« Beloved » : A Question Of Identity

Author(s): Christina DAVIS

Source: Présence Africaine , 1er TRIMESTRE 1988, Nouvelle série, No. 145 (1er
TRIMESTRE 1988), pp. 151-156
Published by: Présence Africaine Editions

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24351592

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Présence Africaine

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Christina DA VIS

« Beloved » : A Question Of Identity

Beloved, Toni Morrison's fifth novel, began with a newspaper

item dating from the 1850's. Sethe, mother of the child called
Beloved — actually existed : through her life we partake in the
deepest experiences of an individual, a woman considered a cipher
— slightly human, mostly animal — by her « owners » and the
society she lived in.
By now the horrifying statistics of slavery are well known.
Tales have come from Africa of the forced removal of stunned
and betrayed men and women. Descriptions of the bestial cir
cumstances of the crossing abound as do those of the slave blocks
and the conditions of work and living imposed by force on inno
cent victims. But, up until now, not much has been said about
what it felt like in the much-denied heart of the human being
summarily dismissed under the term slave. Morrison's accomplish
ment is not only to have taken the individual out of the mass of
statistics, but also to have displaced the tone of the prose from
the third person into the first. Although her novel is not, techni
cally speaking, narrated by an « I » for the most part, what she
has done is give her slave woman protagonist a voice (Sethe
speaks in the first person primarily when relating episodes of her
life to her two daughters, Beloved and the younger Denver). And,
with Morrison's consummate gift of expression, that voice is
clear, its pain full of anguish, its beauty unbearable, its truth
stunning.
Sethe is thirteen years old when she is sold to the owner of the
« Sweet Home » plantation where she is to work as a household
help. She has barely known her own mother and has never seen
the likeness of her own face. Who has stopped to record or even
consider the self-image of a slave ? Yet, reflection is not only
proper to Sethe's age but most particularly so in a situation where
family structures, traditional and cultural links — those which
create identity — have been destroyed and replaced by forms of
identification — places, rôles, words, even names — imposed by
the institution of slavery and its economic organization.
Mrs Garner, mistress of Sweet Home, works alongside Sethe
and is, comparatively speaking, not unkind to her. Sethe has
heard her speak of her days-long wedding : two pounds of cur

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 152 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

rants in the cake, a gown and all that. But when she herself
decides to marry one of the men on the plantation, there is no
wedding, no ceremony, no special meal. « I thought there should
be something — something to say it was right and true », Sethe
tells her daughters many years later but, under slavery, no such
sentiments, no such sacraments apply to her. But Sethe cannot see
herself in this way and so she creates her own ways of consecrat
ing her marriage.
Similarly, she takes little bunches of flowers or herbs along
with her into the kitchen, thus appropriating for herself the place
where she is to work. She wants to love the work she does — it is
her work even if it is literally slave labor — wants to be able to
be pround of the fine ink she can make, wants to « take the ugly
out » in any way she can.
But when she has her babies, she is confronted once again
with the unnaturalness of her situation : there is no older woman
around to answer her questions about the right time to start feed
ing her children solid food, to help her devise methods of keep
ing them out of danger while she works. After her son has
climbed up onto the well, she ties a rope around his ankle : « I
didn't like the look of it, but I didn't know what else to do. It's
hard, you know what I mean ? by yourself and no woman to help
you get through ».
Halle, Sethe's husband, has bought with extra days of work
the freedom of his mother, Baby Suggs, who leaves Sweet Home.
On her way to freedom, she asks her former owner why he has
always called her Jenny Whitlow :

« Mr Garner », she said, « why you all call me

Jenny ? ».
« Cause that what's on your sales ticket, gal. Ain't that
your name ? What you call yourself ? ».
« Nothing », she said. « I don't call myself nothing ».
Mr Garner went red with laughter. « When I took you
out of Carolina, Whitlow called you Jenny and Jenny Whit
low is what his bill said. Didn't he call you Jenny ? ».
« No, sir. If he did I didn't hear it ».
« What did you answer to ? ».
« Anything, but Suggs is what my husband name ».
« You got married, Jenny ? I didn't know it ».
« Manner of speaking ».
« You know where he is, this husband ? ».
« No, sir ».
« Is that Halle's daddy ? ».
« No, sir ».

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
« BELOVED » : A QUESTION OF IDENTITY ' 153

« Why you call him Suggs, then ? His bill of sale

low too, just like yours ».
« Suggs is my name, sir. From my husband. He didn
Jenny ».
« What he call you ? ».
« Baby ».
« Well », said Mr Garner, going pink again, « if I was you I'd
stick to Jenny Whitlow. Mrs Baby Suggs ain 't no name for a
freed Negro ».

What counts for Garner, as far as Baby, Sethe or any other of

« his » slaves are concerned, is the names on the bills of sale, the
identities which spring from the functioning of slavery as well as
what he considers as appropriate for a « freed Negro », by direct
ing and organizing even the freedom of that person. What consti
tutes naming for Baby Suggs is the unembarrassed reflection of
herself in the eyes of the man she loved, as well as the name
which would allow him to find her again as she believes he will
try to do. Over and over again in the novel the white people, by
no means stereotyped allegories of evil, are nevertheless incapable
of seeing that there is another point of view ; incapable (as are
many still today) of allowing of any such difference. But Baby,
like Sethe and her wedding, sticks to her own name. She wonders
if she can sing and if she is pretty : « If my mother knew me
would she like me ? ».
Paul D, one of the male slaves at Sweet Home, asks : « Am I
really a man ? ». Garner prides himself on calling his slaves
« men » and not « boys » (like the other slave owners) but for
Paul this is not sufficient proof. And outside of the plantation
system, what would constitute that proof ? « Am I a man ? ». In
this novel the question comes from within the personage ; its
implications are staggering.
*

* *

Sethe eventually leaves Sweet Home and walks, fr

to Ohio, to her freedom. She goes to join the ch
sent on ahead to Baby Suggs, two boys and a baby
nursing. Driven by her hatred of what she has l
needing to get her milk to her baby, Sethe makes t
months' pregnant ; her second daughter, Denver
the way. These children are Sethe's « best thing
them, and so she will go to any length to prote
when the new plantation owner comes to recla
revolts and tragedy strikes.

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 154 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

This episode, central to the

in Souleymane Cissé's recent movie, Yeelen, where mention is
made by a Bambara wise man of the period of slavery : « that
was a time when mothers threw their babies away in order to save
their lives ». Consciously or unconsciously, Sethe has perpetuated
this practice in the same context in the New World.
Judgement is passed by the white judiciary, by the black com
munity and by Paul D when he hears the story many years later.
Morrison, however, does not pass judgement herself : she simply
ensures that Sethe's voice (and that of the others in the novel,
especially the women) is strong enough to tell her own story.
Morrison gives the baby girl who loses her life a voice as well,
a voice with which to express her anger at abandonment, her
infant's unlimited longing for her mother's smile. Her devouring
need for loving and its various manifestations are a pivotal part
of the narration. Beloved reappears on the scene to stake her
claim but, in the end, « although she has claim, she is not
claimed... Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody
anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for,
she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if
they were, how can they call her if they don't know her
name ? ».

The third major voice in the book is that of Denver. It is to

her that Sethe tells many of her tales, particularly that of Den
ver's own birth. Denver in turn tells them to Beloved. Baby
Suggs, Denver's grandmother, will talk about things that Sethe
will not. From her, Denver gains understanding and strength (the
transmission from woman to woman of wisdom is a theme which
runs all through Morrison's work). Like her father, Denver reach
es out for the only possibility of obtaining education she can find.
Intimate with her sister both before and after her reappear
ance, she counts on Beloved to keep her company and wait with
her for their father to break loose to freedom like Sethe has.
Thus she is able, supported in all these ways, to take events
into her own hands. As the elements of tragedy gather once
again, history is repeated but with a different ending. The story
which turned on desperation and impotence is now fashioned by
self-understanding and a composite new strength. Denver is able
to share her empowerment with her mother. Paul D finds in Sethe
the answer to all his questions, and thus her final victory is recup
eration of her own identity.

♦ *

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
« BELOVED » : A QUESTION OF IDENTITY 155

The « dedication » of Beloved reads simply : « Sixty mi

more ». Through Morrison's art, each one of those sixty m
more now has a voice and, through that voice, human iden
The writing is full of suspense and tension : so strong it f
not in the head but in the gut, concentrated and then, su
lyrical it reads like poetry in prose. Major events are reve
their consequences are known and revelations or explanat
slowly as the reader participates in the agonizing act of
memory so painful that it is, at times, unbearable as a rea
ience. Beloved is not so much a tale told as the progressiv
and discovery of an old, deep wound in the attempt to set
the healing process. At the beginning of the novel, Sethe
pletely in relation to the past : « To Sethe, the future wa
of keeping the past at bay. The "better life" she believed
Denver were living was simply not that other one ».
But, at the very end, Paul puts that past into positive
perspective : « Sethe », he says, « me and you, we got more yes
terday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow ».
*

* *

In the brief closing passage of the novel co

« this is not a story to pass on ». Yet Morrison
Cissé's film, has, of necessity, passed it on :
tion of the history of black people in the coun
paramount in its importance » she says in the p
The voices she has lent to her enslaved characte
their own history as human beings and remind
is the truer one, that we must imperatively lis
until they have drowned out all those which ju
wildly perverse terms, the slavery of the past a
the present. In Beloved, Toni Morrison tran
which is necessary to our human survival.
Moreover, her range of sources, her mastery
speaks through, her total familiarity with her
capacity to shift and mesh perspectives, are
last chapters, Sethe and her two daughters f
first person. Each narrates a brief section as an
vidual voice. There follows a dialog between
mother and another between the two sisters. Fin
er and give us a short polyphonic piece don
voices. This part of the book constitutes the sy
interaction among the three women and their s
from this moment on, they will move toward a
implies a positive individuality.
This also represents the apotheosis of the aut

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
156 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

discreetly steps away from t

speak for themselves. The fac
them loudly and clearly give
plishment of this extraordinary

Christina DA VIS,
A fro-American writer.

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.103 on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:32:35 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms