iter ecom tain: Mor e is an Ti an opp! emi: a eineMor Te LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED ott ps ms esseul yf a or to become an Oppressed Person like Sey in 1c? ike schoolteacher Or on child. Nietzsche's own writing, aS Wh, ye sed Hpooses 10 murder ‘ihe Nazi will-to-power. Morrison on the one Of ey coed to support rwerleadsone to think one can posse aa ist ag0Y oc “ tifthe will-to-Pe ' ’ they we" suggests thal on Sethe, who sought her whole life to e8cape hoe ahi Jestroys itself, Hven 8 ry repeats to Beloved, “You re ene Psi a? et aoe ced by others frighteningly TEP ninerygh ee assess . y pos yne/You are mine” (216) sound eh a nee gs, like Zarathustra, rejects the dominant CONSCIOUS EA of Sos Baby oP eadings fostering the slumber of the masses. ites my oot 2 ae ay has heard Christianity exploited to foster inferiority 40 sg 0 often, Babys ie at tell them they were the glorybound pure and a see sin no more’ —and so she tries to interrupt this theological ve att tog wit Baby Suggs encourages the people to self-love and sep aTraiion in spite of the fact that the dominant culture encourages AS affi in s only their self-hatred and self-negation. a vi Cone agrees that an authentic black conscio $ on self. ‘ understanding and self-creation of the Kind advocated by Baby Suggs a “There is only one possible authentic existence in this society, and that is t to force a revolutionary confrontation with the structures of white power 1 by saying yes to the essence of their blackness . . . affirming that which the oppressor regards as degrading.”” By asking the people to laugh even though their oppressors want them to weep, Baby Suggs invites them to in share in this independent consciousness. Gavriel makes this very same t point, “To weep is to play their game. I won't” (7). Baby Suggs, then, like " Gavriel, with her laughter jettisons the despair, tears, and self-loathing her oppressors strive relentlessly to inflict. Her laughter interrupts not only white hegemonic theology, but also both the system of oppression and the state of despair and paralysis that accompanies it. By laughing, Baby Suggs expresses that the two opposing narratives of white and black consciousness are in conflict, creating a paradoxical both-and existence for African Americans. Where racism has become banal and accepted, no paradox or Opposing narratives remains in the mind of the oppressed. With a laugh, Baby Suggs signals her nonaccep- tance of racism and calls attention to its absurdity. The laughter of the oa el eee banality of the systemic evil of racism. . ugnter manifests an independent African American con- Sciousness that exists in tension with the hegemonic consciousness, AS Collins Points out, oppressive structures try to eli 4 consciousness Precisely P the oppressed to coun- ter hegemony; ‘Suppressing the knowledge produced by an oppressedFlowers in the Dark 137 makes it easier for dominant groups to rule because [of] the uP absence of an independent consciousness in the oppressed. y reason that standpoints of oppressed groups are suppressed bo gefined standpoints can stimulate resistance”? : ist b sugges laughter thus must be considered a highly creative ethical great response, transformative mode-of-being-in-the- world. a vaughin> Baby creatively brings to consciousness a potential narra- woo ‘celebration, self-affirmation, love, hope, protest—a narrative of ot berately made inaccessible to African Americans by whites ,onts the white voice with the heretofore silenced black voice embodies what Kelly Brown Douglas terms a aby conft and black laughter. Baby of resistance, a resistance with theological roots but impera- spirituality e : tive ethical, historical, and activist components: of resistance implies . .. that if an oppressed people heir own culture and historical heritage, as well as re children of God, then they will not be essive structures, systems, and ideologies them that they are nobody and that their spirituality have pride in t a knowledge that they a as vulnerable to the oppr that attempt to convince lives are not worth living.” Baby urges her people to self-definition because she understands, in the words of African American poet Audre Lorde, “It is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by s—for their use and to our detriment?” creative because it entirely contradicts history; Afri- been denied the very narrative Baby Suggs’ laughter ized, Baby's laughter anticipates the future and isa Cone terms the “apocalyptic imagination’: other: Baby’ laughter is can Americans have suggests can be actuali manifestation of what d,... This transcendent “elevated black people above the limitations of e, and enabled them to view black humanity pressor. ‘The strongest counterweight of historical liberation is that vision of essed black slaves.? It was a hope against the hopes of this worl! element of hope . - the slave experienc! independently of their oP! to the obstacles in the way the future defined by the opp! an achieve this level of self- which cannot Instead, h that her people ci mere language, but not through g ‘African American dual consciousness. Baby Suggs has fait definition and self-love, express the paradox oftheIGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED. THE LAU a mr ee capture the contradictions ge dog 9 AE S and Hog ses laughter Salence of oppression. Cone says that blac oth ang i aracter of Het ee laughter) “unites the joy and the sorroy, the 308 i i , “| sent (and we can oe hope and despair of the black people. Its Decent ot andthe hate dictions inherent in black experience. Who could me grasp the COM these paradoxical affirmations but the people wi 40 bly undersian’ midst of tragedy, Baby’s laughter functions to fee, jem? its ¢: st them?” Mesiaie subservience, and hupelessiess by its insistent 0° passivity: ae vtible possibility of regeneration—the grace the ve the impossible possibility of reg Peon - can imagine. Laughter as Protesting Hope in the Face of Evil ision experienced by Baby Suggs involves the Collision of Rca : faith with the narrative of negativity, aS was the case fo, Gavriel and Rodrigues. For Baby, her narrative of human potential fo, love and grace collides with the narrative of white cruelty and oppres. sion. In the background of this collision lies the familiar problem of evil and theodicy, which, as we have seen in Wiesel and Endo, ruptures lan. guage and engenders laughter. Baby herself states clearly that the hor. ror of reality (slavery) has ruptured language for her and other African Americans, “Every mention of her past life hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost, She [Sethe] and Baby Suggs had agreed without saying so that it was unspeakable” (58). Also, at the end of Baby’ life, “Except for an occasional request for color she said practically nothing” (105). Here we see another manifestation of the crisis of representation engendered by an encounter with oppression and suffering. Baby Suggs laughs because words cannot adequately circumscribe the “in-spite-of, “not-yet” aspect of her faith and her hope, a faith in humanity that persists in the face of tragedy. Ricoeur explains, “The existential-historical condition of evil Constitutes the challenge to which religion brings the reply of an ‘in spite of... ? an ‘even though. .. ? This tie between challenge and reply is the tie of hope. .. . The confession of acknowledges its coexistence with radical evil, It responds to and chal- lenges an evil that is inscrutable, unspeakable, and otherwise crippling. Morrison says, “Black People never annihilate evil, ... ‘They accept it. It's almost like a fourth dimension in their lives?”2s As is the case for Gavriel and Rodrigues, i it Baby's collision of - Tative of faith and Negativity involves at lea of her nar st in part God’s ostensibleFlowers in the Dark 139 tice and benevolence, as revealed in the following. n Stamp Paid: ng God give up? Nothing left for us but pour out our You ne Why Sis s pood?” . O° he own blood? thas ‘st epi saying they came in my yard” © py, Nee *you punishing Him ain't you” oll Not like He punish me.” (179) lis, Ne case onanother occasion, Stamp Paid tells us, “Her (Baby Suggss] author- tential g ay in the pulpit, her dance in the Clearing, her powerful Call ... all d PPTs that had been mocked and rebuked by the bloodspill in her backyard. Mote, God puzzled her and she was too ashamed of him to say so” (177). Just tures lan as Hasidic thought cannot ever fully reconcile a just God to the Shoah, the hor. African American theology struggles to reconcile God's justice with the + Afri experience of slavery. While we should never conflate the two distinct nit ican experiences of oppression, the similarities provide an interesting point ‘i Was of departure for dialogue across communities. The black theologian Wil- aying so liam Jones for example daringly raises the question of divine racism, ask- ‘cept for ing, “Is God a white racist?”” Similarly, in Beloved, characters besides 5). Here Baby Suggs often raise the questions of theodicy or a tragic theology: endered When Amy Denver asks, “Wonder what God had in mind”; Sethe, nearly dead from attempting to escape slavery, echoes, “Good question. ... What did He have in mind?” (80). Even more poignantly, Paul D at one point asks, “How much is a nigger supposed to take? Tell me... Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” (235). Morrison's narrative leaves these questions open-ended and unanswered. Sethe’s drastic murder shatters religious thought for many of the characters in the novel. Baby eventually abandons the question ofa tragic theology and adopts a tragic anthropology instead, “{On] the afternoon of the last day of her life .. . she got out of bed... and announced to Sethe and Denver the lesson she had learned from her sixty years a slave and ten years free: that there was no bad luck in the world but whitepeople” (104). At the very end, Baby humanity. When Stamp because she blames God, feels betrayed by God, but most betrayed by Paid tells Baby Suggs that she has given up she shifts the focus of the problematic by threeay THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED orl! 40 weet ye “rm saying they [white folks] came tis Oo times sepeiig O and grace she believed humanity cou Hat got ya iin ee peen irrevocably violated, and she feels that humae” ot adeno alter historical circumstance. Prior to Beloveds deat) ne is Poe manifested a time when she, like Gavriel and Rodrigues eine Be icie eustain the dialectical tension between hope and radical exp Myint a ah oh her work in the Clearing, Baby succeeded in sustaining weer fe impossible fusion of the memory of hope and the memory of horroy vost When Baby is no longer able to sustain the tension, het laughter ends, 0 and Baby Suggs chooses to retire to her bed to contemplate color. , sve Fol ‘The third and final collision of narratives Baby undergoes is the yn n collision between her own narrative of resistance and the narrative of oo! Beloved's death. Up until the point of Sethe’s murder of Beloved, Baby has fought back against the tragic forces in her life, and refused to be stam silenced. Baby Suggs becomes an example of a character who can no lon- ger sustain the dialectic between the narrative of hope and the narrative of tragedy any longer. In short, she stops laughing, | ‘Except for an occa- sional request for color she said practically nothing (104). In the murder of Beloved, Baby realizes that slavery’s effects were worse than she ever imagined possible. This narrative of tragedy is so great it appears it may eclipse her narrative of hope. We recall that Surin claims that in the situation of radical negativity, the narrative of faith collides with the narrative of its negation, but neither achieves an ascendancy over the other. Thanks to Surin’s analysis, we can see that Baby Suggs, understandably, is an example of someone who can no longer sustain the paradoxical balancing act of simultaneously affirming both contradictory narratives. In this regard, Baby appears similar to Endo’s characters Inoue and Ferreria, who have also aban- doned their faith. In short, the narrative of negativity has gained ascen- ancy over Baby’ narrative of faith in humanity, grace, and goodness. ith her relinquishment of the narrative of faith in humanity, she no mes onsesss moi For Baby Suggs, the narrative of the Beloved’s ours ata & boseibility ofa counternarrative of hope. Baby goes ‘mplate color and gives up speech, as if the struggle to Continue the struggle of laughter.Flowers inthe Dark "1 C he %, iy aby Suggs has learned to expect rp gue comments prior {0 Beloved’ death ey es Re ci * ae “ae ‘lave at Sweet Home, “Nobody, but nobod; Le though oa evs 2 “ince. Even when she slipped in cow dung sactgee, dit! J 42* fe in her apron, nobody said you-black-bitch-whatsthe oe wt ere eyou and nobody knocked her down” (139). Baby the at thy a her experience of radical suffering asa slave, she has experiens a ee ent ie guimessence ot lestion and pain; thus she asks, “What was let to ‘ hurt her now? i iy Morrison seems to suggest that what is left to hurt Baby is the impos- ting ible possibility of rejection and cruelty from her own community, It sagt sanubtedly devastate her to acknowledge that nota single member of Y hercommunity warned her of the impending approach of the slave own- > ng erson the day Sethe ES ‘Nobody warned them, and hed ity, {Stamp Paid] always Pe lieved it wasn’t the exhaustion from a long day's : re ging that dulled them, but some other thing—like, well, like mean- eh: ness—that let them stand aside” (157). Moreover, the knowledge that her tder own daughter-in-law would kill her own African American child, one of ever their own beloved, devastates her completely. The white folks have won nay at last, Baby seems to suggest; they have created a system so oppressive that blacks will kill and reject one another. Baby had learned to live with ty, and against white killing, but Sethe’ murder ruptures her narrative of er faith so radically that the dialectic cannot be sustained. ‘Two final comments must be made regarding Baby Suggs’s ostensi- ble abandonment of the struggle for hope and protesting laughter. First, going to bed to contemplate color is an activity enshrouded in ambiguity. Does Baby Suggs contemplate color in an attempt to avoid the societal, 2 Is she attempting to recover dichotomous either/or of black and white what she has lost, or has she merely lost the narrative of hope? These questions are not really answerable from textual clues, and offer us hope that maybe she did not abandon protest. ; Second, in spite of this unanswerability, whatever Baby Suga ft stance, the early Baby Suggs’s embodiment of resistance outs a ee laughter bequeaths a legacy of resistance to all who knew a ae as the model of resistance for each of the other a ore ‘rem of their lives, When Sethe, for example, considers letting ea her to visit the Paul Dn han fe itis Baby Suggs voice she REATS MEDEA (ag) Clearing, and overcome her fear by “laying nite ice of Baby SURES Says Sethe, “Nine years without the fingers oF 1 jonor and remember was too much” (87). At the very same moment, 0 Sold eNg pi i THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED - ¢c ye " rain to his sky.” Stamp Paid chooses o ie" 4 “the moun aking up his mind to yje, oi oy by SUgBS stamp Paid was making vist one 3 We at athe, “while SN ae trying to take her advice: to lay it a um i400 S *s sake, Sethe / aby Suggss sake (173), And finally, when Denver makes the transform ee sword and shiel ve home and get help for Sethe and Beloved, she dor” Poe tive choice to ie hears in her spiritual memory the sound of Bal Sage ons a only because Fi yen Baby Suggs laughed, clear as anything --- There aint % i; ots Jaughter, “An u it, and go on out the yard. Go on’ ” (244), No Know it, and gi ae no defense. -- 8 ih mri Sixo =n 8") «xo is the second character in Beloved whose laughter during the hor. Se nen functions as a creative, counterhegemonic mode of ethj. ra ae | resistance for the disenfranchised African American aland th slave, lives on Mr. Garner's plantation Sweet Home at coat eas Halle, Sethe, and Paul D. Sixos own particular style of the same lis more difficult to discern and interpret than Baby Suggs is of in part because he, unlike Baby Suggs, lives his entire life enslaved and hie fe nove limited access to means of resistance. Morrison does not give readers as much access to his psychological and emotional interior. ity. Whereas Baby Suggs is a preacher who consistently exteriorizes her spirituality of resistance, Sixo, on the other hand, we are told, “Stopped speaking English because there was no future in it” (25). Laughteras Speech-act of Resistance to Racially Constructed Language Initially, Sixo’s partial adoption of silence seems a sign of resignation to despair and acquiescence to the futility of resistance. In analyzing Sixo's life and death as embodiments of resistance, however, we must keep in mind Cone’ precautionary statement, “Not all slaves chose to risk their lives in an insurrection; and that did not mean that they accepted the values of their masters. The vast majority of slaves chose other forms of Tesistance. ... If we are to interpret rightly the minds of black slaves, we must feel our way into their world, becoming sensitiv, they resisted white slaveholders?® For four reasons, sation of speech cannot be interpreted as aci oppression and its accompanying despair. aan, mi at areant sa Baby proceeds existen- i Ce, Sixo proceeds from silen a that he continues to attempt to express the ihexpieaaihie eae ae nortunately no longer has the strength to sustain the aradon e to the many ways therefore, Sixo’s ces- quiescence to the state ofFlowers in the Dark 143 _ we shall see in the end, Sixo8 silence is better construed as a ine Og his laughter asa testimony to the linguistic rupture experi- pre y the slaves that creates the space for laughter as extra-linguistic ere gof FeSHSANCE oe ‘and relatedly, as Cone reminds us, ordinary linguistic resis- vance was dened ales, laves knew that any open assertion of their being would be regar led as a threat by slave masters, who were virtu- ally outside the law and could make decisions of life and death even on ay roti constitutive ofthe very nature of marginalization thatthe marginalized are denied a voice; oppression sustains its systemic grip by aspiring (0 virtual invisibility through the silencing of dissenting voices. fiegemonic thinking absolutizes itself, excluding a priori the potential worth of modes of thought other than the ideology endemic to the domi- nant culture. For Sixo, then, who unlike Baby is still a slave, remaining silent is his way of expressing the question, why speak when no one who actually needs to hear what you have to say will listen? Dwight Hopkins identifies four areas/disciplines of society that symbolize the means used by the dominant culture to uphold the sta- tus quo—namely, political economy, everyday ordinary living, racial and cultural identity, and language." The hegemonic culture proclaims these disciplines as objective, scientific, and value-neutral, yet, argues Hop- kins, in reality the dominant white culture exploits all four sociocultural spheres to sustain the slave's oppression and marginalized existence. The slave therefore, is restricted from accessing these disciplines’ “legitimate” interpretive power. Sixo, therefore, is denied legitimate access to language asa sociopolitical resource, because those in power refuse to acknowledge his voice, However, slaves often transform these four spheres of hegemony into what Hopkins terms disciplines of creativity: “Hence they [these four areas] exhibit potential transformative spaces of maneuver and counter- e wa reir the hegemonic acts of liberation. . .. In the four disciplines of creativity, we of discover sites of struggle and contestation.” Sixo transforms the sphere we of language into a space of struggle, and we anticipate that laughter plays acrucial counterhegemonic role in this sphere, as a subversive speech-act ? and mode of resistance in the face of language’s inaccessibility. if Fae te pterpret sixo rejection of “English” (note the cultura specificity of the term) as an implicit aggressive critique of the language of the white slave owners. Sixo’s oppressors, along with the white imperi- i alists who began the slave trade, undeniably use the English language to : perpetuate dominance and their own egregious ideology. Sixo’s refusal to p h language games (and his eventual laughter) bespeak participate in sucl “e dam ridehe THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED f the ideological undergirdings and hence ing gue. Sixo’s refusal to speak is an articulation P°i- hen what you are saying will be misconstntt® ed, derstanding ol his own tent ie speal Sos against you? that language is inherently problematic for Afric, salvays, and has been sincethe inception ory ted. tates Morrison, “Language... can powerfully ey den signs of racial superiority, cultural hegemony, sn, -s predictable emp! of racially infor eyenieen renee silence is a first step toward decclonizng a ey calling attention to its desperate need for transformation, ae ear Paul Ricoeur reminds us that tragedy and radical nega- svtyinherently resist thought and rupture language. Morrison's Beloved shows clearly that this was indeed the case with the horrors of enslave. ment and racism, In the novel, African Americans “neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to another. The whites didn’t bear speaking on. Everybody knew” (53). During Baby Suggs’ own enslaved days at Sweet Home, “Baby Suggs talked as little as she could get away with because what was there to say that the roots of her tongue could manage” (141). Sixo’s silence therefore is a tacit acknowledgment of the inexpediency of language in these times of radical negativity—the roots of his tongue can in no way adequately articulate all that he endures. Fittingly, Dwight Hopkins entitled his book on slavery, Cut Loose Your Stammering Tongue. For all these reasons, Sixo’s silence cannot be dismissed out of hand as acquiescence to despair and defeatism, But perhaps even more impor- tantly, Sixo’s other behaviors reveal without a doubt that Sixo moves beyond mere silence to active resistance to the system and state of oppres- sion. When Sixo begins plotting his escape, he begins to speak English a Moreover, bearing striking resemblance to the early Baby Suggs, oh ae all of the subversive, extra-linguistic forms of resistance Binally advocated by Baby Suggs: dance, song, and finally, laughter. S : : tie rae oe unlike Baby Suggs, is forced to rely more heavily on ‘a-ling i i i il sod ere guistic forms of expression, as he is still enslaved question, distorted, am d Morrison explains Americans because it i racially construct and enforce hidd 1 dismissive ‘othering . declaring, “This The song must haveFlowers in the Dark 145 _ pm’ (226)- Si also, we discover, dances alone at night in the on gpe with his grief at his separation from his love, the Thirty- so mal patsy. "Sixo went among trees at night. For dancing, he said | eat lines ope, he said. Privately alone, he didit, Noe ofthe od hem had seen him at it, but they could imagine it, and the picture peice made them eager to laugh at him—in daylight, that is, when YT ease (25)- was Sal ce fei ava ells his friends about his dancing immediately after he regales them with his tale of a successful rendezvous with the Thirty-Mile Woman—@ young girl so named because Sixo walks two thirty-four- mile trips within the span of three months in order to court her. At fast, he convinces her to walk one-third of the way, and they are able tospenda few precious hours together in the woods making love. This vadezvous with the Thirty-Mile Woman must be seen as an incred- ible act of resistance in and of itself, for neither Sixo or Patsy “could go anywhere on business of their own” (24). The surreptitious meet- ing requires slipping away on Sixo's one afternoon off a week, walking thirty miles on foot in one day, Sixo’s puncturing the girl’s calf to simu- late snakebite as an excuse for being late to work, and the solidarity of all Sixo’s friends to cover for his fatigue upon his return to Sweet Home. The entire meeting is undoubtedly punishable by death or a severe beating, should either party be caught: “Since the Thirty-Mile Woman was already fourteen and scheduled for somebody's arms, the danger was real” (24). Laughter as Identity and Community Creation One of the most basic human dignities denied the slavesis the right to love and be with the person of their choosing. Though only a teenager, Patsy is “scheduled” for someone elses arms—with this choice of transactional terms Morrison underscores the businesslike objectification of slaves and their treatment as nonpersons. Families like Baby Suggss are ruthlessly split apart on the auction block, and female slaves are forced to “breed” often with other slaves, or Worse, with the slave owners themselves. In the world of slavery and domination, blacks are consistently objectified, and are not acting subjects. African “American feminist ethicist bell hooks explains that the oppressed must defy such objectification: ‘As subjects, people have the right to define their own reality, estab- lish their own identities, name their history. As objects, one’ reality is defined by others, one’ identity created by others, one’ history old easi lorae THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED Oy € ’s relationshi offs ‘ in ways that define oe a ship to those w a I pe ° i ned only ed people resist by identifying themseyy. eho. nae Oppress ity, shaping their new identi, © ge? sublec’-” sofining their reality, shaping ew identity, nay oof iY subjects» PY ry, telling their story: eS 0 ing their histo" ay Oo tellshisown story here, “He told the story to Paul, Hal, oe on sixo cet cutiar way that made them cry-laugh?” bur fygnt® off © and Paul Din tl S petification within a system of servitude by reclaim a0 more he resists Pe. His solitary dance in the woods, moving ” oo pimselfas an act Br his own creation, symbolizes this reclamation anq why a rhythm uniquely tn loving Patsy, a choice that is entirely independent ee e self empowerment zology, Sixo effectively challenges the ubiquitous exter. yom" : ofthe dominant ideo Against all odds, Sixo chooses to love a woman yo pal assaults on his Bene would deem not “his” to love. While all thy gor whom the dominant desire Sethe, as she is the only black woman Mf, ater Se nie in their immediate midst as available to them, Sixo s Garner has pl te ‘ond Mr. Garner's pseudo-choices, thereby defining his alt” makes ae tee of the Thirty-Mile Woman Sixo was the only one “yh on lyved by yearning for Sethe” (25). Sixo asserts himself a ase "6 not paral . ‘ isi valuing person worthy of love and of making his own decisions. s In so doing, Sixo exhibits the independent consciousness preached by Baby Suggs. For him, this consciousness is an indispensable weapon of resistance, capable of exposing the dominant consciousness as oppressive ideology and thereby empowering him for greater acts of revolution. African American folk literature is replete with resistance stories of the Way-Maker who collaborates with black humanity to “make a way out of no way.” In our narrative, when Sethe longs for the presence of Baby Suggs she affirms her existence as a way-maker, saying, “Just let me feel your fingers again on the back of my neck and I will lay it all down, make a way out of this no way” (95). Similarly, Sixo’s love, rendezvous, and sexual encounter with the Thirty-Mile Woman all exemplify the way in which he miraculously makes a way out of no way. Unsurprisingly, a closer look at the text reveals that Sixo therefore comes to embody in the eyes of the other slaves heroi i i cration. His laughter en; Bee emcee igenders solidarity. Indeed, much like Baby Suggs, definition of a culture of resistance:~ NSE @ Don't press down On Hen OF them flat as this can cause damage 7 —-—— — Flowers in the Dark Ww hold easily \ eset! people often try to develop and instill values that diffe ily trom those communicated by the dominant culture. ‘ Atrican-American experience, such innovation and ri ‘as been a response to the constant pressure to devise “a wa . Culture is composed of people’ collective aad ope’ inthe tance hi out of no W c Shmulative efforts at prescriptions for human behavior. ¢ of ance are no different, except that they are constructed in | tures Sppesition toa more powerful dominant culture. In order to con- oprct oppositional ways of thinking and acting, people must be se to idealize their oppositional alternatives. They must be able to point to people who embody those roles in order to be social- ized or to socialize others... . The actors in these new or refash- ioned roles are charged with maintaining an alternative, critical worldview within a community under pressure to conform to dominant ways." Although Townsend Gilkes is not discussing the slave era, the phrase culture of resistance still applies to both Baby Suggs and Sixo, both of whom construct a way of thinking and acting that is oppositional to the dominant culture. Both characters, each within their respective settings, embody an alternative, critical worldview that instills in those around them a yearning for liberation and self-empowerment. Such an inter- pretation accords with Hopkins, who asserts that even the seemingly disempowered slaves had their own particular culture of resistance and ethic of survival even in the grips of white supremacy. Interestingly, Hopkins and Cummings identify as central to this ethic ofsurvival the slaves’ “taking-not-stealing practice”: Instead of obeying their earthly owners, African American chattel . . . differentiated between stealing and taking. They defined “stealing” as the illegal removal of a fellow bondservant’s private property and taking as the removal of that which they believed the master had wrongfully stolen from the slaves... The necessity of sheer survival mandated that they had to preserve their lives, that is, their humanity, by removing the basic provi- sions from the master’s till.... A perspective from below, a per- e of black human survival, identified and affirmed right spective a and wrong in contrast to those white folks who held privilege and power in society.”. es the taking-not-stealin Sixo embodie: i shes iy" In pelo introduces it to the others at Sweet ra ot <5 re scdhe, ts she "takes" from her employers resistance = 08 death, still recollects SixoS example ay years after Six al oles ofan alternative, critical worldvi of "Viva, Mog. * a freed s an embodin shoat? You stole that shoat”” ie Nit fon ie he was just going through Oo ig an ariswer that mattered. Sixo sat th digap to plead or deny. He just sat there, the st hand, the gristle clustered in the tin plate like unpolished, but loot nevertheless. Schoolteacher the Motions... ere, not even get. Teak-of-lean in his 8emstones—, Tough, “You stole that shoat, didn’t you?” “No, Sir” Said Sixo, but he had the decency to keep his eyes on the meat. “You telling me you didn’t steal it, and I ’m looking right at you?” “No, sir, I didn't steal it.” Schoolteacher smiled. “Did you kill it?” “Yes, sir. killed Ht 3 “Well, then, Did you eat it2” “Yes, sir. I sure did? “And you telling me that’s not Steali ing?” “No, Sir, It ain't? “What is it then?” “Imp; "Oving your Prop; erty, sir” “What?” ™ EEE ESE SAE OPPRESSE : | . cesFlowers in the Dark i ect we 9 Treg mag sguo plant rye to give the high piece a better chance. Sixo take cmp wd feed the sol Lhe more crop. Sixo take and feed Sixo give ing you more work. i jere, SIXO differentiates between stealing and taki insi met Way gqeoteachet that hehas not stolen the shoat but “Sixo tacoma Sia Ven gaits Sixo’s independent consciousness results in rebellious action. Sixo ~ Bet, has sel -defined the situation and his proper place in it. His actions con- - his tain an aggressive social critique and oppositional worldview that even "ugh thoalteacher recognizes as precociously beyond the pale of the hege- , monic worldview, “Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers—not the defined” (191). For the most part, Sixo’s existence is defined by the slave owners. Even his “name” —six, zero—is the very quintessence of dehumanization, as it Yes on js merely a number that presumably comes straight from his bill of sale, assigned to him by the definers. The act of naming was so important to slaves, because it was a right that they were for the most part denied, nie once again revealing the slave's limited access to language. Baby Suggs’ refusal to relinquish her real name, for example, signifies her active com- mitment to self-definition. Baby's bill-of-sale name is Jenny Whitlow, yet she refuses to accept this name. She tells Mr. Garner as she begins her life of freedom, “Suggs is my name, sir. From my husband. He didn't call me Jenny’; and Mr, Garner answers, “ ‘If I was you Iu stick to Jenny Whitlow. Mrs. Baby Suggs ain't no name for a freed Negro’ Maybe not, she thought, but Baby Suggs was all she had left of the ‘husbane’ she claimed” (142). When asked about the significance of names, Morrison herself replied in an interview, ew the real names of my father’s friends. ... They used Inever kn other names. A part of that had to do with cultural orphanage, f the name given to them under part of it with the rejection of circumstances not of their choosing. If you come from Africa, your name is gone. . - « That's a huge psychological scar. The best thing you can do is take another name which is yours because it reflects something about you or your own choice.” Although Sixo does seem to go by the name given him by the oppres- sors, with his final breath he subverts the name by himself designating a name for his creation—that is, his unborn child, “Seven-O”THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED as nM oe s oO. 150 sixo becomes a definer by his actions, Actions prog, on . additional Ove consciousness hat at every turn challenges yi ing from an Se ousens In particular, sto Possess 2n pare . on jominant consc! rather than merely adopting tha of the whi hs : wn moral codes ¢ stealing from their superfluity jg 4 abt of, orn rs, who dictate that ents on the practice of slave “stealing» > me nes owners, ne comments ‘ age as moral WORE: «definitions of good and bad... They formulae se people rejected t morality that reflected the requirements of black ex, ar F new law and a wright meant doing whatever was necessary to stay = fe tence... To ete wrong meant accepting without struggle the place ; with dignity. si wo masters had dete “after the conversation about the Shoat, Sixg wen eens tock at night,” the other slaves clearly consider his “is sto ‘ is tied up with me and not wrong. Indeed, the other slaves at Sweet ‘ne ‘ ee iy apt Shuts roca oade'an tele own, “They began me Home crema nd tt became not only their right but their obligato ; ilfer in earnest, an C -stealing as an ethics of survival is par . 90. Sixo’s practice of taking-not-stealing Pb 0 t Home. Even though istance that he creates at Sweet 0 leap or helplessness. Instead, he begins to plot his escape in earnest, and wear told, “Sixo keeps nail in his mouth now, to help him undo the Sat 5 hi rope when he has to” (223). The nail in Sixo’s mouth is literal, but it also g functions figuratively as the protesting hope, always just below the surface \ of the silenced tongue, that Sixo sustains in spite of hopelessness, Laughter as Transcendence of Fear Sixo’ 'S position vis-a-vis the dominant white slave owners is extraordi- narily dangerous. On some level Paul and » Which he plans to actualize. Oddly, Paul D and the al i but only in the daylight ins to participate in his € nighttime hours that e plantation across the Sixo who instigates and ed results in Sethe’ and “when its safe” To laugh with Sixo at night mea: broader scheme for liber: ‘ation, for it is during th the Sweet Home slaves plan to run away from th Ohio River to freedom. And it is none other than orchestrates this plan of escape, the plot that inde Patsy's freedom, and “reates a way out of No way: Sixo, hitching up the horses, j i ba 8 UD 7° is speaking English a ain and ‘alle what his Thirty-Mile Woman told him. That seven NeS extraordi- that to side ating in his Dand the ne daylight pate in his nours thit across the gatesan! thes and tells res Flowers in the Dark 181 sp her place were joining (wo others going North... sixe w. vg his OIA WAS BOING. f0Now all they have 1o do is wail through the spring, til the co gas high as ever got and the moon as fat, an ‘And plan. Is it better €o leave in the dark to get a better start or go at daybreak to be able to see the way better? Sixo spits at the suggestion. Night gives them more time and the protection of color. He does not ask them if they are afraid, He manages some dry runs {o the corn at night, burying blankets and two knives near the creek. (222) s sixo does not ask them if they are afraid because he himself has tran- scended fear, the debilitating fear that is the result of the psychological abuse of oppression. Here we are reminded of Gavriel, whose laugh was the “laugh of a man who has known total fear and is no longer afraid of anyone or anything” (18). It is not coincidental that Sixo, the character in the novel who laughs most poignantly and incongruously, is the character who dreams the most of freedom. While Baby Suggs leaves those around her to ponder her final statement that white folks have robbed her of everything, Sixo leaves his friends to ponder his incongruous laughter at the moment of his death. In contemplating escape, the ultimate act of resistance and lib- eration, Sixo once again thinks outside the box of his companions, thinks with an independent consciousness. While all the other slaves sleep, he alone “creeps” at night. While all the other slaves contemplate legally buying themselves out of slavery, Sixo plans real escape. Sethe explains: We should have begun to plan. But we didn’t. I don't know what we thought—but getting away was a money thing to us. Buy out. Running was nowhere on our minds, All of us? Some? Where to? How to go? It was Sixo who brought it up, finally... . Sixo started watching the sky. He was the only one who crept at night and Halle said that’s how he learned about the train. . . . Halle was pointing over the stable. . . . “Sixo say freedom is that way. A whole train is going and if we can get there, don't need to be no buy-out”... Sixo watched the sky. Not the high part, the low part where it touched the trees, You could tell his mind was gone from Sweet Home. (197) In these lines, we note that even Sethe notices how Sixo thinks beyond the status quo of white consciousness—“you could tell his mind was gone — __ Mem Vial as hoe “oleTHE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 8 future of freed, contemplating a fu edom, «py weet Home” IP co rnerteach the slaves i an impossie obit, om Si er attemp ality. g that choot eae ee een and its ideology. Patrigg NY: Six, that Se inks beyond op be bear Hie successfully t even if change cannot be brought about Xtern, s ts that can Americans can develop and sustain « "Maly Hf, Atican. of freedom. She adds, “People ex, eTience s consciousness ty three levels: the level of personal biography. nt Tes Eee nity level of the cultural context created by race, ga SOUP OF cd the systemic level of social institutions,” This tevey and genders anc ciousness is a fundamental area where new knowled individual eae * Not coincidentally, when Sixo begins Planning erate change? : Se oem; he alin resumes speaking English. ms pn Sixo is unable to resist oppression at the systemic level, a mative is replete with instances of Sixo resisting Oppression at ie ne Jof personal biography. In dancing, singing, taking-not-stealin . Oe oad eventually by laughing, Sixo manifests and sustaings Freagel com clousneas one tha is liberated from the whiteslave owns oe ‘Sino accordingly frequently offers an alternative (and correc) ideology. < : 1 interpretation of events that is opposed to that of white Consciousness, and leads the other slaves in laughter at the ridiculousness of white igno. rance,“Sixo said the doctor made Mrs. Garner sick. Said he was giving her to drink what stallions got when they broke a leg and no gunpowder could be spared, and had it not been for schoolteacher’s new rules, he would have told her so, They laughed at him. Sixo had a knowing tale about everything” (219). Within this chang ed consciousness, not only is Sixo “free” Psychologically and spiritually on the “inside” he also is lins comment in society itsel of deifie who are yur empowered enough to begin to dream of actualized freedom, and to take of col active steps to bring such dreams to fruition. More importantly, Sixo’s “new knowledge” spills over to the group, generating change and resis- new pocatggommunal level, as Halleand the slaves [ee of this radically Susan “A Possibility of freedom and share this knowledge with one another: altho Sixo say freedom is that way” (197), ‘aug! The apotheosis of Sixo’ life of resistance is his final laughter as he dea saghs in the face of death, Sixo’ planned escape goes horribly wrong, asa @ i i fe nd al Dare captured. When Sixois captured, he sings, but an " : : wade sid ; Ubversive act of Tesistance in that it Secretly allows Sethe fus itera. we ‘Mile Woman to escape. Sixo selflessly and effectively cre. i Scene a ° thew ‘at distracts Schoolteacher and : the men long enou, th fe 12 {0 et away. While singi- se 8n for le to strike him wail Singing, Sixo grabs One of the men’s rifles it, in his only act of Violent Tesistance,| Flowers in the Dark 153 us singing and physical retal ., incongru ‘aliation leads co mee mada therefore anit even for mas oll proceeds to burn Sixo alive on the spot ¥ Schoolteacher ‘ : e fire keeps failing and the whitemen he Ror not being Prepared for ths energie the ane seve, nott0 Kill. What they can manage is onl ene iP ing hominy. Dry faggots are scarce and the ed 00g for cooky the ight of the hominy fre Sixo Snighocnewitee ety his song. He laughs, a rippling sound like sethet one when they tumble in hay or splash in rainwater. His f fercaole ing the cloth of his trousers smokes. He laug one fanny. Paul D guesses what itis when Sixo interrupt ce backies to call out, “Seven-O! Seven-O!” ta ie ght ‘smoky, stubb ‘ ae bbborn fire. They shoot him to shut him up. Have Th Sixo, therefore, laughs not onl) i y at the moment of his death, but al: laughs at death itself. This image of a slave man being fanaa alive he was os while laughing jolts the reader, shocks us with its terrifyi i 5 is with its terrifyin; © Bunp, < ig incongruity. The image is undeniably grotesque. His ee cause ‘ ew ri les transcends fear, terrifies his oppressors, but they have to “shut him up” rowing : Iamreminded of the words of Jirgen Moltmann: “The power ofthe pow- 5, not onh erless lies in such liberations from fear, in their laughter at the expense heal Wy of deified rulers who are nothing after all but dolled-up dwarfs. People is who are no longer afraid . . .can no longer be ruled with ease, although nd to take of course they can be shot” tly, Sixos nd resis- Laughter as Manifestation of Dual Consciousness radically Susan Corey's analysis of Morrisons use of the grotesque 1" Beloved, nother: although she does not specifically analyze the character of Sixo or his laughter, helps us to unpack the complexity of Sixo’s laughter in his crucial - as he death-scene. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin, Corey defines the grotesque rong, as an “aesthetic phenomenon that encourages the creation of meaning, s, but and the discovery of new connections through its effect of shock, con- ‘ethe fusion, disorder, or contradiction. The grotesque breaks the boundar- ° ies of normalcy in some way and always points toward the mysterious ~ and inexplicable"! Undoubtedly Sixo’s laughter shocks the white slave ie owners who surround him in the same way that Sixo's song does—both ie are inexplicable, bafflingly contradictory, and seemingly without cause. dams ‘de.\* saad « THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED ly attribute his laughter lave owners can only ue! © mad: The white aie coin line with hegemonic white thought, “PS. Iti, vgane”—that is, not “san a ring inexplicability of Sixo’ fy hi verre mi aol egies Morrison draws stent rants our anal om injustice of the existing social system in Which me ‘occasion: ee ona whim, without repercussion, because Faso, a can be burne elf writes of her use of the grotesque, “Something ae Ma oe alays'a push toward the abyss somewhere to see ype 7 arable, Because thats the way to find out whee heroic. Thats is ne aati wich people Cite whe ware under, who didn. ne Lieg te home here has been sete / Sixo laughs because the situation is su , as ect Slavery ig absurd—a grotesque exaggeration and material nae ofa will to-power Cone defines the absurd as that which is meaning ess, “We [African Americans] are seeking meaning in a world Permeated with philosophical and theological absurdities” Sixo’ laugh is heroic because it isa mode of survival, of resistance to the despair and quietism inflicted by existential meaninglessness. Morrison presents us with a disturbing and grotesquely distorted image because she wants to disorient us into recognizing that the image inercly reflects the reality of slave life, which indeed Was a grotesque distortion of life, Explains Corey: The grotesque enables a writer to challenge conventional ideals, values, and structures; and to “pose evil or oppressive social institutions and practices, Thus the grotesque assists a writer to Present a paradoxical vision of a world “held largely by the devil? yet infused with moments of Brace and hope for renewal through contact with a larger world of meanings, . . The grotesque has the effect of undermining the established order and exposing OPPressive systems, . .. The grotesque allows the writer to chal- lenge any final or closed version of the truth y ++. and to explore the Paradoxical, ambiguous, mixed nature of, human life.4 situatic tionisti Morris parad: cons¢ Si multi ¢ fier lowers in the De lowers in the Dark a tin notanty notes that laughter is an essential element | nak Hnut also states that without the principle of laughter the ukhl uit Mn, whee ae aque would be imposse, Babktin argues for a relnter- aig een oF NC ambivatence of the grotesque, In his mind, the grotesque . Tan ye ks the: reality of debasement and horror on the one hand, and the Sone we ity of regeneration and renewal on the other. In Bahktin’s view, rs at meer Teste purpose of the grotesque is largely ignored. Laugh: oe is fea propriate lO the grotesque for Bahktin because it too shares this 1 the stiaenee ane regenerating potential. Laughter is appropriate to the Mia tes que situation because it attests to this dual consciousness—the : eaence of horror and hopes meaninglessness and meaning, ter- ¥ ig coed faith in regeneration —in a way that language cannot. Laughter ted ime othe possibility of regeneration but only paradoxically and pain- a airy ecause the need for regeneration is necessitated by a grotesque teal situation wherein regeneration is grossly absent. of pahktin’s discussion of laughter accords with our theological ial interpretation of laughter as an attempt by the suffering individual to sustain the integrity ‘of both the narrative of faith and the narrative of ad negativity and to hold both narratives in dialectical tension. Laugh- se ter sustains a certain ambivalence, capturing @ both-and existential situation in a way that cognitive discourse cannot attain without reduc- tionistic tendencies toward either/or. In Sixo’s death scene, therefore, Morrison uses the grotesque image and Sixo’s laughter to sustain the paradox of his existence and to thrust this paradox into the reader's consciousness. Sixo’s experience of the world as paradoxical and incongruous on multiple levels occasions his laughter. According to Arthur Schopenhauer: All laughter . . . is occasioned by a paradox... Accordingly the phe- nomenon of laughter always signifies the sudden apprehension ofan incongruity between such a conception and the real object thought under it, thus between the abstract and the concrete object of percep- tion. The greater and more unexpected, in the apprehension of the laugher, this incongruity is, the more violent will be his Jaughter.* Sixo experiences paradox in that he is both African and Ameri- can (note that there is no existential option of either/or). He is not free in a country that upholds liberty as its highest ideal. Sixo labors under the existential burden of being dually defined. He is defined Wd easily ure Ov in duTHE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED i If-definition, yet ction. He strives for sel » yet any a ie iajs’competcaiwith: the hesereet definigg Be self-valuation nonbeings. I am reminded of Malxolm x not be ‘hat black life in America is an absurd paradox. ” Who argued —_ have some humor in it, o¢ hats paradoxical has to , OF it ane im 2 yachase iY contrésh'a parddae Aa Amer ‘auch paradoxical society, hypocritcally paradoxical, thar Fo a mt hav some humor, you'll crack up... . You have to be able ty ‘aa to stand up and sing, “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of ip. oe That’ a joke. And if you don't laugh at it, it'll crack you up. erty’ W. E. B. DuBois states that racism imposes an existential dilemma on its victims that results in an identity c1 is and struggle. Dubois char. acterizes this dilemma as the African American experience of a “double self? Writes Dubois, “One feels his two-ness—an American Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring. ideals in one dark body... . The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife” A greater incongruity than the intrinsic value of African Americans as persons and the severely subordinate value placed on them by white society can perhaps not be imagined. Thus the incisive violence of Sixo’s death-laughter, a laughter arising out of “two-ness, Cone adds that slavery imposes another existential paradox on all who are enslaved, “Under the law, slaves were Property and persons, But the two definitions together were absurd, because Property and persons are mutually exclusive modes of | being which negate one another” Once again, laughter steps in to capture the actual coexistence of two modes js there of being that ostensibly negate one another. Language cannot possibly and m express such an existential dilemma in its fullness. It defies rationality to accord posit that I am both person and property, both liberated and enslaved, cal be both utterly affirmed and utterly negated. And so, Sixo for a time jet- appee tisons speech altogether, and in his final moments, chooses only to tioni laugh. Laughter, unlike language, holds both sides of these paradoxes Afri connogg oe eg Danae egiae® the j either/or, whereas laughter can incarnate the inhere eee the t/0%, \ inherently complex both- the and, in-spite-of character of the existence and resistance of the inal- ited. Sixo very existence is shot through with Paradox, and hi flee ‘ functions to Sustain this paradox and live through it ens Ieghter Fascinatingly, Many African American women who labor theorists, Particularly | under a double Oppression, argue that either/or thoughtSty, \ nis "Ri nti ye yt he isi aero) oj soto" ly hegen Flowers ity . ous tl mor in Netig, i hinkiny nic ae the Dark ine we oe wo he nt de aur reptit eater wit the eologi fe cal iously, lem Neste cer gical i eon ys hie with TH Se ntra . be ib. im os Pe erate * dichoto al id ell ns i ee ichot Tes haa hook 4 eny rollins hings She lomou! hool gical ci a clal 1 jon wi pha an ‘ eri th co lai 57 li i eb on gules nd id rites, Aeigehe Ee ompi ims. Men forcertait he be n qui = theses SE ght i eur pone cith isa whi aint eliet antifi vt sithe ‘sth tos nt of er/ isa spt that ie a in lsat ac ee all He hes (ol in the eri deni itherlor and nel ne alwa that the pa eith eni equi or ¢ ca ok ir di ane ys if. ec ae or red a r/o grat ires ate tegori Bl ifr us tl onl a in 9 implies renal i" tl s that aS rizati ae ec en y ry of onpese hp otto only ma, ried mush i siniidst rom one Afri right” 10 on nly diffe thei le of be curs i Th one can a or eal ac ere! ny adi ran sin Ou n the x white; better | ether andl nit bul the-twe pe rakes: 1 oa olen wig than shane eee con lomy is he search ce life) is g the ‘anno! e ol one si ut are ii cept: is privil rch or you good ambi, Me se cont molt or ileged on all dehate are and aves rt (hi ‘or exal the aires ity oF Parties s. But or shi ed, or fe thihe or li anenaea at ther two qual. bela sons eno e is th e is er 1 life is racial e diffi ‘ther dich conc ither/ grou ir triui ne i bad cot icul you oto ept On is tet r my is uy Ity ai my) sa ce parti cit murd phi An and iples) ou re bl y is re nod ic 5 We C ant neri unj ). Bi r soci lack, me es Bi cular fe are i rer. it. Bi ican, njus' ith ie ore sibly whe eB ly sino Asa Bhat ; or = iithers Go Ny hei you ty!o is ney ; eye = peal sec ne is els TE you fen ‘] - if e re mn rl , str one ic e i vets and m Weer So 1 etl Tee hate ai enter sre ce jet accor ake ‘emi ymetil Ice al e re 1g to re mbi; of h er Si ed, jet al din: ethi ust li imes nd Ge ealm du guit a y 10 4p beca : to a dicks ie sates of oft it ug chen, oxes appeal se tl ne wi ‘sion or exist e Fe sand ither/ en a pLeseiae he ho ns. T' create enti: ‘ores! the ‘or.? we the ae becor necessi states, Theolo} Sans in Hest logy. Ts th ric , and ntradi ty » “Thi gy i nin} the athe rack an th ict of affi el igno g, bel bot! comet cis Am er ory.” irmi ogi res elie’ heal etim th it, er efor y?’ Ei mi ical thi ve nd, es mai sexi rical re th Bith ing lan; is t or n and wh mei pee eek er/or ae aaa Ly ee hae tet th ari tion ist—i rs poi need: iscursi nsio1 ust b its e 1e OF ing f of in sh int s to sive ns 0 ep: peril, ppr fact certai ort, i out ree thot fre ead: De esse that ain, , ide that evalu ught i ality loxi- forc jominal d, and “tee ological Sherer eu lien which Scho abel hege eas ea has f experie! and r or tho ae reduc Shoat nee Ee for too ear ea ught is Many sani hee and ing, b ‘ought hi ng ign goo i in the saually cot MS aah ored ca expli y er Nazi ites ci this i idden thee in poi cit i eer s its i drive perie int is sid ize deol eto nce ler Gi Six logi su of avr 0 al ‘ical sta iel mi ind Si scaft nan ad; et foldi .d rei h Idi rei all th eas “ ing, Thus ce eject xan : ie noel a — me ). THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 158 hose atthe top of the systems of g jorand befuddlet somin chert reminds us of these dangers of either/or 400 mIMAion ay, risom’s al resource of both-and me, ia pce rich gil paradox of both-and in the eh " oe en See eradically dehamanized, heDn Gere levels in tat tha (asus although sas humanity and that of the other anes First, nic Hf tho" a aaa low the Thirty-Mile Wernan to escape. Secong, weh- aot inaghter asserts that he affirms himself as ory Of lie even inane | Sst ee face of Schoolteacher’ absurd death-dealing. For surely if $e mere Soh? ind accepted Schooleachers view of himself there would ben pee? reyes incongruity, no paradox, and consequently no laughter. Sixes laugh. we ot 0 ter therefore attests to his refusal t accept the oppressor’ view of My M0 personas nonbeing. We must understand such a psychological fats sgt a nonacquescence as an incredible act of resistance as whites conan wi ON shaves ointeralizea negative sel-image and sense of inferionty ey set yortis0 explains, “There is such a thing as living physically while being dacg sty spiritually. As long as blacks let whites define the limits of their being, tion 5 blacks are dead. “To be or not to be’ is thus a dilemma for the black -eformati© community: to assert one’s humanity and be killed, or to cling to life " aigestit and sink into nonhumanity” a morn Laughter as Deconstruction of Oppression jife, com Faradoxicilly, then itis genuine life Sixo chooses by choosing death, even sod sone though choosing to resist and assert his humanity results iy hre physi- Lapabd cal death. Cone’ assertion that clinging to life can result in nonhumanity decisior Renevnete better revealed than in this comparison of Sixo and Paul D. oppress Reflecting on Sixo and his life and death, Paul D says admiringly, “Now and res there was aman.... Himself. . . didn’t compare” (22). Paul D chooses Sixo p Hi to ral in to Ive bar itis he who ends up feeling unhuman, wear. that t ae ee it a collar and envying a rooster, Mister, for his vastly ply re > was \ . justi Nise ve esa me Steger. 2 allowed o be and ata vi ora ay what he was, But I wasn't and Paul D again, living or dead Schoener Way Td ever be ho sornthing else and that something was an ees ME: L was ho in the sun ona tub, (72) 8 ess than a chicken sitting fo Paul D concludes: “He couldn't fj i : “Swell have jumped in the fire with Si o and ya took $0 long. He may a xo and they both could have hadaFlowers in the Dark 1599 jh” (219+ Ironically, Sixo is dead but spiritualh oe whereas Paul D isalive but emotionally and aalyal' js of Ignazio Silone, “Freedom is not somet [ne vo ou can lve ina dictatorship and be free ly and psychologi- Psychically dead hing you get asa ‘on one condition: See hig ig, presen + fight the dictatorship. The man who thinks with hi. ingen : i an Gxos Iaughter witnesses to a psychological and spiritual form of free- e oe om, even though he is physically bound and facing death. Morrison, sige commenting on another of her characters, says, “He is the thing I keep 5 8 eyitl Sing a ‘free man, not free in the legal sense, but free in his head. ... Pm “ interested in characters who are lawless in that regard. They make up their lives” We say the same of Sixo—he is free in his head, Cone asserts that slaves not only seek freedom-from-bondage, they also exhibit what he ON “ority terms freedom-in-bondage.” Sixo’s laughter therefore manifests his free- being dom-in-bondage, an emotional, spiritual, and psychological freedom. their bei Morrison comments on her work, “What’ important . . . is the pro- the by % cess by which we construct and deconstruct reality in order to be able to ling to hit function in it. 'm trying to explore how a people . . . absorbs and rejects information on a very personal level about something [slavery] that is undigestible and unabsorbable, completely.”* Schoolteacher decides at the moment he begins to burn Sixo alive that Sixo is not even worthy of life, commenting, “This one will never be suitable” (226). Sixo’ laughter leath, even and song, however, deconstruct this negation of his being. Itis the cruel his physi nature of oppression that the oppressors can make flippant life-and-death humanity decisions of this kind for the oppressed. However, it is also the nature of d Paul D. oppression that the oppressed can, to the extent they are able, deconstruct, ly, “Now and resist this definition of themselves as subhuman and reject it, which chooses Sixo powerfully does, Indeed, what can be more incredible than the fact rn, weal that those oppressed by Christian thought such as the slaves did not sim- a ply reject the faith outright? Instead, although Christianity for centuries is vast millions of its victims reinterpreted it to was used to justify oppression, n e justify their liberation. It is an astounding example of deconstruction. then, much like Gavriel’s, ruptures the dualism of hope a ahd cca atovgh usually we consider tragedy to be a situation of pa Facet this kindof laughter ase the paradoxical notion of trai be aes ee ornel West’ terms, we can say that Sixo8 laughter is @ ae Oe eating “revolutionary patience”? Sixo’ vas form of “aggressive waiting, oF @ mode of “revolutionary patie reel ng laughter takes on a proleptic, anticipatory character, Sixo, similar to the seen nculcates “a certain Kind of joy that wil be justified only retro- aside laughter attests to the already-but-not-yet liberation he OI se ces Vhrough the possession of an independent consciousness. His ty ada/* i FG THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 160 natively recreates both the present and the future ima6' even though Sixo does not live to see his son pee existence. An dom actualized, his laughter transforms his Mode og hg dreams of i -esent as absurd in the anticipation of freedom, being by naming is (and dances and sings) forthe imagined ra Mn niversal and pervades all levels of existence, sere cacent of Wiesels comment, “Even if we find no fate ap inthe hope that one day we will understand why, ree ¢ will be able to give a reason for believing”! Dative hee freedom in order that one oy ee et he justine’ His laughter is proleptic liberation, or to borr erm from Cone, form of proleptic transcendence. laughter i ture, in Laughter as Demystification of Power Michel Foucault insightfully argues that power relationships always structurally include resistance to that very power: Where there is power, there is resistance. ... [A relationship of power] depends on a multiplicity of points of resistance: these play the role of adversary, target, support or handle in power relations. These points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network. Hence there is no single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or Pure law of the revolutionary. Instead there is a plurality of resistances. ... And it is doubtless the strategic codification of these points of resistance that make a revolution possible.® AsKelly Brown Douglas points out, Foucault has of power relationships. In his theory, below, at the microlevels of Society, with people who alter microlevel relationships. For our purposes, Foucault's analysis is helpful because it demystifies power by democratizing both Power and resistance. Power relationships are Sustained at least in part by those who are in them; hose in them. inding of power helps us radical because it Places the potentiality societal power structures ij into the hands of "mpowered, Paradoxically the "MPO . ‘en, the seemingly 1x0 in reality are empowered through resis- we discern that systemic change begins with a bottom-up analysis institutional change always begins Foucault's radical reunderstar character, Foucault’s analysis is for tevolutionary change within lose who are seemingly dise Powerless individuals like $i tance. Thanks to Foucault, interpret Sixo’s"owns tithe that tor eat ativatal as tol resistances with, 1 example, the al vate atance af power between a slave and hie tala a " aster, Every o Pants Here tentes, eveH A LAU) vinnie pe xtqutficanee nla the oppressed, taker on pte we pafannd Sixe teat lexsly alters his power relationship with Sel cade bv Akins HHL seal foo he vanaens inhnetronine Ferg the woonaty Fis chokes, AUterpting eseape, al nally by singe fg at tai BIS’ Master fee ever av he is mnardered, Six fagter stetant andl crianeipatory, Laughter isa preservation of Sixes aignitys a8 Se hoalteacher expects and desires Sixe to ¢ ry and despair in the moment oftertor OF course, Sixok joyous hughter and song appear go wnanticipated and strange lo Schoolteacher that he utelvitea teh fo madness. SiO laugh so disturbs und violites Schoolteacher's sense afabsolute control over his slaves that Schoolteacher finds it unbear able, Schoolteacher reseizes a semblance of control in the situation by not passively allowing the fire do his killing for him, “They shoot him [Sixo] to shut hind up. Have to” (226). Schoolteacher “has to” shoot i sixo because he cannot allow his precocious laughter, which alters and ns, upsets the power relationship between them in a way that is evident to mS all present, to continue, . For certainly, the slaves around Sixo interpret his laughter as liberation ul from fear and indignity, Like Gavriel’ and Baby Suggs’, Sixos laughter Y. emancipates. Laughter is repeatedly associated throughout Beloved with s actualized moments of freedom, both psychological and physical. When, A for example, Baby Suggs reaches freedom in Ohio we read, “her own heart- beat. Had it been there all along? . .. She felt like a fool and began to laugh out loud... . She couldn't stop laughing, . . . She covered her mouth to ysis keep from laughing too loud” (141), Similarly, in the beautiful scene when, ins Sethe and the girls temporarily celebrate their freedom from the past and vel skate carefree over the ice, the mother and daughters all laugh repeatedly ‘it as “nobody saw them falling” (175), When Sethe, at last a free woman, er relaxes after her daring escape to the North, “Sethe’s laugh of delight was . so loud the crawling-already baby blinked. . .. She [Sethe] didn’t cry... Baby Suggs came in al laughed at then” (93-94). But inthe end, Sixo : dies, Is his laughter still emancipatory despite the fact that the oppressors sa tt it may seem, Sixo’s laughter as he is put to death rep- sis of his lifetime of heroic gestures of defiance and D affirms that he watches Sixo, “whom he loved bet- roast without a tear just so the roasters would know resents the apotheo' self-valuation. Paul ter than his brothers,Howers in the Dark 16 allest individual act of resistance, with, for e xample, the slight ¢ snk A EK the mitt it the balance of power between a stave and hi = el Si get therefore. even a hugh of the oppressed taken on penne \ a ‘ ine tiont y significance ees ny tial Joved. Si xo fearlessly alters his p e kel power relationship wi ne caer by EAKINENO stealing food he considers Aiton renee ithe see wont of is choices attempting spe snl nally by sing veg me ian ging is % face even as he is mud ae \ a futbdered. Sint tg daughter 8 defiant and emancipatory. Laughter is a pres ena Se snity as Schoolteacher expect esires Si ry and deipui in a Po pects and desires Sixo to cry and despair in the moment of terror, Of course, Sixos joyous laughter and song ape: so unanticipated and strange to Schoolteacher that he aieibitee mn i : P a es them ve madness. Sixo8 laugh so disturbs andl violates Schoolteacher’s sense 5 cabs cl ; alway of absolute control over his slaves that Schoolteacher finds it u ay sens ‘ ™ \bear- * able, Schoolteacher reseizes a semblance of control in the situation by not passively allowing the fire do his killing for him, “They shoot him P of {sixo] to shut him up. Have to” (226), Schoolteacher “has to” shoot play Sixo because he cannot allow his precocious laughter, which alters and ons, upsets the power relationship between them in a way that is evident to wer all present, to continue. oul For certainly, the slaves around Sixo interpret his laughter as liberation ° from fear and indignity. Like Gavriel’ and Baby Suggs’, Sixos laughter y: emancipates. Laughter is repeatedly associated throughout Beloved with ess actualized moments of freedom, both psychological and physical. When, ea for example, Baby Suggs reaches freedom in Ohio we read, “her own heart- beat, Had it been there all along? ... She felt like a fool and began to laugh out loud... . She couldn't stop laughing. . - - She covered her mouth to alysis keep from laughing too loud” (141). Similarly, in the beautiful scene when ys! P ighing egins Sethe and the girls temporarily celebrate their freedom from the past and level skate carefree over the ice, the mother and daughters all laugh repeatedly seit as “nobody saw them falling” (175). When Sethe, at last a free woman, wer relaxes after her daring escape to the North, “Sethes laugh of delight was, om so loud the crawling-already baby blinked. . . . She [Sethe] didn't cry. Baby Suggs came in and laughed at them” (93-94). But in the end, Sixo 5 dies, Is his laughter still emancipatory despite the fact that the oppressors es “win? in his case? - / ity ‘As strange as it may seem, Sixo’s laughter as he is put to death rep- of resents the apotheosis of his lifetime of heroic gestures of defiance and HY self-valuation. Paul D affirms that he watches Sixo, “whom he loved bet- s° ter than his brothers, roast without a tear just so the roasters would knowhe . f hig att is tne iyi, Flowersin the Dark eget d fy see spe smallest individual act of resistance, wi 161 negli, ihe tn the balance of power betweer with, for exampl ite inn 8 sicrlevel act, therefore, even a lau hott a slave and Mi le, the slight- hy, We apy thig al evolutionary significance. ih of the oppressed, takes anne a anh revmeved, Sixo fearlessly alters his takes on poten- © ay, thar teacher, by taking-no' teali Power relati ‘ght iter : of foving the woman of his Sale ae he considers himecit an School- mfg ly fond laughing in is noise; tempting escape, himself entitled to, male ie er isdefiant and emancips face even-at he ta tite one: ne, Ign as Schoolteacher ex Y Laughter is a presenta Sixo's the moment of terror. Of Sone and desires Sixo to « eration of Sieg 7 vx ananticipated and strange Se, Sixos joyous laughter a and despair in Ships fo madness. Sixo8s laugh so d © Schoolteacher that he attiboes one alg of absolute cont 0 disturbs and viol attributes them iy rol over his slave lates Schoolteacher's ‘ble. Schoolteacher reseizes a es that Schoolteacher finds it unbear, oe wt passively allowing the fi semblance of control in finds it unbear- than of jae) to shut him up. H ite do his killing for him, ee situation by ree AY tea suse he cannet allow his prec Scvoulashirs-nee Uh aes cations upsets the pow allow his precocious laugh has. to: ahoot he poy power relationship betwe laughter, which alters and ‘eae Wer all peat to continue. en them in a way that is evident t » NO soul certainly, the sk 2 i fi y, the slaves around Sixo int i tionary rom fear and indignity. Like Gavriel erpret his Janghtes lberetion loubtless emancipates. Laughter is 1 iel and Baby Suggss, Sixo8 la tiiidhe actualized moments offeedo tne Seu : : il for example, Baby Suggs reaches ined psychological and physical. When ec aiek aber thee al along? She ee ent heat upanalyi out loud. .. . She couldn't sto] han a felt like a fool and began to laugh ysis keep from laughi EOP hing. . . . She covered her abe keep from nughing too Joud” (141). Similarly, in the beautiful ta f girls temporarily celeb tf SCENE. WHER microlevel skate car iP ly celebrate their freedom fi h ‘efree over the ii rom the past and because as “nobody saw them fae ei citer oe repeatedly ce, Power relaxes after her daring escape to the North, Sees hs ate in them so loud the crawling-already baby blinked ee oe Baby Suggs came in and laughed them? (93-94) see a ent Si et st dis. Isisaughter ill emancpaor ete fat thatthe ope ae rental wn ” in his case? ‘Sppressors: s strange as it may seem, Sixo’s laught: he i pand . ghter as he is put to death rep- re i is lifeti i P- mi! sents the apotheosis of his lifetime of heroic gestures of defiance and ess self-valuation- Paul D affirms that he watches Sixo, “whom he loved bet- b ter than his brothers, roast without a tear just so the roasters would know “ath c 2 ee — ee v6 weth © 85 Dossit ‘THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED » A 182 : ras like” (126). Paul D wishes that he Could gj, ing a what a ry sino, but at that time he has not yet reachey the freed ¥8h along wit © istance that Sixo has. Comments Pay om. te of resistance pee bondage ore thinks he should have sung along. Loud, Something 4 fat ba to go with Sixo's tune, but the words put him off, poe oud and rou aia tnd the words Although it shouldnt have mattered ig i: undel _ a loose it was juba” (227), understood the one eerie characters tentinas to tee fact that ge cannot speak to the unspeakable horror they hae endured, Wy guage Ce th words to Sixo’s song, nor do the slaves understang neve es words, because the negativity is so radical language isruptureg Bi During the antebellum period, slaves were jailed for Singing the spiritual, “Well soon be free” When forbidden to sing, slaves hung the song, and Albert Raboteau argues that the song diselt nonetheless functioned as an indirect form of social criticism, : Sixo's Wordless song aso conveys an aggressive social critique of white ideology ang practice: unleashed hatred that dances its way into the consciousness of the hearer. Sixo’s words to his song are not important. What is Most important is the fact that he can still sing, when every reason for singing has been taken away from him. Cone concurs, “It does not matter what Oppressors say or do or what they try to make us out to be. We know we have a freedom not made of human hands. It is this faith that defines our person, and thus enables black People to sing when the world says they have nothing to sing about.” Paul D describes Sixo laughter as oddly joyful, “What a laugh. So “ippling and full of glee it Put out the fire” (229). The narrator compares it to the laughter of a child at play—“a tippling sound like Sethe’s sons make when they tumble in hay or splash in rainwater.” Sixo’s laughter baffles the white onlookers as incomprehensible in its glee. It interrupts the state of Oppression, that is, the emotional states of despair and misery and the Psychological states of learned helplessness and learned inferi- ority. Also, Sixo’s laugh interrupts the system of Oppression—‘“puts out the fire’—because it shifts the burden of bewi b ewilderment, » and hermeneutical chaos onto white shoulders, Paradon a 3 every reason for lau; hter see mine ar tues anyway manifesting an independent ‘con, often laghaee Vived against all odds. Writes Dwight HopkinsFlowers in the Dark 163 ng L . do. ican Americans worked with the Spirit of freed ape wo gn sauls by employing laughter to declare a silerent ngs fe unbroken self Whites with power cannot fathom the lovie ah laughter gushing forth from black bodies lame with iene si dy Indeed, black laughter, expressed in excruciating pain, ates yi Sh Mbit its own rhetoric of survival, resistance, and sell-trandto ln “tation for the black oppressed.** ee 1 i ae sixo is unafraid 1 die and ths fearlessness makes him free, much red iether staal tod 2 a ro fellects, Thad reached the point the at whicl as Ito test is Spirit made me a freeman in fact, wile I remained a slave in form! in Cornel West arate for os interpretation of Aftican American laughter le asconveying a worldview of tragic hope. For ‘West, the African American Ss consciousness places “an enduring emphasis on the tragic facts of human. ind existence: death, disease, disappointment, dread, and despair. . . . But the es6 radically comic character of African American life—the pervasive sense ost of joy, laughter, and ingenious humor in the black community—flows ng primarily from the African American preoccupation with tragedy” Sixo laughs not only in spite of tragedy, but because of it. Like much of African American laughter as described by West and Hopkins, Sixos laughter commingles hope and tragedy, joy and pain, despair and love. This admixture leads us to one final paradox of the situation of Sixo’s death that we have not yet mentioned. Sixo’s grotesque death is also, a moment pregnant, quite literally, with regeneration and hope. Sixo’s death accords perfectly with Bakhtin’s argument for an understanding of the grotesque as ambivalent, and never mere negation. Bahktin argues that death in the grotesque is better understood as “birth-giving-death”: Laughter degrades and materializes. . . - Degradation here means... the contact with earth as an clement that swallows up and gives birth at the same time. To degrade is to bury, to sow, and to kill simultaneously, in order to bring forth something more and better. . -- Degradation digs a bodily grave for a new birth; it has not only a destructive, negative aspect, but also a regenerating one, . . . Grotesque realism knows no other lower level; it is the fruitful earth and the womb, It is always conceiving. s shot through with this Bakhtinian two-sidedness of Sixo’s death i final moment marks not only death, debasement, and the both-and; hisTHE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 164 ss but also conception, regeneration, and hope, FOr i elessnes s the one word he shouts in the midst of his lay, be Sixoy r and his men j, the hop final momen Sixo sings and resists Schoolteacher word: Seven-O. Si oa then em he it hte Tle Woman ver. In effect, Sixo sacrifices his ile in order to save the Thin ® up the river n. But Sixo saves more than just her; through an 9 teh Maeda by Patil D we discover that the shee Seven-O ingit® ie jut earned the Thirty Mile Woman is pregnant i SS child “Something is funny, Paul D guesses what it ig when Sixg . cere his laughter to call out, ‘Seven-O! Seven-O1 Seven.o) Seven-O because his Thrty-Mile Woman Bot awray with his blostoming ” 28-29). ncaa of Sry sacrifice this child and its mother make thir y to freedom in the North. Because of Sixo’ life of resistance and love, this child was conceived against all odds. In the midst of the Oppressor’s death dealing, Sixo succeeds in life-giving. Although the white men want torob Sixo of both life and dignity, Sixo’s laughter suggests that their Vic- tory is penultimate, as the ultimate triumph of love and freedom is Sixos as yet unborn child in the soon-to-be-free Thirty-Mile Woman's womb, The joke, in other words, is on them. Ina strange turn of events, then, Sixo’s choice of death, which seems the quintessence of Passivity, becomes an act of resistance, The choice of death, rather than a life of egregious oppression, is indeed the central theme of Beloved, Sethe chooses death for herself and her children rather than return to a life of. enslavement; but she is apprehended prior to car- tying out her suicide. James Cone asserts, “Black resistance has roots stretching back to the slave ships... . It began when the first black per- ¢ Preferable to slavery”® Dwight Hopkins and freedom for the black body... was to Suicide suggested commodity from the macropolitical an ultimate determination to the slave system and, economy?” Temove an unpaid labor » consequently, was a blow against tl ‘We must Tecognize also that Margaret Garner was attempting suicide and murdering her children as am, to enslavement, Suicide by fasting was so common on ing device was implemented, Histori 10 comm ene oe of oom Pushed some black routinely eh “Violence as a means of resistay P off their own fingers and toes, eat dirt not the only slave 'eans of resistance lave ships that a compulsory feed i md reports tha the « an William Cheek nce. Slaves would in order to induce chair For | bay. lost mo> W flowersin the Dark aes { 45 oF ath, and commit infanticide. Notes Delores Williams, | ot ine ca women - ++ killed their children to keep them from a | stican Ame ” A mother on a Georgia plantation killed thirteen em from slavery”! Our analysis of Sixos laughter ucial, as it provides with a key for better under- f Sethe’s murder of Beloved. ‘ice save en ve yeot emis to save th al : a vette therefore is. oF wt og "ne complexities © so Paul D Laughter as Mode of Survival naracter in the novel whose laugh merits our anal- ysis 8 paul D. Paul D learns much from Sixo’s embodiment of resistance and eventually comes to emulate him. But when Paul D first shows up at 124 Bluestone Road, he is a “walking man” just trying to leave the past behind: spethird and final ¢ He didnt believe he could live with a woman—any woman—for erortwo out of three months. That was about 2s long as he could bide one place . . . walking off when he got ready was the only way he could convince himself that he would no longer have to sleep, pee, eat or swing 2 sledge hammer in chains. ... After Alfred he had shut down a generous portion of his head, . . . for more required him to dwell on Halles face and Sixo laughing, (40-41) is tragic past and his time spent on the chain gang in Alfred because the memories are excruciating to relive. For Paul D, as for Sethe, “The future was a matter of keeping the past at bay... Every mention of her past life hurt. Everything in it was painful or lost.... The hurt was der place in the corner of her Paul D tries to forget about hi always there—like a ten mouth that the bit left” (42, 58). For Morrison, however, @ process of r refusal to not think about Sixo laughing is dan; could learn so much from Sixo's means of resistance and struggle for identity. For Morrison, ‘African Americans have no genuine future until the past has been confronted and reclaimed, “The past, until you con- front it, until you live through it» keeps coming back in other forms. .«- There is a necessity for remembering the horror, but of course there's a it can be digested, in necessity for remembering it in a manner in which it a manner in which the memory is not destructive?” Morrison says that eclamation is essential. Paul D's gerous, because Paul D force mage166 characters in Beloved want to remember, because none of the e however, as ghost and victim of the tragedy ofa, ate afraid. Belove jlave-past that “haunts” the novel’s characters, She ao , represents sae let them go, and “comes back in other former et th past aS address this unspoken grief in their past guj Denver’ Quite lit compels th hey fe. ang I Beloved into the flesh, “Sethe and Denver deg er ation by calling for the ghost that tried them so quiet .d the persecution by callin on” (4), ‘Ome oe as well just come on. Come on. You seed in ledh ad: blaGd Ores each of the chara Beloved Son this painful past. To use Morrisons ovmn na ters in turn a Beloved is a “rememory” they all cannot avoid bump. ton oer D, however decks to avoid the past locking hi ™memorieg i ie tobacco tn’ of hig heart,iwhich he explains rusted shut: So ne in ble coal pat Aled, Geonga, Siz Schoolteacher, wile is brothers Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the anal o hickory netbook paper one by one, into the tobacco tin lodge in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing in this world could pry t open” (113). Paul D begins to tell Sethe about his painful Past but then chooses to stop, “He would not pry it [the lid of the tobacco tin buried in his chest] loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame him” (73). The Past for Paul D is unspeakable because of its accompanying shame. Fittingly, when Paul D first step: 's into 124 Bluestone Road, his first action is to exorcise the ghost of Beloved—but unsuccessfully, as she later resurrects in the flesh. Because Paul D seeks to avoid the Past rather than learn from it, throughout the story he despises Beloved and seeks to avoid her. Paul D asks Sethe to make Beloved move out, and when she will not cooperate, Paul D himself moves out of the house into the store- house. Nonetheless, Beloved still makes her Way to the shed where she ees fae D, pace Sos ae tobacco tin, “He didn’t hear the whisper €s of rust made eit] ler as they fel] i tobaco tin (117) Y fell away from the seams of his Ironically, Paul D 2 46). Up until ‘ded to stay on the ie i Until that moment, € KNEW, Was to love just a little bit; everything ja The pest thing, ” iH ttle bit, so when THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED qFlowers inthe Dark qhoved it ma croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a‘ tone” (45). tet oY inks he can make a new life without first > ster agents of the tobacco tin im his own heart. In he future and obtain the life with Sethe that he front his own past as well as Sethe’. Beloved ast that both Paul D and Sethe share, deal urdered—a secret element of Sethe’s paral 7 ‘which Paul D knows nothing, Paul D's sexual encounter with seth gies this i» pivatent and essential encounter with the past eore’ Sts end Paul D himself recognizes this ambivalence: “After- in the midst of repulsion and personal phe Is end g been escorted to some ocean-deep first con nly the tragic slave-P daughter Sethe ™ erred and gobbling ai va eas thankful too for havin 4 ice he ONCE belonged to” (264). moved js thus a highly ‘ambivalent figure in Paul D’s psyche, but on nters with her are necessary for him the positive side his sexual encow several reasons. On the one hand, he must experience intimacy with her because repeatedly confronting the past is the key to his future, the key to his overcoming his fear of loving someone fully and staying put Jong enough in one place to have a real relationship. On the other hand, paul Ds encounter with Beloved is frightening and painful, as it symbol- izes his betrayal of Sethe as a result of knowledge of her past. Once he sleeps with Beloved, the distance between him and Sethe grows, “Sethe scares me, I scare me. And that girl in her house scares me the most” (234). Not coincidentally, just after Paul D sleeps with Beloved, Stamp Paid forces Paul D to come face-to-face with Sethe’s past—the knowledge of Beloved, and that Sethe murdered her as a baby. Paul D cannot accept this fact and moves out for good. The encounter with the past has swal- lowed his hopes for a future, just as Sethe’s obsession with Beloved/the past has made her forget about a future with Paul D. Paul D permits this memory to become destructive as he wields it as a weapon of judg- ment and criticism of Sethe. AS Paul D departs, he, like Schoolteacher, accuses Sethe of being subhuman, and leaves her with the parting words, “You got two feet, Sethe, not four” (165). more overlooked than the In the criticism of the novel, no moment is conversation between Paul D and Stamp Paid just before Paul D’s unex- 'd Bluestone Road. Even in the film version of pected return to Sethe an Beloved, which otherwise follows the novel to the letter, the filmmakers chose to omit this strange scene. Why? In this crucial scene, just prior tolowers in the Dark Wor spey broke tis back, or shoved 10a croaker mck, wel ait taken thks esa fel Val c hinks he Gan make ane ‘alah the ugly stained contents of tobe nein ee Hea rieder for Paul 1) 10 face the future and obtain the ite wth Seth satel vires, he must first confront his own past ax well ax Sethe ae embodies not only the tragic slave-past that both Paul . ie Neloved put also the dead daughter Sethe murdered —a secret ene at mate past about which Paul 1 knows nothing, Paul 1s sexual ensu ew peloved signifies this ambivalent and essential encounter wath the a jy the novel’ end Paul 2 himself recognizes this imhinalence “After wad heached and gobbling in the mis of epulsion and versal ame, he was thankful too for hav src heance belonged 19" (264 ing been excorted to some ocean-deep Beloved is thus a highly ambivalent figure in Paul 1)’ payche, but on the positive side his sexual encounters with her are necessary for him for several reasons. On the one hand, he must experience intimacy with her because repeatedly confronting the past is the key to his future, the key to his overcoming his fear of loving someone fully and staying put Jong enough in one place to have a real relationship, On the other hand, Paul D’s encounter with Beloved is frightening and painful, as it symbol- izes his betrayal of Sethe as a result of knowledge of her past. Once he sleeps with Beloved, the distance between him and Sethe grows, "S ethe scares me. I scare me. And that girl in her house scares me the most” (234). Not coincidentally, just after Paul D sleeps with Beloved, Stamp Paid forces Paul D to come face-to-face with Sethe’s past—the knowledge of Beloved, and that Sethe murdered her as a baby. Paul 1) cannot accept this fact and moves out for good, The encounter with the past has swal- lowed his hopes for a future, just as Sethe’s obsession with Beloved/the past has made her forget about a future with Paul D, Paul D permits this memory to become destructive as he wields it as a weapon of judg- ment and criticism of Sethe. As Paul D departs, he, like Schoolteacher, accuses Sethe of being subhuman, and leaves her with the parting words, “You got two feet, Sethe, not four” (165). In the criticism of the novel, no moment is more overlooked than the conversation between Paul D and Stamp Paid just before Paul D’s unex- pected return to Sethe and Bluestone Road. Even in the film version of Beloved, which otherwise follows the novel to the letter, the filmmakers chose to omit this strange scene. Why? In this crucial scene, just prior to NH. maybe youl have “ent Bree dawn on itema or | Jane NamiayyHILT AUGHITR OF THE OPPRESSED. toe pe, Paul D hiughs, But his laughter bewil his return ders, us, tenvibly funny. What Paul D jokes ng iv 08 5 ea about is so horrible ae noth _ Sane CHUNRE: — - make avi a Mahl abut Sethe second murder attempt on the day raul 1) has ee nner a Paul exaelam by the community, Sethe, reliving the f Beloved’ ¢ Past, hallugy, cher, and sh, NE EXception er own child, he laughs at it hat Denver's new employer Mr. Bodwin is Schooltea ee adato reenact the murders ofthat fatetal day—with vex time around she (ries (0 kill the white man and not when Paul D hears this news of Sethe’s second murder, en Pa and says to Stump Paid: "Yeah, Damn, That woman is crazy. Crazy’ "Yeah, well, ain't we all?” ‘They laughed then, A rusty chuckle at first and then more, louder and louder until Stamp took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped his eyes while Paul D pressed the heel of his hand in his own. As the scene neither one had witnessed took shape before them, its seriousness and embarrassment made them shake with laughter. “Every time a whiteman com ne to the door she got to kill some- body?” “For all she know, the man could be coming for the rent” “Good thing they don't deliver mail out that way.” “Wouldn't nobody get no letter” “Except the Postman” ‘Bea mighty hard message.” “And his last” When their | their heads a” was spent, they took deep breaths and shook ac i ee ee:— THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED : 168 ‘hs. But his laughter be il Sethe, Paul D aug! : Wilders y. his return to Sethe . What Paul D jokes about bec nothing is ostensibly funny. "$0 horrigy By ne hana about Sethe’ second murder attempt o au i m the day . cism by the community. Sethe, reliving the Past, of Lee Dever’ new employer Mr. Bodwin is Schoolteacher halhug. owed to reenact the murders of that fateful day—with ‘oné: except Pristime around she tries to kill the white man and not her own, When Paul D hears this news of Sethe’s second murder, he laugh and says to Stamp Paid: “Yeah. Damn. That woman is crazy. Crazy.” “Yeah, well, ain't we all?” They laughed then. A rusty chuckle at first and then more, louder and louder until Stamp took out his Pocket handkerchief and wiped his eyes while Paul D Pressed the heel of his hand in his own. As the scene neither one had witnessed took shape before them, its seriousness and embarrassment made them shake with laughter. “Every time a whiteman come to the door she ot to kill some- body?” “For all she know, the man could be coming for the rent” “Good thing they don't deliver mail Out that way” “Wouldn't nobody get no letter” “Except the Postman” “Bea mighty hard Message” “And his last” When their laught their heads. cs srias spent, they took deep breaths ate: REE RLNO ; TLE if a 2 i eo vex awmestiately after Laughing at this hoeroe, Maul 19 returns to } wetey wath her and “put hie story neat to hers” (270) ' I Dv laughter shocks and disortents the reader Nothing seems Fen ante Traditional sense, vet Paul D and Samp Paid laugh until at down [na L988 interview (notably a year in which Moe men me WH xt have been writing Relowed), Morrison stated orber peaple call HH humor IN. not really that IY not sort of smaghang avery one’ troubles Ane! laughter itself for Black people pas nothing to do with what} funny at all, And taking that which . |. or violent of doomed of something that nobody aise sees any value in and making value out of it or having a pay chological attitude about duress is part of what made us stay alive and tatrty coherent and irony is a part of that —being able to see the underside of something ax well... am conscious of... how Black people during that time {slavery} apprehend life simply because they didn't trust anybody else version of it." Paul D's laughter in this scene seems to fall under Morrisons char acterization of having nothing to do with humor, and more with coping ‘and survival. Paul D and Stamp Paid take that which is violent and val- eles and see its ironic, valuable underside. In Black Culture and Black Consciousness Lawrence Levine notes, “The oblique jokes of southern blacks were able to draw humor from the most painful situation. ... [Black laughter)... is from the time of slavery on .. essential to black survival and the maintenance of group sanity and integrity.” Paul D's laughter, like Sixo's, captures the both-and paradoxical nature of black conscious ness. As such his laughter appears mad, incongruous to those outside the slave experience. African ‘American laughter separates the oppressed from the oppressor, by fostering group solidarity among those with the experiential knowledge necessary to “get” the joke. According to Levine, laughter fosters group identification and community by widening the gap between those inside and outside the laughter, “Black laughter provided a sense of the total black condition not only by putting whites and their racial system in perspective but also by supplying an important degree of self and group knowled 75 For this reason, to those on the outside, Paul D's laughter makes very little sense at first hearing. Levine explains: ‘A substantial percentage of revealed to whites, would simp! Negro humor, even had it been ly not have struck them as funny.uder and his fore vith pr __ © ™~t=»=eress COWN On items or Ww Flowers in the Dark 169 { immediately after laughing at this horror, Pa y with her and “put ul D returns to story next to hers” (273), Heys hughter shocks and disorients the reader. Nothing seem sang” in the traditional sense, yet Paul D and Stamp Paid laugh uni “ars follows. In & 1985 interview (notably a year in which Mor- the wold have been writing Beloved), Morrison stated: Almos other people call it humor, Its not really that. It's not sort of laughing away one’ troubles. And laughter itself for Black people has nothing to do with what's funny at all, And taking that which is peripheral, or violent or doomed or something that nobody else sees any value in and making value out of it or having a psy- chological attitude about duress is part of what made us stay alive and fairly coherent and irony is a part of that—being able to see the underside of something as well. ... 1 am conscious of... how Black people during that time [slavery] apprehend life simply because they didn’t trust anybody else’ version of it” Paul D’s laughter in this scene seems to fall under Morrison's char- acterization of having nothing to do with humor, and more with coping and survival. Paul D and Stamp Paid take that which is violent and val- ueless and see its ironic, valuable underside. In Black Culture and Black Consciousness Lawrence Levine notes, “The oblique jokes of southern blacks were able to draw humor from the most painful situation. .. [Black laughter] . . . is from the time of slavery on ... essential to black survival and the maintenance of group sanity and integrity’”* Paul D's laughter, like Sixo's, captures the both-and paradoxical nature of black conscious- ness, As such his laughter appears mad, incongruous to those outside the slave experience. African American laughter separates the oppressed from the oppressor, by fostering group solidarity among those with the experiential knowledge necessary to “get” the joke. According to Levine, laughter fosters group identification and community by widening the gap {side the laughter, “Black laughter provided between those inside and out | h < a sense of the total black condition not only by putting whites and their racial system in perspective but also by supplying an important degree of self and group knowledge:”* For this reason, to those on the outside, Paul D’s laughter makes very little sense at first hearing, Levine explains: nntage of Negro humor, even had it been bstantial perce A eed to whites, would simply not have struck them as funny. fo ]- JA 170 es, the perspective, and the needs of the OF ee from those of the mar. ya Americans hat their humor with its incisive commentary yy ® Aurel the vantage point of black consciousness Was not an ae Sensible towhites.... These fragile jokes. ..reveatey the. on safely of the black’ situation in a way which varie conmemporaties would have found diffécl to fathom, heat difficult to fathom as humor,’ Many Y bl majority of y pce Many OF at Even today, the complexities of Paul D’s laughter make it di interpret, particularly for a white audience. , ; However, Sixo and Baby Suggs’ laughter shed light on Paul Ds, ag = recall from chapter two, Schophenhauer claims that laughter stems from, paradox, from the perception of incongruity.” To Preserve sanity, Paul 1) must navigate the muddy waters of paradox under which both heand Sethe as ex-siaves labor. Like Sixo, Paul D laughs because he encounters para. doxical incongruity. An impossible incongruity exists between the person he knows Sethe to be—a woman who loves her children dearly—and the person slavery has caused her to become—a murderer of her children, Quite literally, Paul D cannot accept that Sethe is the murderess Pictured in the newspaper clipping, as revealed in his Tepetition of the phrase, “That ain't her mouth” ( 154). As many have said, al crime haunts the novel’s the text posits is slavery fficult to though Beloved as the resurrection of Sethe’s Pages, the infinitely more nefarious ghost that and its universally haunting legacy. For Paul D, Sethe must be one or the other—either mother or murderess. She cannot kill in order to save, Certainly, white hegemonic thought enforces this, either/or distinction, because to acknowledge the situation’s tragic crcumstance would be tantamount to admitting society's inherent structure creates murderers out of mothers. The whites in the narrative condemn Sethe’ choice and imprison her without trial. They exhibit bewilderme ion, “What 2 the question, ‘ ‘What she go and ‘olteacher’s nephew €ven compares himself to ver have been capable of such an :... What she go and beat a million times i :-. Imean no way ® ambiguity wore (150). For the whites We . 8 rough chorea ould be to acknowledge their THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESsEp “w— _— Flowers in the Dark m Martha Nussbaunn explains that what makes a tragic situation or poawe penetinely tragic ts the fact that there is no right answer, no choice ravtale that does not involve severe moral wrongdoing” Lawrence Lange WHER OF the Holocaust, ¢ lls these “choiceless choices.” Sethe paravtioiveless choice: she and her children can live (and be raped, tor- fret aunt treated like animals), or they can die (and be free but no lon- alive). Bor Sethe, either she takes her own life and her children’s lives strikes a blow atthe political economy, or she lives as a slave and is allowed No personal liberty, Nussbaum reminds us that Hegel points out the political gniticance of tragedy: it motivates us to imagine a society structured in such a way that choices between fundamental values and entitlements would be eliminated. Morrison's novel is political through and through. Her tragedy, like all tragedies, is a tale that must be told because it forces us as a society to ask the Hegelian question: is there a rearrangement of society's structure that could eliminate the tragic choiveless choice? As we know, the question is not merely fictional. Historically, many slaves committed infanticide, suicide, and self-mutilation, We want to p the facile label of insanity on such actions, because to do so allows us to overlook the systemic evil that is their breeding ground. Systemic evil is banal, whereas moral evil is striking, but only because it makes it easy to point fingers of blame away from ourselves. (We saw this again recently in the post-Katrina media obsession with “looting,” rather than with the fact that 28 percent of New Orleans residents not only were starving, but lived in abject poverty even prior to the hurricane.) In my view, the slaves’ actions such as suicide and infanticide, while perhaps morally objection- able, nonetheless level an aggressive, terrifying social critique. Sethe’s murder of Beloved forces us to ask the tragic question: can we restructure society so that mothers would not rather kill their children than have them 1? If the whites in the narrative really answered their own question, live init “what she go and do that for” they would find themselves immersed in cognitive dissonance. For the answer is: because we have made of her life a horror, White ideology has set up a tragic either/or decision for Sethe. Yet, whites must realize, as the slaves do, that the dichotomy is artificially inflicted and could be otherwise. Slavery could be eliminated, and human beings would not have to choose between death and death-in-life. The for a more just society, but it is eclipsed by the people's self- teal choice is elety Dr l righteous obsession with Sethe’s individual choice. and OFm 9 Flowers in the Dark ck it, Martha Nussbaum explains that what makes a tr . genuinely tragic is the tact that there ible that does not involve s ‘agic situation or we ape right answer, no choice ere moral wrongdoing,” ‘ ; ° 8 Lawre aateiing onthe Holocaust, calls these “choiceless choices" Sethe he and her children can live (and be raped, tor- choi pasa choiceless and treated like animals), or they e: i tured, ane’ tre . ey can die (and be free but no lon- ser alive). For Sethe, either she takes her own life and her children’s ihe Bid strikes a blow at the politi Saye It owed no personal liberty. Nus & the political significance of traged 1 economy, or she lives as a slave and is um reminds us that Hegel points out i it motivates us to imagine a society structured in such a way that choices between fundamental values and hid amitlements would be eliminated, Mortison’ novel is political through iS and through. Her tragedy, like all tragedies, is a tale that must be told the | because it forces ug aca society to ask the Hegelian question: is there : a rearrangement of society's structure that could eliminate the tragic me choiceless choice? . As we know the question is not merely fictional. Historically, many slaves committed infanticide, suicide, and self-mutilation. We want to n, slap the facile label of insanity on such actions, because to do so allows us ed to overlook the systemic evil that is their breeding ground. Systemic evil at is banal, whereas moral evil is striking, but only because it makes it easy to point fingers of blame away from ourselves. (We saw this again recently s in the post-Katrina media obsession with “looting.” rather than with the t fact that 28 percent of New Orleans residents not only were starving, but , lived in abject poverty even prior to the hurricane.) In my view, the slaves’ : actions such as suicide and infanticide, while perhaps morally objection- able, nonetheless level an aggressive, terrifying social critique. Sethe’s murder of Beloved forces us to ask the tragic question: can we restructure society so that mothers would not rather kill their children than have them live in it? If the whites in the narrative really answered their own question, “what she go and do that for” they would find themselves immersed in cognitive dissonance. For the answer is: because we have made of her life ahorror, White ideology has set up @ tragic either/or decision for Sethe. Yet, whites must realize, as the slaves do, that the dichotomy is artificially inflicted and could be otherwise. Slavery could be eliminated, and human beings would not have to choose between death and death-in-life. The real choice is for a more just society, but itis eclipsed by the people's self- righteous obsession with Sethe’ individual choice.TE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED, Laeger 2 Kanstormative Consciousnes, Inverpreting the laughter in the narrative thu: . imerrenn in a more ethically and theole S helps ug sete ger of the oppressed in the story ball Sophy "© inter sore ofthe erther/or hegemonic dichotomy ard Gee Pens tei) emi complenity We should interpre Pe ead with pret Sethe’s ch to seg tht pores of an ethics of distress, or what ice with py.) Ne sm ns cin, The suo 0 citherfor. ether Sethe in eee" pa coeur wea terrible mother/murderer; 18 good mall trap Sethe is both a mother whe derty lovee fact the situation ee those very same babies. The paradox er children and the meat : that they may live. Rat is: she does kill her bay ae nay hr ionally, this is absurd, Logi fh her babies jn"! ruage can . Logic i Na ais ne iets such a paradox, but fie y, it makes no, Order logether in the oni ughter ¢ Serise, When Paul D initially leaves S je moment. aN because Scie i sore her murder of Beloved sae in horror at her act though © ct Sethe’ animal mace an exact parallel ees manner at he and behaving maciersics, Paul D ac ‘ choolteacher wh, White his past and have hi has “four feet, not two” me of being an ani? iis own ; -” Yet Pi nim: merely echoing the sentim interpretation of Sethe's cane Ts eck = ps this point fails srtiment of the white domin ’s actions, rather he h the ii ant i a Sito and the early . independent conean onsetousness Pa nership of his black consci uggs. His later |, usness exhibited renee consciousness laughter signals hi by name. The name this about Paul D Ws new the slave Paul D is clearly through the owners. He an ly a generic bill. subtle issue of hi Personhood in the id the other ill-ofsaleinarhe een Paul A, Pal B and xcs es Mi men with him have nondea Paul D has bees £2 0%. But m es; hence, they are an; no individual arrives at Bluecrge ne OM Sm ore importantly, in spi I named Paul— iets the ae ‘eet Home ; in spite of th the girl and Road, Denver for several d e fact that explains, * 5, “Gamer, bal addresses him as Me when he they wanted nn aves Kept : baby. Paul D Garner” Dy D. Paul D cor duri to indicat the nam, ner.” Del nhac: ing slavery fe that they h; les they had b. lores Williams es explains. is not 4 ad been ‘raised’ eae in freedom, 0 blame for thie 41,, testy whit A part of this identity crsi ne lk has not the black man’ id eis ofthe deh, 00 sure wh entity problem |i Umanizi; 10 he w: lies i ny aS at any gj in the fact th: ty given m at he loment.... A +++ part Ocess was to strip hj TP him ofhis original ser nse For year Garner | off. Nov how mt and aft Sweet I ing wh was al said s he co ‘up or they nigh Becs amt In | decaus cong:oO <_——— DOS BEE SAD use damage Flowers in the Dart ” off master his own ecwnbood His self identity wast Ite wan never sure of himself. Ne telated to that of his Me he hed acquired the name othis manne OMe of ster! ct Paul D must come to realize that by keep atallons himself to be defined, rather inte ae maine hs Right after Paul 1) laughs at Sethe's crime and just bef chert Sethe, Paul D runs into Denver again, In spite of navied eat Gar WO ged the last time, Denver greets Paul D with the exact same weds seed morning, Mr. 1D” But this time Paul D does not Coles herent merely answers, “Well, it is now” (266). Most critical literature aerinks this small but significant moment. Paul 1) always believed he was a ‘nai qrrwase Mr. Garner raised good slaves. He believed he was a valuable because Mr. Garner said so. But Paul D begins to realize that the name Garner still signifies oppression; “Is that where the manhood lay? In the naming done by a whiteman?” (125). Through the character of Paul D, therefore, Morrison's narrative exposes the lie of benevolent slav- ery. Unleashing the contents of his own tobacco tin, Paul D goes through the following thought process: For years Paul D believed schoolteacher broke into children what Garner had raised into men. And it was that that made them run off. Now, plagued by the contents of his tobacco tin, he wondered how much difference there really was between before schooteacher and after. Garner called and announced them men—but only on Sweet Home, and by his leave. Was he naming what he saw or creat- ing what he did not? That was the wonder of Sixo, and even Halle; it was always clear to Paul D that those two were men whether Garner said so or not. It troubled him that, concerning his own manhood, he could not satisfy himself on that point. . .. Suppose Garner woke up one morning and changed his mind? ‘Took the word away. Would they have run then? .. . Why did the brothers need the one whole night to decide? To discuss whether they would join Sixo and Halle. Because they had been isolated in a wonderful lie, . .. ignorant of or amused by Sixo’s dark stories. (220-21) In truth, Paul D is inherently worthy of life and freedom, and not because Mr, Garner says so. Before Paul D achieved an independent consciousness, he allowed shame to overcome him. Whites see him as shameful and so he feels shame. Understandably Paul D for most of his sity, THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED oY 1 life appropriated hegemonic thought as his own thought ‘ie notes that the shame that victims of violence experience ie itselps, Noe erful covert weapon of domination”; as a result blacks Need to gr “gin te colonizing proves which teaches us forms tee oe | Paul D struggles throughout the narrative to rid himself of th | shame and its accompanying shame that is oppression’s hangover. "> kins says that the most sinister scheme of the oppressor is to convine, the oppressed that the oppressor’ voice and interests are the the oppressed’s. The results of such an internalizat Sequences. But fortunately, once Paul D emancipates himself from the oppressive consciousness of black blame, he comes to realize that he is not to blame for his past, nor is Sethe unambiguously to blame for hers. In the words of Audre Lorde, “The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that Piece of the oppressor which is planted deep in each of us"™ Paul D's release of the name Garner means he has at last triumphed ‘as internalized. Paul D Teclaims and accepts both his and Sethe'’s painful past, which Prepares him to move ahead to a future. Laughing at the oppression has helped Paul D achieve this emancipation, for Hopkins notes: same ton have tragic con. Joking fosters a leveling of the apparent omnipotence of the creation. When the exploiter is laughed at, he or she can be bett i nsciousn ‘as transpired— he could th Previously ty, Paul D pre sed laugh along with Sixa Confused about his iden- at ee ne | ie¥ Howors in the Dark appression andl ts absurd repercy ; wth from his former days of hehigawehinges 1s empowered beta aul Dis Later thus shgnifis that a certain nee neat a occurted in his thought and payche, Write liken calls for the oppressed to think they are free... Part oe Tobe ins irugale and participating in it demands a radical incites ) of the thought processes of those at the bottom of ack nO ofthe greatest chains with which oppression enslaves the crpreucauetia rain around the mind of the marginalized.” sine ‘American philosopher Kenneth Burke explains that a purpose of humor is to attain maximum consciousness, both of self and of others.” Humor enables us to grow in self-awareness, With his “humor” Paul D rancipates himself from the chains of the dominant consciousness, ce remarks, “For the slaves, their consciousness is defined by asters and rulers...» The victims of such attitudes have only two alternatives: Ms ed 1) to accept the oppressors’ value system and thus be contented with the nd set for them by others or 2) to find a completely new way of look- ve ing at reality that enables them to fight against oppression.” For Paul D, ve the lens of risibility enables him to construe another reality with a self- defined consciousness. Paul D's joking about the system that has turned the kind-hearted Sethe into a monster who would kill anyone white who entered her sphere of vision, including her own mailman, articulates a criticism against such a system. Previously, Paul D misdirected this critique and unwittingly appropriated the white consciousness by accusing Sethe of having “two feet not four,” the very same dehumanizing characteristic Schoolteacher | had ascribed to her. Once Paul D laughs and returns to Sethe, however, | we see that he has jettisoned his internalized perception of Sethe as ani- mallike in her murder, thereby abandoning the white consciousness. In the end, Sethe asks Paul D if he has come back to her to “count her feet”; Paul D replies, “Rub your feet” (272). With a laugh, Paul D takes his judgment and anger toward Sethe and redirects it toward white society. This redirection exactly parallels Sethe’s attempt to stab the white man rather than her own child the second time around, Henri Bergson argues that laughter is inversionary, that is, it trivializes or degrades “ideas and personages normally held to be lofty or noble, and the advancement of those normally consigned to an infe- tior or inconsequential position” While the dominant consciousness degrades Sethe, laughter turns this thought on its head. Paul D's laughter unmasks the system as absurd, as laughable.i, IME LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESStD 1" Jains, “Fendentious jokes are especialy favored , Cee eee abate ecantinnn posible AEAIDSt Peraang te Be ee clawm w-exervise authority, The Hk then ne.” key emitaons Mh « Pree ten CS a blow 2 hy hellion against that authority, a liberation from its rebellion oppression. It strik rrupts the «ystems of oppression, i i cchelling agaiia is absurdity: Mone Importantly, ype ® aint ame that enables him to return to then tbat, paul D trom his 0 rors wt Nan ed himself, he Io quote Levine, Paul D's unexpected joke illustrates the thie rie ¢ in African American humor: reustane Neal about forms of racial violence illustrate {that} humor ned. it 8 rebellious and signifies the victory of the ous wen to be hurt by the arrow of adversity and inst attempts to become impervious to the wounds dealt it by the out. side world, (In black humor]... the outer world was reduced to PYE™Y Proportions, the situation was dwarfed, and the joke-tellers and therr audiences were allowed to set aside, Or at least to, ‘Minimize, the pain and defeat imposed upon them by the external world» In short, Paul D’s laughter frees him for a future his OPPressors sought to deny him. In the end, Paul D finds genuine liberation, Baby Suggs experienced only Proleptically, Along the way to liberation and freedom, Paul D follows the “tree flowers” in order to fi North, Throughout the story, Morrison uses the t bolically represent the flourishing of this incongruous form of Protesting hope, which can lead to survival, Baby Suggs, for example, puts flowers Schoolteacher comes for Sethe: “She cut through : sis “herb of grace” and grace Bn of a protesti ' ishing. Sethe, at Sweet MUCH as Baby cot” SOW in the dark is irrational, impossible, Inthe midst of enero SUBBSS, Six, and Paul D's faith in liberation absu, a enslavement and hi 4. Sure both bet ind horr or is paradoxical, irrational, and able to many, However, the text tellsight ind ion ai EEN Gt = then ti ae Betoveats question ts 4 " hoo MELA, Denver ake ateh rere are” Atte Paul DS having tate et patito tron, returuas finally to Sethe and 24, tee eM twisted Theriot of late SUMMEE DOWER CLT) rene Ea wnty to beam, hwers” C120. thr mughout Theaan ey aerative anh tet testitles to the evistence of sy such flowers \ Hence Seven thou tully allneal into the light, When Paul 1 tau oe Tees isbevause he tedtisouvers the possibilty ata tite ets HO Sethe. a tuture, iu conclusion, Paul D. much like garni existence by alloca neat aul Rouges, eke the to remain in contlict and unresolved tenston ca ees bast teaRedy hope. In what we can interpret wea fe a with the narrative of future most poignant of the novel, Pal D asks te Sethe ase: Bethan the his Mory next to hers” 272). Laughter sis 7 he Permission to place one cannot reconcile the narratives af memory mat choven Pal 1 that need to do so in onder to survive, When Sethe ate nor does one her to-choose between Denverand hit —that inch ne eal D wants future narratives, Paul D responds, "Tin not ading seen not about choosing somebody over het—itk makine nae eee along with her” (45). Morrison, like Wiesel, seers eg enemcbody some horrors, no genuine answer is possible. Also like Wiech a she suggests that creating a space for the juxtaposition ofn ca i oe up the possibility of an in-spite-of future, reatlves opens What is possible, in other words, is Paul D8 proposal that Paul D and Sethe not only juxtapose their past and future narratives, but also that they juxtapose each of their respective narratives, one with another, Paul Dknows that the future, however hopeful, can never negate the past. But in contrast to Baby Suggs, he also affirms that the past should equally never negate the possibility of a future, “ ‘Sethe) he says, ‘me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody, We need some kind of tomorrow’ * (273). Paul D thus leaves us with a strange twist on Surin: love inten- tionally takes the disparate narratives of two people—narratives often in conflict and ravaged by contingency—and simultaneously affirms the identity and integrity of both, without prioritizing one over the other, Morrison's novel reminds us that where there is rupture and pain love can still create solidarity and beauty without negating ot denying rupture. Wiesel and Endo both share Morrison's implicit conclusion that a juxtaposition of narratives shares the burden of suffering, even if this suffering remains unredeemed and inexplicable, Endo writes that Rodrigues, who has juxtaposed his narrative with both Kichijito’s and ONTO LOIS Ot forte AUS ty Gan cause datniay aa . cgTHE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED 178 discovers that a “sense of suffering shared sofly eased hy Ch i es eae Similarly, Wiese a Te is doiie! Soivie one anawerss Ta alone too! A bey (ia barieen the (wo'abyases..... Weare alone, yes but inside yi is thrown re brothers.” In the end, all three authors redefine ¢8 soa reaico bakig thi joctapooes ancien pers however shattered arid broken, alorigside one’ oiwn and refuses to jg nn istian theology and ethics, as they struggle to make agape social justice rel in the real world of conflicting narratives, should heeg these insightful authors’ injunction to listen to one another, to affirm the integrity of other people’ narratives, and to place these parratives next to our own. The laughter of the oppressed cries hear us! Hear our storia Do we hear? hear Writes in mae love Ons narrative Notes 1. Lam grateful to Dr. James Cone, who pointed out to me this Significant quote from Malcolm X in Peter Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X (Urbana: University of linois Press, 1973), 24-25, 2. Quoted in Gurleen Grewal, Circles of Sorrow, Lines of Struggle: The Novels of Toni Morrison (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 98 3. Quoted in Grewal, Circles of Sorrow, 98, 4. Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution? in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 212, 213, 5. Dwight Hopkins and George Cummings, eds, Cut Loose Your Tongue: Black Theology in Slave Narratives 6. See Dwight Hopkins, Down, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000). 7. Hopkins and Cummings, Cut Loose, 41, 8. Hopkins, Down, Up and Over, 138, 9. See Delores Williams, Sisters of the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, Ny: Orbis, 1993), 10. Patrick Bascio, The Failure (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 67. 11. Henri Bergson, Laugh MacMillan, 1913), Stammering (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), 152. © and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology of White Theology: A Black Theological Perspective 13. 3. James Cone, 4 Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986), 12-13, TheSpirituals and the Blues (M4 ll, NY: Orbis i bes pepe aryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1972), 16, 33. lack Christ (Maryknoll, Ny: Orbis, 1994), 19,Nw - Flowers in the Dark larr v9 ote ni es cone, God of the Oppressed (Minneapolis Se vache, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 144, abury Press, 1975), 2,5 16. Jam Niel 1p. Tid 315. one, Black Theology of Liberation, 15, 19. 4 “atins, Black Feminist Thought, 5, 28, 31, Kally Brown Douglas, The Black Christ (Maryknoll, NY: Quoted in Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 26, 2. 43, Cone, Spirituals and the Blues, 90-91 24, Ibid. 5- 25, Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, ed. Mark 4 ion, ed. Mark | wallace, rans. David Pellauer (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985), 76, 82, , ae Tl Gun ed., Conversations with Toni Morrison (Jackson: Mississippi 27, Quoted in Bascio, Failure of White Theology, 120. 28, Surin, “Taking Suffering Seriously? 344, 29. Cone, Spirituals and the Blues, 135. 30. Ibid., 68. 31. Hopkins, Down, Up and Over, 2. 32. Ibid. 3. 33, Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), x-xi. 34. Quoted in Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 69, 34 35. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, If It Wasn't for the Women: Black Women's Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001), 144 36. Hopkins and Cummings, Cut Loose, 37. 37. Taylor-Guthrie, Conversations with Toni Morrison, 38. Cone, Spirituals and the Blues, 26. 39. Collins, Black Feminist Theology, 227. 40. Moltmann, Theology of Play, 14- 41. Susan Corey, “The Religious Dimensions of the Grotesave in Literature: Toni Morrison's Beloved? in The Grotesque in Art and Literature, edited by James Luther ‘Adams and William Yates (Grand Rapids: Berdmans, 1957), 28 42. Taylor-Guthrie, Conversations with Tort Morrison, 180. 43. Cone, Black Theology of Laie 1 a 44. Corey, “Religious Dimensions,’ 229, 232. 45. uated sa Morreal, Philosophy of ager on sti = 46. Quoted in Goldman, Death and Life of! x rico of Hope 47. Quoted in Major Jones, Black Awareness: 1971), 65. 48. Cone, Spirituals a 49. Collins, Black Feminist 50. Ibid. 126. (Nashville: Abingdon, ind the Blues, 21- + Theology: 68-180 THE LAUGHTER OF THE OPPRESSED “Nw SI. Ibid. Fie Wies states, “Ambiguity isthe name of our sickness of very Peay What are we looking for in life, in existe1 in history, in our own being? Fora Sy do away with ambiguity” See Cargas, In Conversation with Elie Wiese, © os Quoted in Douglas, Black Christ, 59 54. Cone, Black Theology of Liberation, 11 55. Quoted in ibid., 88. 56. bis Guthrie, Conversations with Toni Morrison, 19, 7. Cone, Spirituals and the Blues, 28. 58. Thid, 235 59. Cornel West, Prophesy Deliverance!: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), 152 0. Flie Wiesel, Four Hasidic Masters and Their Struggle with Melancholy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), 123. 61, Ekkehard Baptist Metz and Elie Wiesel Speak Out on the Holocaust, trans J. Matthew Ashley (Ney, York: Paulist Press, 1962), 95, 62. Quoted in Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999), 20, & Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 248-49, 4. Cone, God of the Oppressed, 13 85. Hopkins, Down, Up and Over, 256, 66. Quoted in ibid,, 271 £7. West, Prophesy Deliverance!, 151, (8. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 20-21, 69. Cone, Spirituals and the Blues, 24, 70. Hopkins, Down, Up and Over, 128, 71. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 136, 72. Taylor-Guthrie, Conversations with Toni Morrison, 241, 247, 73. tbid,, 175, 74. Lawrence W, Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Me 'Y Press, 1982), 72, Willi 1aMs, Sisters in the Wilderness, 76.Flowers in the Dark 3 st ne ch 0 eS Resistance : ‘West, Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence, sm aa te oe e and Ethics we ean Collins, Black Feminist Theology, 229. : Hopkins, Down, Up and Over, 255. gs, Ibid 246. s in Levine, Black Culture, 321. 7 Cone, God of the Oppressed, 33. & Quoted in Levine, Black Culture, 300. ® Freud, Jokes, 125. ”. Levine, Black Culture, 343. gl. Endo, Silence, 99. we Wiesel, Gates of the Forest (New York: Schocken, 1966), 177, 193.