From the tall sycamores at Sweet Home plantation to the oaks and sloughing pines near 124, trees are often nurturing and rewarding. Unfortunately, they also cast occasional sinister shadows—courtesy of man, and his bitter times—in which they grow.
Trees Offer Various Comforts
In general, trees and forests both north and south of the Ohio River provide cover for fugitive slaves and escaped convicts on the run. More specifically, as seen through protagonist Sethe’s “rememory,” the Kentucky plantation sycamores were verdant playgrounds for young Howard and Buglar, and also lent their lower limbs to hanging cradle-like slings into which the slave women could safely tuck their babies while working the fields. At present, in Ohio, the oaks stand tall guard over a boxwood clearing that provides a serene “emerald closet” for Denver – a refuge from an otherwise drab and uncertain world.
As earlier mentioned, Morrison’s tree motifs are not always pleasant, and in fact contribute to some of the most horrific and unsettling scenes of the tale. As told through Paul D’s retrospection, one escaping slave, upon being caught, is tied to a tree with the intention of burning him alive; other escapees are lynched and then left to hang – sometimes in pieces -- from the limbs.
Less physically appalling, but emotionally upsetting, when Sethe and Paul D have a major falling-out, the narrator refers to a “forest” that comes up to divide the two – a figurative forest which grows between them even as they watch and are helpless to stop it. In this case, the symbolic trees simultaneously provide Sethe and Paul shelter from each other and prevent them from coming back together; in other words, in this scene, their (the trees’) role is dual—both comforting and damaging.
An Uglier Tree
Of course, the most damaging tree-theme of all is the “tree” grown on Sethe’s back, a physical reminder of brutal lashings that left in her flesh a scar-pattern reminiscent of (according to whiteperson Amy) a chokecherry tree. This scar is indelible, as are the memories of burned and hanged human beings; while it isn’t quite as drastic as the memories, it is certainly more visible.
Superficially speaking, it may be inferred that “chokecherry” is a minor play on words, meant to vaguely suggest suffocation and asphyxiation; however, on a deeper level, one could and should surmise that Amy chooses this particular tree to most accurately describe the scarring because chokecherry trees are hard, brutal, and fraught with thorn-like growths that are ugly and painful to the touch. There is nothing “comforting” about a chokecherry.
Finally, on a most universal plain, this tree-like indelible scar, firmly rooted in Sethe’s flesh, widely spreading its cruelty and anger, represents the irreversible effects slavery had upon a people as a whole.
Trees Hold Final, Positive Sway
In conclusion, it should be noted that, although this author allows trees to “aid and abet” evildoers, she leaves no doubt that her sympathies lie with these magnificent green testimonies to nature. Perhaps the moment most relevant to Morrison’s feelings is when she writes that a sawyer surrounds his workyard with rosebushes in order to “take the sin out of slicing trees for a living” – even trees which may have been used, however unwittingly and involuntarily, for nefarious human purposes.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved, Penguin Books, NY, 1988. 290 pages.
ISBN: 0-452-26446-4
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