The Symbolism Of Irony In Toni Morrison's

Improved Essays
p 6 There is some irony here because so far Grandma Baby is the oldest figure in the book, yet her name is baby. what is morrison trying to get at with this irony?

p 14. Morrison uses this passage for character development in sethe. In some aspects she is a brutal, harsh woman. However, know that she is barefoot she is seen as flirty and girly.

p 20 What is this symbol of her milk? Morrison deliberately repeats the phrase "and they took my milk." Does this symbol connect to a larger idea? Did they take a piece of her?

p 27 It's strange how after she has sex with him, Sethe views him in a totally new way. She is likely regretting her decision after all her husband could be alive

p 33 Silk seems to be a symbol here. The silk is loose and free. She describes the silk like the moment she was in, she finally felt free.

p 45 Denver is describing the
…show more content…
Morrison uses this allusion because in the bible they came at the end of the world; and in this chapter the world seems to be ending for Sethe

p 180 Morrison uses this chapter to show one of the main motifs is in this novel: mother's love. Sethe would rather kill her own child than give it up for slavery. This also shows the extreme cruelty of slavery. Morrison emphasizes the harsh realities of the enslaved.

p 194 Morrison's diction choices when Paul D says that Sethe has "two feet..not four" shows how animal-like Sethe acted when she tried to kill all of her kids. Morrison also chooses to have Paul D say this because Paul D has never had the kind of love Sethe did for her kids, so he won't be able to understand.

p 207 Baby suggs advice that she gives Sethe likely means that she needs to move on and forget the past. MOrrison puts emphasis on the idea that in life you get a short bliss of pure happiness and then a really long time of misery. This seems like Sethe's life and possibly

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    This young girl was forced to become a responsible wife and mother without knowledge of what she want or who she want to be in life. The author portrayed as afraid and fragile but not afraid to die, I don’t believe that was what was,she was a scornful demeanor, ,but intrigant and lost person. She hid behind corners only coming out to leave food and poems as it that would fill the void that she left in the marriage. The son was in my opinion Goldwin used the son as an instrument to evoke emotion out of the mother and for the father, yet ignorant. The time he showed ignorance was when he took easy to the fact that his father basically replaced his mother’s role in his life with a young vibrant girl.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    To Sethe, the only way to keep living and keep moving forward is to make sure her present life as a single mother has no correlation with her “other life.” She considers her life with Denver as her “better life,” and she wants to protect Denver from the things she experienced years prior to living where they live now. Paul D. is from “that other one,” which can be interpreted as her former life as a slave. Him entering Sethe’s life wasn’t completely positive at first, seeing as though her main struggle was to keep her two lives separate from each other, but eventually she becomes content with the idea of Paul D. taking up permanent residency in her household. Trying to balance her relationship with a man from her past life as a slave all the while still trying to shelter her daughter from said life places a huge burden on Sethe’s shoulders.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Past trauma is not easily forgotten because of its need to be acknowledged and accepted. The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison explores the killing and haunting happening in 124. Sethe, Denver, and Paul D deal with the consequences of eliminating the presence for it only to be replaced by a physical presence of the same person, Beloved, as it seems. Although Beloved only comes into contact with three people, her presence affects the entire town, prompting them to examine how slavery affected them and how they dealt with it. Only as the story progresses can other characters begin to comprehend the reasons that led Sethe to murder her baby.…

    • 1770 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Major Essay Two: Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” In Toni Morrison’s only short story “Recitatif”, Morrison writes about race, sympathy, and stereotype through two main characters Roberta and Twyla. There is another character Maggie, who is disabled, but she seems to be a go-between. Throughout the story, there are questions about the race of each character. One girl is black and one girl is white.…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Song of Solomon is a richly textured novel in which Toni Morrison uses poetic language as well as a variety of literary devices to ultimately make her novel unique and with a certain level of depth. The passage above is particularly interesting because it incorporates many of the literary devices that Morrison uses such as metaphors, similes, oxymoron, allusions, and a variety of imageries. The excerpt also reveals Macon Dead’s personality through the other characters and his role in the household. This type of narrative, where the characters are discovered mainly through the other characters, is consistent throughout the whole novel. Ruth's character, for example, was shown to be isolated from the black community and thought of as a wanna-be white women from the appearance of the others and their actions during Mr. Smith’s suicide leap.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison emphasizes the need for community in order for a society to evolve and move forward from a difficult history. It is impossible for the community to evolve, sustain, and survive without its members working continuously in a structured formation in which the members support each other. In the novel, the absence of support from their community poses a significant challenge for the characters to progress from the haunting memories of slavery. This absence results in the lack of self-affirmation, isolation, and makes it impossible for the characters to develop their own independent identity. The cohesion of the African American community of Cincinnati functions as a foundation for the characters to develop a true…

    • 1773 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Defining a “great” poet/lyricist, as compared to just “good”, requires one to not just examine their work, but to feel it as well. Words put together that move someone in an emotional way are far more elegant, and signaling of “greatness” than those selected to appear pretty. A lyricist, as well as musician, that comes to mind would be John Denver; whose work is exactly the type to make emotions sway. It’s easy to distinguish how Denver’s folk songs were written from his very heart to describe sights, places, or people near and dear to him. The effect being, the reader, or listener, is immersed as if they are witnessing what is happening in the work from a first person view.…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The novel Beloved, written by Toni Morrison, follows the lives of those who survived the horrors of slavery and how these experiences affect their decisions/actions in the future. Each character faced different types of mistreatment due to slavery, whether it was mentally or physically, that caused a significant impact to their lives. All these mistreatments the characters had to face had caused them to act a certain way in the future. Morrison would use multiple literary device in each character to show what each character had to face when they were slaves and that would allow the character to think their action in the future was justifiable weather it was morally right or if it was morally wrong. Throughout the book, multiple literary devices…

    • 1487 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Beloved, the supposed reincarnation of her slain daughter, appears on her doorstep, Sethe becomes a slave to her subconscious. Seeing what she presumes to be her daughter, all of the memories she wished to repress and move on from are unlocked, because previously, "To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay” (42). With the coming of the ghost of her lost daughter, Sethe’s desire metamorphosizes from emotional to material. She begins to buy luxury fabrics, foods, etc. in order to satisfy Beloved’s intense desire for anything material.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The myth of rebirth is prevalent in agricultural societies from Africa to Asia based on the observation of the cycle of growth. But Pecola’s story is a deviation of this myth since she does not encounter a renewal but deterioration. While remaining unfocused, Morrison’s music moves from the mourner’s bench to a ‘jook’ joint and then to an uptown club in the city. But her central focus is the Black community.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sethe Change In Beloved

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Literary Analysis: Beloved Sethe's appearance changes in various ways throughout the book. Her appearance reflects her state of mind. Sethe is described in different ways as the storyline moves along. First, it starts with Sethe's life as a slave at Sweet Home. Then, her appearance, and mind-set changes with events occurring at 124 Bluestone.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, one of the main characters, Sethe, is faced with a difficult decision. Should she kill her children or allow them to possibly live a terrible life? Well some might argue that what sethe did was wrong, but there are many reasons to believe that Sethe was right to kill her children. Sethe's decision to kill her children was the right choice because keeping them alive would have lead to possible enslavement, lack of community, and no sense of self.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    This essay will be discussing how the motif of sacrifice is used by Toni Morrison throughout her novel Sula (1974), namely the sacrifice of motherhood. Sacrifice is found in different forms in Sula; physically through self-mutilation, murder or suicide and also the emotional sacrifice of love. This sacrifice of love is shown primarily through the mothers in the story, through what they have had to give up to keep their children alive.…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Dehumanization In Beloved

    • 2093 Words
    • 9 Pages

    How does the past events in one’s life affect him/herself and his/her actions? In the novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison, the protagonist, Sethe, is forced to undergo a scarring experience from the events that occurred while being enslaved. After being sent to Sweet Home, the feeling of oppression and abuse from the violent and destructive acts affects Sethe to the point where she ends up making an irreversible decision. Morrison uses Sethe’s act in murdering her child and the effects of that event to reveal how one must confront and come to terms with the past in order to be free from its trauma. Having experienced the violence of slavery, Sethe makes a grave choice which resulted in the death of her own child.…

    • 2093 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays