Settings as Symbols

Toni Morrison, in her novel Beloved, seeks to bring back a horrifying story filled with significant history from a time when slavery was just legally abolished, but much of its effects still lived on through the treatment of African Americans, as well as the lingering psychological consequences of the oppression of slavery. The author skillfully represents much of the historical context through the successful development of historical and physical settings presented in the novel, attempting to bring the reader back to the time of 1873.

Sweet Home is a setting that is used in the beginning of many chapters. Sometimes Sweet Home is "spiteful" (3), other times it is "loud" (199) or "quiet" (281). Morrison immediately uses the setting to develop the ensuring plot. When Sweet Home is spiteful, the ghost of the dead baby rages in spite, “full of baby venom.” But later on, the ghost turns into the form of Beloved, as she gains more power. Much of the story surrounds itself around the house where Sethe now lives in, and the plot evolves the mood of the home. The setting of the house in many ways represents the inner psychological state of Sethe and her family.

            Morrison adheres to the basic outline of the story of Margaret Garner, the historical figure whom this story is based upon. She develops historical setting with this. She is a mother who murdered her own child to save her from the plights of slavery. Sethe is the mirrored character in the novel. With slavery being a central theme in the novel, Morrison constructs the setting of the plantations very well. She notes the beautiful trees of Sweet Home, which masks the true terror that she actually experienced there. Denver’s “emerald closet” of boxwood bushes ameliorates Sethe’s past, at least temporarily. Denver also describes the scars on Sethe’s back as a “chokecherry” tree, as she turns horrifying memories into one of growth and regeneration. Trees are used as a major theme in the novel to represent healing.

            But trees are also used in another tone. Stamp Paid says near the beginning of Part Two “White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. . .  But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place. . . . It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread . . . until it invaded the whites who had made it. . . . Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made” (199). This helps set the horror of slavery during the time, and the feeling that the existence of slavery makes both the enslaved and the masters lose humanity.

            Throughout the novel, Morrison successfully uses setting to establish psychological and historical themes in her novel. I can use this technique in my own work to more fully develop the setting of places. I can use these places, allusions to historical places, or even simple things such as houses, streets, trees and turn them into symbols of something else. The trees are symbols of healing and reflection. Sweet Home is a memory of slavery. 124 symbolizes the internal state of Sethe. I never thought of setting as a potentially powerful symbol, but Morrison uses it well in Beloved.