The Savage Nature Of Slavery In Toni Morrison's Beloved

In the novel, Beloved, Morrison effectively illustrates, through Stamp Paid’s internal monologue, how the systematic savage nature of slavery swallows everyone it touches, turning them into “screaming baboons”, in turn dehumanizing them. Through the vivid description of a tangled jungle, growing and moving, slavery and its effects are compared to a place that is feared for its unpredictability. This fear is portrayed through dramatic sentence structure creating a sense of anxiety that is in itself an example of how the unknown and lack of knowledge create fear. Metaphorical invasion of the jungle from group to group not only reiterates the concept of an unavoidable fate, but emphasizes a sameness in fear where both parties harbour the same …show more content…
The jungle that Stamp Paid is referring to symbolizes the complex internal effect of the systematic brutality of slavery. It is described as a place that is to be feared, an unknown place with “swift, unnavigable waters”,” screaming baboons” and “sleeping snakes”. These descriptors all allude to things that are unknown, and for that reason, they are feared. Sleeping snakes that could strike at any time, screaming baboons that echo through the trees concealing their location, unnavigable waters that will leave you lost and alone. With this passage Morrison is emphasizing that the fear white people harbour for colored people is due to a lack of knowledge and understanding. It is a fear that, much like the fear people harbour for the jungle, consists of uncertainty and a sense of lack of control. Stamp is recognizing that White people fear the idea of losing control of their slaves as well as the effects of slavery as a whole: “so scared were they of the jungle they had made”. The symbol of the jungle as the internal effect of slavery is used to communicate how fear and the unknown explain the dehumanization of coloured …show more content…
This accentuates the idea that the effects of slavery touches everyone involved, even those who created it fear it. Moving the jungle around the passage, Morrison concludes with it residing within white people, “The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin”. By moving the jungle from group to group, Morrison is not only exaggerating its power, but she is demonstrating through her writing how quickly and dramatically it takes over its victims. This is prevalent through the shortened, quick and dramatic sentences adding suspense and urgency to the passage, “And it grew. It spread.” Use of comparison of people to screaming baboons highlights the true savagery of slavery and animalistic dehumanization of everyone it touches. In addition to comparison uses the repetition of the verb screaming and the descriptor of “red gums” when describing the baboons within both groups to reiterate the sameness of the fear they are experiencing. Both groups are experiencing fear of loss of control; slaves who have no say in how they are perceived, “they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned”, and white people who are recognizing and now fear a system that they cannot control “Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to