Imagery in Toni Morrison

             The imagery of red color in Toni Morrison's haunting slave tale, Beloved, is what sets the reader's imagination going. Morrison uses vague pictures and lack of detail in certain aspects of the novel in order to let the audience develop the story in their own minds. Morrison leaves drops of color and texture in a scene in order to set a mood and aura. The mood that the colors set cannot be developed simply by stating the mood, they need to be individually realized by the audience. Every time Morrison uses color is important to its surrounding plot, and she relies on the audience to interpret what that importance actually is.
             Red is the most important, yet the most ambiguous, color used in the novel. Red can mean a variety of different things in respect to the novel. It is used many times to express passion and love, yet the theme of the novel is how slavery rips away every aspect of how to love from slaves. This horrible truth leads the meaning of red into a dark, fierce definition that usually is not seen. The first example of red with this double meaning is when Sethe was trying to Beloved's headstone engraved, "Pink as a fingernail it was, and sprinkled with glittering chips. Ten minutes, he said. You got ten minutes I'll do it for free" (5). On the surface this act by Sethe seems disgusting and grotesque, because a woman selling her body just to get a carving on a tombstone is not the way normal mothers express love for their kids. Truly, this is the only way Sethe knows how to show her love. Sethe lived a life in the control of a suppressor who would berate her at any turn for showing compassion for anyone or anything. Any motherly instincts she had were taken from her, so now Sethe has to figure out how she can show love for her kids on her own, even when they are dead. Morrison uses the pink in the tombstone to show the double meaning of love. Sethe cannot show love for her kids th...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Imagery in Toni Morrison. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 05:30, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/28805.html