Truth in Timbre: Morrison's Extension of Slave Narrative Song in Beloved

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Peter J. Capuano University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected]

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Capuano, Peter J., "Truth in Timbre: Morrison's Extension of Slave Narrative Song in Beloved" (2003). Faculty Publications -- Department of English. 87. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs/87

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His voice was faint.A rustleof leaves. Then Reb lifted his head and began to croon in a tongue incomprehensibleto me. Anothermourner began to sing. Then another.The sound swelled, expanded,ate space, filled the woods like a splash of Peter J. Capuano is a wind, blended with the air, turnedand touchedoff, one by one, the differentvoic- PresidentialFellow in the es of the others,then Reb sang louder-or, better,bellowed like a steer.Abruptly, Universityof Virginia'sdoctor- they stopped, my own face was hot and thick,the tearsflew back into my nose al programfor English when I sniffled and burnedmy throat.It was then, as Reb drove home the first Languageand Literature. His nail to seal his son's casket,as I felt the sound of metal ring on metal in the deep- researchconcentraton is the est coils of my ears, that a voice behind me, toadlike,said: nineteenth-centurynovel. "At least he was spared the mines, eh, Andrew?"(Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale)

In her 1987 novel Beloved,Toni Morrisonacknowledges and even borrows from FrederickDouglass's 1845Narrative, but she also makes a resolute breakfrom its rhetoricaland political objectives.Historical differences between the audiences of Douglass and Morrisonaccount for a large part of their contrast- ing styles, particularlyin their treatmentof slave song. Since Douglass composed his Narrativeas a fugitive slave in the early 1840s,he was aware of his principallywhite audience and also of his precarioustask of presenting an attacknot on white America, but on the institutionof slavery itself. Douglass's judicious decision to report the bleakness of slavery with austerityof tone allows him to present this attacksuccessfully. He relies heavily on factual evidence, ratherthan on the tremendouslyemotional slave songs, to present the most appalling scenes of brutality endured by the slaves in his narrative. This shrewd emphasis on the factualenables Douglass to navigate between the specific facts and the general nature of slavery in a way that informs ratherthan offends his audience. In 1845 Douglass could not afford to focus repeatedlyon the "ineffa- ble sadness" of slave songs or on the songs' reflectionof "souls boiling over with the bitterestanguish," even though he reports early in the Narrativethat "everytone [is] a testimony against slavery" (58). As readers,we learn the importanceof slave song at the outset, but we learn far more about the exact number of Colonel Lloyd's slaves, horses, and plantationacreage throughout the remainderof the narrative.We come to know the exact assignments involved in Edward Covey's wheat-fanningopera- tion with a precision that leaves us unsatisfied with the important but brief descriptionof the songs reverberatingthrough the pinewoods of the GreatHouse Farmat the outset of the narrative. Despite this, Douglass's task of uncovering the truth of slavery's brutalitywithout mitigating that truth with indignant protesta- tions has proven to be at once inhibitingand fecund. The aware-

African American Review, Volume 37, Number 1 0 2003 Peter J. Capuanoau ness of this predicament limits his "personhood" in a world where slave treatment of slave song in the 1845 humanity is constantly challenged and Narrative, but it also creates a colossal denied. Morrison's treatment of song paradigm of song's importance for in Belovedprovides the reader with a many contemporary authors such as testimony that is significantly different Toni Morrison and Charles Johnson, from the testimonies set forth in the who explore similar topics. slave narratives. Morrison's testimony Morrison's Belovedresponds delib- does not end with the establishment of erately and exhaustively to the descrip- slavery's barbarity; it chronicles her tion of slave song that appears at the characters' endurance and ability to outset of Douglass's 1845 Narrative. survive during and after these periods The fact that Morrison is not inhibited of physical brutality and psychological by the pressing need to abolish slavery abuse. The principal characters of the allows her to explore the specificity of novel-Sethe, Paul D, and Sixo-all the slave songs to a degree that associate song with their humanity and Douglass simply could not risk in 1845. use it as a shield against indignity and The essential goal of Douglass's despair. In this way, Morrison relies on Narrative in 1845 was to inform what the rubric of the "sorrow songs" from William Lloyd Garrison dubbed a Frederick Douglass's 1845 Narrative in "stubbornly incredulous" white audi- Belovedto challenge a contemporary ence of slavery's politically sanctioned audience to recognize slave humanity barbarity (40). Since Morrison is not beyond the simple (but no less impor- inhibited by the socio-political exigen- tant) acknowledgment of slavery's bru- cies taken on by Douglass, she is free to tality. focus more on song as a point of access Often in Beloved,when characters into the reverberating effects of slav- cannot read or write or even talk about ery's horrors -the same horrors that the brutality they experience as slaves, Douglass relates to his readers with a they sing to affirm their participation conspicuous deficit of emotion. The in life and defend their status as project of Morrison's novel is to regis- human beings. Song offers slaves the ter and index the vital relationship opportunity to express their personal between the "personhood" of African testimonies while remaining within the Americans and the specific songs of framework of their larger cultural former slaves. This is to say that the experiences-all without actually original description of slave song in speaking of their shame and trauma. Douglass, looming in the background Although Nellie McKay does not of Morrison's novel, shapes her han- specifically identify song as a response dling of music and song, her insistence to the silencing of slave stories in the on its signal importance as an indicator introduction to her Belovedcasebook, of human status in Beloved. she acknowledges the need for an Morrison's consistent but subtle alternate slave "voice:" "So grotesque use of song takes the reader beyond the were many [slave] experiences, and so horrifying facts of Douglass's narrative vulnerable did they feel, that for them and into the more profoundly emotion- the act of remembering was risky, al turmoil of a post-emancipation com- shameful, and dangerous" (10). Song munity. Morrison reverses the tradi- fulfills the need for what McKay calls tional slave narrative format and an "alternate voice." The slaves of expands the scope of the reader's com- Beloveddefend their personhood and prehension by investigating a crime revive their endurance when it is chal- committed by the oppressedrather than lenged and violated by "mossy teeth," by the oppressor. Through her explo- numerical measurements, and leg ration of the black experience within irons. For these reasons, it is fitting that slavery and beyond, Morrison shows Sethe characterizes Paul D, a man who how song defines and affirms slave endures enormous physical and psy-

96 AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW chological abuse, as a "singingman" at but never identifies the role of song in the outset of the novel (39;italics what he calls a "musicalnarrative" mine). (56). Likewise, MarilynMobley notes how Belovedemploys "the trope of memory"to make the slave experience more "accessible"to contemporary raditionally,critics have either readers (357).She does not analyze, . ignored song as a legitimate vehi- though, the crucialrole that song plays cle for establishing slave humanity or in the characters'recollection of these have limited their appraisalof song. horrifyingmemories. Mobley makes a MargaretAtwood notes how the theme brief and oblique analysis of song as of "tyrannicalprice" runs through she mentions the way the fragmented Belovedbut stops short of offering stories of each character"illustrate the analysis of how slaves combat this call and response pattern of the tyranny with song and re-establish African-Americanoral tradition,"but their humanity by singing about life she misses an opportunityto investi- (49). The slaves of Belovedhave their gate the significanceof these particular humanity stripped from them through- slave songs, offering as they do a dis- out the novel, as cold statisticianslike tinctive culturalvoice to the African- Schoolteacherattempt to calculateand Americanoral tradition.With record their "animal"tendencies above Morrison'sBeloved, we hear the spoken and beyond their "human"characteris- stories of Paul D, Sixo, Baby Suggs, and tics. In one such instance,Paul D learns Sethe, and we are also aware of their "the dollar value of his weight, his songs that bear witness to the unspeak- strength,his heart, his brain,his penis, ablehorrors of slavery-those experi- and his future"but responds by ences whose shame transcendseven singing of the "bosses and masters and the spoken word. misses; of mules and dogs and the WhereasDouglass cites the impor- shamelessness of life" in order to con- tance of slave song for the first and last firm his humanity in the face of time at the end of his narrative'ssec- Schoolteacher'sdehumanizing "value" ond chapter,Morrison establishes song equations (226, 108). as imperativeto her characters'sur- RobertO'Meally speaks at length vival during nearly every chapterof of how Douglass's Narrativeuses many Beloved.She includes the ability to sing "blacksermonic devices to preparethe among the barest and most rudimenta- reader for [its] spiritualmessage," but ry essentials of human existence early fails to include song among the many in the novel. At the house on Bluestone "oratoricaltechniques" employed by Road, if Paul D could "walk, eat, sleep, Douglass (196, 201). Ironically, [and] sing," he could survive and O'Meallyconcerns himself with the "askedfor no more" (41). Morrison Narrative'ssermonic quality and its also has Paul D sing while he mends relation to the black churchwhile over- "thingshe had broken the day before," looking the fact that slave songs were in an effort to reconstructhis life after "a testimony againstslavery, and a physical and emotional trials have prayer to God for deliverancefrom shatteredhis identity at prison camp in chains"(Douglass 58; italics mine). Alfred, Georgia.Morrison emphasizes Ashraf Rushdy, in his article the importanceof singing to Paul D's "DaughtersSignifyin(g) History," uses survival through her repeated Henry Louis Gates's definition of the acknowledgmentat the outset of the "speakerlytext" to situate Belovedin novel that his songs "were too loud the African-Americanliterary tradition. [and] had too much power for the little Rushdy argues that Beloved'snarrative house chores he was engaged in" (40). structuretakes on "a dialogic form that In reality,Paul D's songs help him to is akin to music or black preaching" reconstructthe broken pieces of his

TRUTHIN TIMBRE: MORRISON'S EXTENSION OF SLAVENARRATIVE SONG IN BELOVED 97 past life in Georgia more than to reset ing the lines of the songs he sings at and glaze the table at 124 Bluestone 124, Paul D establishesthe autonomy Road. of his particularexperience while The songs that Paul D sings upon affirminghis participationin and his his arrivalat Sethe's house solidify enduranceof the institution of slavery. both his autonomous and his collective It is interestingto note that, as her participationin the black experienceof characterPaul D accomplishesthis, slavery. On the individual level, Paul D Morrisonaliens Belovedwithin a tradi- "/change[s]the words," tion larger (and more "throwing in a line if Beloved's victims important) than its one occur[s] to him" to use song to Pulitzer Prize scope: the establish an element of troping of song in personal testimony in reclaim and affirm American slave narra- the song (40). In this their personhood tives. The specificity of crucial depiction of Paul D's songs later in Paul D's singing, in an aggressively Beloved,though, exposes a Morrison actually inhuman world. primary difference invokes the para- between Morrison and digm of song establishedby Frederick Douglass. Douglass establishes the cru- Douglass at the end of his narrative's cial relationshipbetween slaves and second chapter: their songs, but Morrisonprobes deep- The slaves selected to go to the er into the specifics of this relationship. Great House Farm, for the monthly The crypticnature of Paul D's allowance for themselves and their fel- characterprovides a particularlyappo- low-slaves, were peculiarly enthusias- site site for Morrisonto begin the tic. While on their way, they would process of extending Douglass's para- make the dense old woods, for many digm. Paul D's most gruesome experi- miles around, reverberate with their ence occurs while under the supervi- wild songs, revealingat once the high- sion of Schoolteacherat Sweet Home, est joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went after Mr. Garner'sdeath. Because of along, consulting neither time nor Schoolteacher'sempirical (but no less tune. The thought that came up, came brutal)division of "slaves"and out-if not in the word, in the "humans,"and because he announces sound;-and as frequentlyin one as in himself "with a coach full of paper"to the other. They would sometimes sing recordthese discrepancies,Rafael the most pathetic sentiment in the Perez-Torresaccurately suggests that most rapturoustone, and the most rap- turous sentiment in the most pathetic Schoolteacher"becomes the speaking tone. Into all of their songs they would subjectof slavery's discourse"(186). manage to weave something of the Paul D's dehumanizing experience Great House Farm.... They would with Schoolteacheris so physically and sing, as a chorus, to words which to psychologicallygrueling that he has many would seem unmeaning jargon, "nevertalked about it" and never "told but which, nevertheless, were full of a soul" (71). In one of the most solemn meaningto themselves.(57) episodes of the novel, Paul D confides In this way, slaves could bring their to Sethe that he could never speak to singular experiencesto a song without anyone about having his "tongue held relationto anyone else. On the other down by iron"while looking at the hand, song allows the slaves an oppor- roosterswho had more freedom "to be tunity to participatein the largerhisto- and stay" than he (71-72).Nellie ry of the black experienceof shame, McKaycharacterizes Paul D's dilemma suffering,and endurance.If the as the "wish to forget and the necessity thought did not come out in Paul D's to remember,"but she stops short of individual word, it came out in the identifying song as a vehicle for Paul D tone of the song. Therefore,by chang- to accomplishboth the forgetting and

98 AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW the remembering (12). That Paul D of identity and worth during and after never told another human being about the chattel experience.She extends the the Schoolteacher experience but "sang concept of "weaving"from Douglass's it sometimes" reveals the significance descriptionof the GreatHouse Farm and the depth Morrison gives to song. songs to include the specific song top- In a world where relatives and friends ics. The emphasis on the "animal"in suddenly vanish never to be seen again these particularsongs allows the slaves as a matter of everyday legal policy, in Georgia'sprison camp to establish Paul D cannot afford to speak to anoth- themselves as human beings capable of er person, but silence only embitters acknowledging their humanity, even the internal anguish. Singing about the when their oppressorsrefuse to do the traumatic event empowers Paul D to same. By singing about mules and confront his horrific past and make dogs, pork and fish, relationshipsand meaning of his dehumanizing experi- pleasures, the slaves assert their and ences. humanity defend themselves of Paul D's horrific experience at against the atrocities the camp. Perhapsmost importantly,Morrison's in Georgia is an episode prison camp specific explorationof song reveals of in which Morrison shows the power how "the men got through"chattel song to combat even the worst and slavery and its horrifyingreverbera- most dehumanizing despair. Song in tions even after emancipation(108). Belovednot only "mends broken The prison camp songs from things," but it also gives Paul D the Georgiabear a strikingresemblance to endurance to survive the chain gang in those that Douglass includes in his Georgia, where his humanity is aggres- 1845 Narrativebecause both place more sively violated. Paul D uses song to emphasis on the sound than on the defend his humanity when it is denied actual words. In Douglass's Narrative, most by "wooden boxes," "cage for example, the slaves "compose and doors," "leg irons," and "bit[s] of fore- sing as they go along," placing mean- skin" (107-08). As Morrison notes, "The ing "if not in the word, in the sound." songs from Georgia were flatheaded He even goes so far as to say that the nails for pounding and pounding and words of his GreatHouse Farmsongs pounding" (40). These songs give Paul would appear "unmeaning"despite D the strength to brook eighty-six days their profundity:Slaves "would sing, of pounding rock and eighty-six nights as a chorus, words which to many while "reaching for air" (110). Most would seem unmeaning jargon,but notably, as Paul D and other prisoners which, nevertheless, were full of mean- "danc[ed] two-step to the music of ing to themselves" (57). Morrison hand-forged iron," they sang to affirm extends the trope of this same "sound their humanity while being worked significance"in her Georgia songs as and tied like animals: the prisoners"garbl[e] the words so that they [can] not be understood" They sang the women they knew; the while they "trickthe words so that children they had been; the animals they had tamed themselves or seen their syllables yield up other mean- others tame. They sang of bosses and ings" (108). FrederickDouglass estab- mastersand misses; of mules and dogs lishes the context for this intangible, and the shamelessness of life. They mutating element of the slave song sang lovingly of graveyardsand sisters when he enjoinshis readers to go long gone. Of pork in the woods; meal in the woods" of Colonel in the pan; fish on the line; cane, rain "deep pine and rockingchairs. (108) Lloyd's plantationand to "analyze the soundsthat pass through the chambers Morrison's inclusion of the specific of his soul" as the slaves sing what topics of the slave songs from Georgia many would call "unmeaningjargon" allows the reader to identify more (57-58;italics mine). Morrisonextends closely with incredibly complex ideas this belief and, therefore,has the pris-

TRUTHIN TIMBRE: MORRISON'S EXTENSION OF SLAVENARRATIVE SONG INBELOVED 99 oners of Alfred, Georgia, sing songs ery's chattel principle, which equated with "garbled words" and "tricked syl- slaves with livestock, and he is not lables" to show the contemporary reluctant to employ animal metaphors reader that the sound reflects more of to capture the general inhumanity of the slaves' humanity than the words the system" (76). Morrison shows how could ever reveal. Schoolteacher and the slave catchers Sound alone registers the humani- from Belovedact with the same barbarity of Beloved's slaves most incisively ty and inhuman cruelty that epitomizes when Schoolteacher captures Paul A, slave treatment during the chattel Paul D, Sixo, and the Thirty-Mile experience of the slave narrative. Woman as they attempt to escape from Because they are involved in what slavery at Sweet Home. Caught and Douglass calls the "soul-killing" busi- facing death by firing squad for their ness of keeping slaves, Schoolteacher bold transgression, Sixo "grabs the and the other white men of Belovedare mouth of the nearest pointing rifle" reduced to subhuman behavior. and "begins to sing" (225; italics mine). Morrison derives this principle of cate- The white men find it impossible to gorical human degradation from shoot Sixo as he sings because the song Douglass's Narrative. As Baker points locates "personhood" among slavery out, slavery has a uniquely pernicious for a group of slave catchers who are identity resulting from its power to conditioned to see only the "animals" degrade all it touches: of Schoolteacher's calculations. Slave Douglass's work is a chronicle of the catchers are trained to kill animals in "soul-killing" effect slavery had on leg irons with bits in their mouths-not both master and slave. Time and time human beings singing songs. Morrison again in the Narrative men's hopes for acknowledges this discrepancy as the a better life are crushed: humans are whipped and slaughtered like animals; white men wait "with five guns trained men and women are changed into on [Sixo] while they listen" to his song. maniacal and sadistic creatures by Realizing that his song makes him far power; the strength of body and mind too human to shoot, one white man is destroyed by an avaricious and finally "hits Sixo in the head" to make degrading system. (76) him stop singing. Ironically, Morrison's Beloved,however, does not Schoolteacher changes his mind about simply chronicle the degradation set in wanting Sixo alive; his song must have motion by slavery; the novel also convinced Schoolteacher "that he was reveals how slaves use song to combat too human ever to become a docile the inhuman protocol adopted by the slave." Only after Sixo "is through with oppressors. In this way, Morrison com- his song" do the white men see a slave pels her audience to acknowledge the and proceed to burn him alive (226). draconian punishment for an "offense" Henry Bibb and Frederick that needs no hyperbole-the act of Douglass refer to the institution of burning alive a singing man who tries slavery as "the man destroying sys- to escape a life of slavery. tem" in their narratives, and Morrison Sixo establishes his humanity in tropes this idea of universal human front of the white men with his song, degradation in Beloved.Morrison's and the fact that Morrison does not revision of the traditional slave narra- record the words of this song is testi- tive comes, though, as she offers song mony to the higher significance of its as a response to the degradation. sound. With Paul D's misunderstand- Just as Captain Auld, Mrs. Auld, ing of the words to Sixo's song, and Mr. Covey are rendered less Morrison shows the reader how the human by the effects of their associa- words to slave songs are belittled by tion with slavery, so too are the white the content of their sound. Her aware- characters in Morrison's novel. As ness of the precision with which Houston A. Baker, Jr., points out, Douglass locates the arresting inade- "Douglass is aware of American slav- quacy of these "would be" words is

100 AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW crucialto Morrison'sproject with the bitterestanguish," but they were sound in Beloved.Douglass reports also sung as "a prayerto God for deliv- early in his narrative:"I have some- erance from chains."Sixo's song in times thought that the mere hearing of front of the slave catcherscertainly has those songs would do more to impress within it some of this "complaint,"but some minds with the horriblecharacter the referenceto "juba"suggests more of slavery, than the reading of whole of what Du Bois, in TheSouls of Black volumes of philosophy on the subject Folk,calls "faithin the ultimate justice could do" (57). Caught by of things" (213). Schoolteacherand the slave catchers, This work of enormous cultural Paul D thinks he should have sung and literarysignificance asserts that the "somethingloud and rolling to go with common possession of a "soul"unites Sixo's tune, but the words put him and defines humanity. Du Bois essen- off-he didn't understand the words" tially extends Douglass's finding that (227).By including this information, "the souls of black folk" are revealed in Morrisonestablishes the slave song as the "sorrowsongs." To Du Bois, the the ultimate projectionof the human song of the black slave is "the most experience-one where words have no beautiful expression of the human meaning and the sound carriesevery experienceborn this side of the seas." inch of sorrow and despair harbored Du Bois expands Douglass's belief that inside the members of the enslaved the songs recognize the deepest sad- community. ness and highest joy of a slave: Melvin Dixon's article "Singing [The songs] tell of death and suffering Swords: The LiteraryLegacy of and unvoiced longing toward a truer Slavery"refers to these songs as "fun- world, of misty wanderings and hid- damental assessments of the collective den ways.... Through all the Sorrow human experience"(298). If this is Songs therebreathes a hope-a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The valid, Paul D confirmshis participation minor cadences of despair change in the human experienceas he remarks often to triumphand calm confidence. that his confusion "shouldn'thave Sometimes it is a faith in life, some- matteredbecause he understood the times a faith in death, sometimes the sound: hatred so loose it was juba" assuranceof boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, (227).The termjuba comes from the the meaningis always clear:that some- name of the chief drummerin the time somewhere, men will judge men jubilee songs who pounded out the by their souls and not by their skins. rhythms on celebrationdays of black (207,213-14) culture. Morrison'schoice to include Perhapsit is Sixo's song of hope-his the juba dance in this section solidifies "triumphand calm confidence"in the the connectionbetween Sixo and Paul ultimatejustice of things - that evokes D and calls the readerto look at them such a barbaricand inhuman response not as slaves, but as human beings from Schoolteacherand the slave with a native culture. catchersin Belovedwhen they burn him Beyond this, Morrison'sinclusion alive. of the juba song at such a grave and desperate section of the novel rein- forces the expansive range of emotion harboredwithin the "sorrowsongs" M orrisonalso explores the com- that Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois plex relationshipbetween acknowledge in their own writings. In song and humanity with her depiction his Narrative,Douglass reportsthat the of Beloved'sunique origin-the events songs of Colonel Lloyd's slaves at the that surroundSethe's murder of her GreatHouse Farm "revealat once the own child. She shifts song's function highest joy and the deepest sadness" slightly to accommodateSethe's (57). Douglass's songs were sung in unusual isolation from her own people. "complaint"for "souls boiling over in With Paul D and Sixo, Morrison'suse

TRUTHIN TIMBRE: MORRISON'S EXTENSION OF SLAVENARRATIVE SONG INBELOVED 101 of song defendsthe personhood of the change in the neighbor women's slaves, but with Sethe, song defines and assessment of Sethe's humanity. The affirmsthe neighborhood's decision to women sing in chorus and create a banish her. Immediately after murder- "music" that is "wide enough to knock ing her daughter Beloved, Sethe exits the pods off chestnut trees" as Sethe through "a throng of black faces" but stands in the doorway holding with no "cape of sound to hold and Beloved's hand (261). In one of the steady her on her way." The crucial novel's most numinous images, the absence of song highlights the fact that thirty women of the neighborhood join even Sethe's black neighbors regard in song to create a sound so harmo- her as inhuman for having murdered nious and powerful that it "br[eaks] her own child. If Sethe had acted less the back of words." Karla Holloway barbarically, her personhood would misses a crucial opportunity to have been recognized by the spectators acknowledge this powerful element of and "the singing would have begun at song when she remarks that all the once." Also, Morrison juxtaposes voices in the novel come together at Sethe's seeming inhumanity with the times into "a tightened poetic chant" "creatures" and "cannibals" that are (72). Far beyond chanting, the "singing mentioned on the pages immediately women" in this section confirm Sethe's preceding Sethe's emergence from the re-instatement into the neighborhood, house on Bluestone Road. In the same into motherhood, and, most important- way that the "four horsemen" regard ly, into humanity. Ironically, the neigh- the slaves as having "gone wild," borhood women recognize their own Morrison's choice to omit song in this inhuman lack of compassion in a way episode shows how Sethe's own peo- that the white characters of the novel ple believe her to be somehow less never do. than human. The black neighbors wait Through this use of song in until the cart carrying Sethe "head[s] Beloved,Morrison forces the reader to west" before they make any sound at identify with the humanity of her char- all (152). This conspicuous deficiency in the era of American of song reveals the neighborhood con- acters darkest sensus of Sethe's barbarity and ulti- history, where bestiality preempts mately signifies her formal banishment morality. Song affords the characters of from the community. her novel a form of personal testimony On the other hand, Morrison uses against the horrors of their past, and it the prevalence of song at the end of the strengthens them for the difficulties novel to re-establish Sethe's humanity. they come to accept as their future. After supporting a twenty-year policy Throughout the novel, Morrison shows of banishment from the neighborhood, how song not only has the power to the women in Sethe's community "break the back" of words, but how it begin to question their harsh treatment also destroys the numbers that the and wonder about the "killed one" Schoolteachers of the world calculate (Beloved) who has suddenly reap- so inhumanely. Just as the slaves' "sav- peared in the flesh. Ella, a deeply com- agery" assures Schoolteacher's "civi- passionate woman who had been lization," Beloved'svictims use song to "shared by husband and son" during reclaim and affirm their personhood in puberty, finally convinces the other an aggressively inhuman world. Each women that "rescue [from banishment time Baby Suggs adjures Sethe to "lay i]s in order" for Sethe (256). Ella man- down [her] sword," Morrison reveals ages to persuade the others that "the how the characters pick up a song and idea of past errors taking control of the use it as a shield to defend and affirm present" is an unjust burden on anoth- their humanity. Much as Sethe "talk[s] er human being and "so thirty women about love with a handsaw," Toni walk slowly, slowly toward 124." Morrison's Belovedspeaks to its readers Morrison reinstates song here to reflect about humanity with a song (164).

102 AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW Atwood,Margaret. "Haunted by TheirNightmares." New YorkTimes Book Review 13 Sep. 1987: 1, Works 49-50. Cited Baker, Houston A, Jr. Long Black Song: Essays in Black American Literature and Culture. Chadottesville:UP of Virginia,1972. Dixon,Melvin. "Singing Swords: The LiteraryLegacy of Slavery."The Slave's Narrative.Ed. Charles Davis and HenryLouis Gates, Jr. New York:Oxford UP, 1985. 298-318. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. 1845. New York:Penguin, 1986. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903. New York: Penguin, 1989. Holloway,Karla. "Beloved: A Spiritual."Callaloo 13 (Summer1990): 516-25. McKay,Nellie, ed. ToniMomson's Beloved: A Casebook. New York:Oxford UP, 1999. Mobley,Marilyn Sanders. "ADifferent Remembering: Memory, History, and Meaningin Beloved." Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and K. A. Appiah.New York:Amistad, 1993. 357-65. Morrison,Toni. Beloved. 1987. New York:Penguin, 1988. O'Meally,Robert. "Frederick Douglass' 1845 Narrative:The Text Was Meantto be Preached."Afro- American Literature: The Reconstruction of Instruction. Ed. Dexter Fisher. New York: MLA, 1979. 192-211. Perez-Torres."Between Presence and Absence: Beloved, Postmodernism,and Blackness."McKay 179-202. Rushdy,Ashraf. "Daughters Signifyin(g) History: The Exampleof ToniMorrison's Beloved." American Literature 64 (1992): 567-97.

Call for Papers Sterling Plumpp

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Plumpp's body of work and related subjects. Send one-page, single-spaced abstracts by MAY 1, 2003 to:

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TRUTHIN TIMBRE: MORRISON'S EXTENSION OF SLAVENARRATIVE SONG INBELOVED 103