At the beginning of the novel, Toni Morrison establishes many modes to create a world. The narrator allows an interplay of voices at the beginning of the novel. Fragments of the past reveal Sethe and Paul who met after eighteen years. Then, Baby Suggs and Denver join the voices. The voices are filled with pain and suffering that we can’t visualize today. Mainly, the story takes place in two different regions: a farm where called Sweet Home in Kentucky and 124 Bluestone Road on the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio. In The Sweet Home, Morrison portrays rural slave life and in 124 Bluestone Road, she highlights the painful results of post-Civil War freedom.
Stylistically, the narrator interlinked the stories of Paul and Sethe into a paradigm of what it means to be a slave in the South part of America, especially for women. However, Morrison makes history integral to her novel. Her narration is based on a ground beat of historical detail. The details in the novel intensify the horror. For example; Baby Suggs’ eight children had six fathers and when slave women were sold, children were unvarnished suddenly. After the war, the southern part of the United States was filled with segregation, chaos, black human blood, and lynching. In other words, the South was “infected by the Klan”. Before the war hangings were common, and slaves were branded. For example; Sethe’s mother has a cross and circle burnt into her skin. Also, an iron bit was thrust into the mouth for days as punishment. For the black people, what happened before slaves got to America was just a memory. They did not remember their African past.
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The narrator creates a way to remember to past in the novel but the present has to be made alive and exciting. Therefore, the telling of the narrator doesn’t begin from a point that is fixed in time. So, it can be claimed that the narrator doesn’t use overused symbolism or too thin, too limited a point of view. Also, words are repeated, and phrases and images are used repeatedly to create and generate different meanings. So, it can be observable that the words repeated are simple but powerful. They are repeated to warn slaves not to make anything and to imply they have no future. Interlinked words, parts, and sections warn slaves about the lack of unitary self. In addition, the word “smile-smiling” seems like a simple word in the novel but it’s not. In the novel, the word “smile” resounds when Beloved emerges from the water smiling mysteriously to Denver. It gets more meaningful when Sethe connects the smile with her mother’s smile, and she realizes that her mother “had smiled when she did not smile” (Beloved, p. 203), and realizes further that it was the iron bit clamped on the tongue which had produced that smile. Also, during the storytelling of Paul D. to Sethe, his hatred focused on Mister, “the smiling boss of roosters” (Beloved, p. 109). In the third part of the novel, the word forms get loud and clear. Beloved smiles when she explodes out of existence and the memory of Sethe is “the little shadow of a smile”(Beloved, p 241). As seen, to smile means to know the horror of what it means to be a slave. It’s a statement of endurance.
In addition to those things, the narrator makes use of musical phrases together with chordal accompaniments to produce dissonance, assonance, and consonance. “Wear her out” (Beloved pp. 15) relates to Denver, who is always tired. Then, the phrase is applied to Stamp Paid because he feels bone tired, and toward the end; only then does he understand the marrow boredom that made Baby Suggs give up the struggle and get into bed to die. “Lay it all down” (Beloved pp. 182), she advises Sethe and Denver. She implies that it’s useless to fight, one cannot defend oneself. The phrase becomes a refrain and actually, it’s a conceding of the undefeatable ways of racism and injustice.
Images and metaphors of foods make stronger to this suffering stronger. “The stone had eaten the sun’s rays” (Beloved, p. 44). It’s a trick of style to emphasize the hunger of the slaves who were suffering. All food was decided and provided by masters and hunger was another aspect of slave life. For example; sugar was never provided and that’s why Sethe and Denver crave sweet things. The only thing that a slave woman provided her babies was her milk. That’s why she felt angry when the two white boys stole her milk. She was ready to eat everything that would stop her babies from starving, which was one reason she drove from Kentucky to Ohio. Milk was more than just food. Denver was sucking on a bloody nipple and took in Sethe’s milk with her sister's blood. Also, the baby sister never gets enough of Sethe’s milk and when she returns in Beloved form, she has a hungry face. The narrator says that Sethe “was licked, tasted eaten by Beloved’s eyes” (Beloved, p. 60). Beloved was hungry to hear Sethe talk and Sethe fed her with stories of the past which always hurt her to tell. In the novel, the narrator uses references, metaphors, and images of food and hunger. So, Morrison aims to reveal of the importance of food, sweet things, and understanding of the past to the readers. Furthermore, Morrison undermines the heaviness of situations by turning word shapes into word sounds. “ …No. No. Nonono” (Beloved, pp. 166); those drumbeats reveal Sethe’s fears of threats in a white world. Word sounds are like rhythmic steps of a dance: “A little two-step, two steps, make a new step, slide, slide and strut on down (Beloved pp. 77). Morrison implies that the listeners hear the repeated sounds of slaves making plans to escape. One of the things that takes the attention of Morrison’s style is a strange adjective that implies a black woman never has a “wedding” with a ceremony but only a coupling. She refers to Sethe’s “bedding” dress made up of pieces Sethe put together. Two pillowcases, a dresser scarf, an old sash, mosquito netting. The word “bedding” actually implies black women’s marriage and it demonstrates how black women are excluded from womanhood. Also, Toni Morrison has a narrator who uses a technique that gathers the subjects around her central character Sethe. All the stories of Sethe, Paul D, Baby Suggs, Stump Paid, Denver, and Beloved have their chronologies fractured and those pieces turn into stories in one form. They are like a puzzle and they cannot be separated. Their love for each other makes their story. In the story, Baby Suggs represents the stories of the old generation and Denver represents the future generation. The narrator begins with Sethe. Sethe has accepted her situation. She is isolated from the Bluestone community and she’s under the influence of her horrific past. She needs healing. In this regard, Paul D. and Beloved enter her life, and the process of healing begins. She understands the importance of love and community. On the other hand, the birth of Denver and the killing of her third child make harder her life. In the novel, the parts that her escaping from slavery and Denver’s birth don’t release with full meanings. Morrison involves delay, repetition, and limited information in her novel. Sethe mentions “that girl looking for velvet” (Beloved. p 11) to Paul D. Later, her name is revealed as Amy. It’s a clue to Morrison’s stylistic narration. In Old French, the name Amy means Beloved. Morrison gives hints through the words of Amy; “anything dead coming back to life hurts” (Beloved pp. 38) and “Nothing can heal without pain” (Beloved pp.78). So story is based on dialogue and narration. Those dialogues make a sensation on readers and readers can observe implications from African beliefs and Christian sources through those narrations. Additionally, in the novel, hubris can be noticed. Baby Suggs knew that she had been guilty on the day of the celebration. It explains why she could smell the disapproval of the community the next day. Sethe is also guilty of arrogantly isolating herself and not going to the community for help even after the Baby Suggs. After the funeral, there was also no union. Sethe didn’t eat their food and they would not eat what she provided. Also, listeners can tell that the end is near in the novel through tantalizing pauses, breaks in narrative switches, and cross-telling.
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