Sunday, May 13, 2012
Toni Morrison's language
I've been struck by the beauty of Morrison's language and the vividness of her descriptions in this story. I find myself often underlining interesting phrasing or imagery. There have also been a number of times when I have had to stop and re-read text because the horror of some of the situations facing the characters has stunned me. Choose one instance of either beauty or horror and offer a detailed close reading of the scene. Consider the proximity of the two (are they separate? closely linked?) and the effect that this kind of writing has on us as readers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
An example of this contrast is on page 149. There is a horrific paragraph beginning with, "What? A grown man fixed by a girl? But what if the girl was not a girl, but something in disguise? A lowdown something that looked like a sweet young girl and fucking her or not was not the point, it was no being able to stay or go where he wished in 124, and the danger was in losing Sethe because he was not man enough... God damn it to hell". This is written in a very matter of fact and horrific way, not including any imagery or interesting language. Directly after that paragraph, Morrison writes, "Paul D blew warm breath into the hollow of his cupped hands. The wind raced down the alley so fast it sleeked the fur of four kitchen dogs waiting for scraps". Here, Morrison uses beautiful language and paints a picture and brings the reader into the scene. The writing style makes it seem as if what Paul D did wasn't actually bad. To go off of this, I have also found that Morrison will write a whole conversation of dialogue and then abruptly end and move in to prose with imagery and interesting phrasing. This writing style effectively makes the reader pause and decide whether what Morrison is talking about is either horrific or beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe passage we just read on page 129 which describes the flooding ground in such a way that it the flooding seems natural. It doesn't appear to be a terrible, life threatening event, but instead, just one part in the natural cycle. However, the next paragraph distinctly contrasts the interesting imagery of the previous passages. "They squatted in the muddy water, slept above it, and peed in it. Paul D thought he was screaming; his mouth was open and there was this loud throat-splitting sound-but it may have been somebody else. Then he thought he was crying." This causes me, as a reader, to feel a very different emotion than what I felt earlier. I don't want to use the d word (...duality...), but that's the effect it has on the reader. The antithesis between the "beautiful" and the "horrific" passages is sometimes clear but other times, the two seem to blend together, creating a shade of gray. I find this type of writing very effective and thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the most prominent instance of this antithesis between beauty and horror is on page 7 as Sethe describes Sweet Home for the first time- "...and suddenly there was Sweet Home rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and although there was not a leaf on that farm that didn't make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty. It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves. Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her- remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys." In the passage the reader gets a glimpse into the struggle that been in Sethe her entire life between what seems to be and what is. We also it in the resurgence of Paul D. Although the admittedly love each other, they are for one another representative of the horrible circumstances that exisrted. Morrison puts words like "hell", "fire", "brimstone", and "scream" in contrast to phrases like "shameless beauty", "lacy groves", "beautiful sycamores", and "wonderful soughing trees" to show what how time contorts memory to remember only what we wish to.
ReplyDeleteHey! I was going to use this one, but then I didn't....
DeleteI think Toni Morrison's vivid description adds to the stories and makes horrific situations more powerful than if she were to come straight out and say what is happening. She never says exactly what is going on but slowly builds to it through description. This is more effective because it makes it so occasionally you have to go back and reread some scenes just to try to grasp what is truly being said. It makes the instances more real and believable, because it does not allow you to just skim over the section and forget about it but puts an image in your head that makes you face it. One of these instances can be seen one page 127, when the guard sexually abuses the men on the chain gang. She never comes right out and says what is going on but the way she moves through the scene and the language she chooses leaves no doubt by the end what is happening, but, more importantly, it leaves a lasting impact.
ReplyDeleteI am captivated in general by the language and descriptions that follow and surround Beloved. True to her background, Morrison describes her as a ethereal, ghostly being, and she has a certain effect on people that I always love to read. On page 137, Morrison illustrates a disturbing incestuous scene with language that is highly contrasting:
ReplyDelete"She moved closer with a footfall he didn't hear and he didn't hear the whisper that the flakes of rust made either as they fell away from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn't know it. What he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying, 'Red heart. Red heart,' over and over again. Softly and then so loud it woke Denver, then Paul D himself. 'Red heart. Red heart. Red heart.'"
For me as a reader, the entrancing language helps me get through parts I'd perhaps rather not read or try to fully understand, because the discomfort is balanced by the beautiful language.
One instance of beauty in Morrison's language is when they describe Beloved for the first time. "Her skin was flawless except for three vertical scratches on her forehead so fine and thin they at first seemed like hair, baby hair before it bloomed and roped into the masses of black yarn under her hat". I too am struck by the vividness of her descriptions. I find that when Morrison describes a beauty is transcends the norm, almost as if it was unreachable or even fake. I think this is the same for the horrors she describes, making them closely linked to each other. The effect this kind of writing has on us as readers is that we fell like these 'supers'; either they show the destructive nature of horrors (sethe getting her milk stolen), and the unmatchable beauty (Beloved).
ReplyDeleteI'm going to talk about something we're reading for tomorrow, it really caught my attention. Morrison spends all of p. 174 describing blacks as if they are inhuman. The descriptions reminded me much of the style of Go Down Moses, especially Pantaloon in Black. She explains "The very nigger his head hanging and a little jelly-jar smile on his face could all of the sudden roar, like a bull or some such" (174). The reader has this same white man's perspective on page 177, describing blacks as "people who needed every care and guidance in the world to keep them from the cannibal life they preferred." This terrible perspective is so important for it allows the reader to dip into the emotions of the other characters in order to fully understand how horrific the white perspective is. However, the horrific imagery in the black woman's perspective is also prominent. A particular instance should out to me: "When she came back, Sethe was aiming a bloody nipple into the baby's mouth. Baby Suggs slammed her fist on the table and shouted, "Clean up! Clean yourself up!" They fought then. Like rivals over the heart of the loved, they fought. Each struggling for the nursing child. Baby Suggs lost when she slipped in a red puddle and fell" (179). What is interesting to my is the antithesis between this white perspective and black perspective. The instances are so different for each person involved. The sides are so out of touch with each other that at the end of the story, the little boy comes up to Sethe (who has just murdered her own child) and the most important thing for him and his mother is for his shows to be fixed. I will explain what I'm thinking more clearly in class...
ReplyDelete