Beloved and the "Slave Narrative Song"

 

In Peter J. Capuano’s interpretation of Beloved, he claims that Beloved was greatly influenced by Frederick Douglass's Slave song in 1845, but differ in “political and historical objectives”. Because Morrison’s goal was not to abolish slavery since they were written in different time periods, she had more ability to show the severe emotional effects slavery had on African Americans, whereas Capuano relies more on facts to state his ideas, because it was written during a time when slavery was legal, and he was writing it with the objective to show why it needs to be ended. However, Morrison uses the song as an underlying theme throughout the story, and also uses song to symbolize hope for her characters. Capuano claims that because Beloved was written after the emancipation, instead of writing about the crimes in which whites committed, or “oppressor” she writes about crimes and faults former slaves committed or, the “oppressed”. Morrison does not only illustrate how slavery was inhuman, she also uses the characters to show them overcoming adversity of physical, and psychological abuse. Capuano states that Sethe, Paul D, and Sixo sing, and is based off of “sorrow songs” from Frederick Douglass, and claim they use it to give them hope and fight against adversity. When they cannot read, or write about their experiences as slaves, this lets them express their struggles.

After reading Peter J. Capuano’s article, it gives a different view on what Toni Morrison’s songs mean. The idea of what the songs symbolize throughout the story, is like the character’s way of grieving, and overcoming the obstacles they have faced. We see this in many different forms. One example of this is when Baby Suggs would go to the meadow, and join as a community with other African Americans. As she gathers people together she would say, “Here,in this here place, we flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet ingrass. Love it” (103). This is written as Sethe’s memory, and as she thinks about it she says she “wanted to be there now. At the least to listen to the spaces that the long-ago singing had left behind”(104). Baby Suggs was able to create a community that almost celebrated their greif and shows their endurance to be able to get through anything. The songs allowed for them to be free, because though they were “legally” free, in a way they were still being held by the horrible consequences slavery had caused.

In another example where songs are used as hope for the characters, is when Paul D sings when he was chained up.  He and the forty six other chained up men, “sang it out and beat it up, garbling the words so they could not be understood...They sang the women they knew; the children they had been ,the animals they had tamed themselves or seen others tame”(128). This moment signifies how powerless the men felt, but this singing gave them power. When they were like animals, the songs gave them humanity and made them remember the people and the things that gave them strength to escape.