Slave Songs in the Marxist Lens

Peter Capuano writes that Toni Morrison uses slave songs in order to evoke intense emotion and to further her purpose. The slave songs describe "bitterest anguish." This anguish comes from the plight of the slave within the class structure. A slave is below any class, slaves are not people. Upon being freed, a slave joins the lowest class of society. The form the group of people that are criminals, beggars, and just above slaves. That slave songs are still sung by Paul D even as he is in 124 and free is a demonstration of the clear feeling he still feels as a slave and lower classman.

The slave songs themselves tell of conflict between the ruling classes and masters of slaves and their slaves. slaves want freedom, rebellion, and control of their lives. However, being deprived of these things as slaves, when freed seek what they have been missing all their lives. What soon happens is a realization that there is a very minor difference between slavery and the class they have just entered. These slave songs are still sung in order to demonstrate that the lower class consists of people that are more slaves than people. Without change within the class structure. The slave songs become ever more potent as the lower class is trapped and unable to escape from its chains unlike the ability for a slave to escape a master.

While the lower classes are suppressed, the upper classes reign supreme, never needing to experience the bitter anguish of the lower classes, never needing to cry or suffer in order to maintain their fortunes. They form the privileged and elite, who will never know the suffering of a system they cannot escape from that tries to hurt them more and more.