Entry Type #2: Critical Lens Close Reading Entry

Text: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytic Lens

“What tree on your back? Is something growing on your back? I don’t see nothing growing on your back.”

“It’s there all the same.”

“Who told you that?”

“Whitegirl. That’s what she called it. I’ve never seen it and never will. But that’s what she said it looked like. A chokecherry tree. Trunk, branches, and even leaves. Tiny little chokecherry leaves. But that was eighteen years ago. Could have cherries too now for all I know.” (Morrison 18).

In this quote, the character of Sethe is at the beginning of a tirade of why she will never leave the haunted house of 124 and how her milk was stolen at Sweet Home. Throughout Paul D’s inquiry, though Sethe attempts to unravel her flashback, Paul D continues to bring back their conversation to her chokecherry tree.

The depiction of this chokecherry tree on Sethe’s back communicates Morrison’s belief that the past is part of life; it is etched and intertwined with the present and future. Morrison emphasizes the decision to either grow from the past or to be stuck living in it, describing the “trunk, branches,” “tiny little chokecherry leaves” and “cherries.” This explicit imagery is a reflection of the dehumanization of African Americans as the result of slavery. Sethe, rather than choosing the decision to grow from her past, only served to bring about new hardships. Morrison also describes Sethe’s inability to see the chokecherry tree on her back, not only for immobile purposes but also for symbolizing how even though one cannot physically see his/her past, the past can leave scars that almost seem real.

Beloved is dead and gone, but her presence lives on in the mind of Sethe, who is still haunted by her captivity at Sweet Home and cannot move on from it. Sethe and her unwillingness to move on from her experience at Sweet Home, which negatively affects every aspect of her life including her relationship with Paul D and Denver, reflects how people of African-American descent in general are still currently facing the consequences of the slavery system.