Looking into the self that is no self: an examination of subjectivity in 'Beloved.'

African American Review, Fall, 1998 by Jennifer L. Holden-Kirwan

While the end of slavery sought to transform objects (slaves) into subjects (free men and women), the characters in Beloved find the passage into subjectivity somewhat elusive. In this essay, I explore the question of Beloved's identity and how her identity affects her own subjectivity, as well as that of Denver and Sethe. First, I explain how Beloved's perpetual references to a slave ship experience function as her primal scene: a traumatic event in one's childhood which may be considered the cause of one's adult neurosis (Freud 213-34). After interpreting the primal scene, I discuss the complexity of Beloved's identity. As Margaret Atwood asserts, "There's a lot more to Beloved than any one character can see, and she manages to be many things to several people" (3). Like the novel itself, the character of Beloved resists a singular interpretation. However, if for a moment one were to disregard the multiplicity of Beloved's voice and focus instead on the voice as a single consciousness, one would find a powerful way into the novel. This schema allows the reader to consider another possible interpretation of Beloved's identity. Finally, I examine the characters' desire for subjectivity and the extent to which their desires are fulfilled.

Identifying the Primal Scene

In her article "Toni Morrison's Ghost: The Beloved Who Is Not Beloved," Elizabeth B. House informs us that "unraveling the mystery of . . . [Beloved's] identity depends to a great extent upon first deciphering chapters four and five of Part II" in Beloved. House provides a detailed explanation of the obscure references in the narrative, pointing out "how white slave traders . . . captured the girl and her mother" and "put them aboard an abysmally crowded slave ship" (18). Her observation lies in contrast to that of Carol Rubens, who views this narrative sequence as Beloved's "escape from the grave," explaining that "the hold of a slave ship seems [only] fleetingly invoked" (1135). To readers unfamiliar with slave ship descriptions and the events that transpired on board these vessels, Morrison's eight-page account might seem "fleetingly invoked" and much "too vague." Jean Wyatt argues that the unannounced appearance of the slave ship monologue is intended to throw readers off balance: "Since Morrison does not identify these scattered perceptions as observations of life on a slave ship or tell how Beloved came to be there or give any coordinates of time and place, readers are baffled: they have no idea where they are." Wyatt goes on to explain how the confusion that the reader experiences in this section of the text "imitates the disorientation of the Africans who were thrown into slave ships without explanation" (480). While I agree with Wyatt that some readers may stumble on the initial appearance of the sequence, I believe that the reader who is educated about the Middle Passage will quickly recognize the details of the narrative, finding it extremely vivid and tangible.

In Black Cargo, Richard Howard illustrates the condition and treatment of African men, women, and children aboard a typical slave ship. Quoting Harry Johnston, he tells how the kidnapped people were kept

"enclosed under grated hatchways, between deck. The space was so low that they sat between each other's legs, and stowed so close together that there was no possibility of lying down, or at all changing their positions by night or day. As they belonged to, and Were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep . . . burnt with a red-hot iron." (47)

With this account in mind, the reader can recognize what Morrison is referring to with phrases like "I am always crouching," "someone is thrashing but there is no room to do it in," and especially the repeated "a hot thing" (210). Once the sequence has been recognized as an experience from the Middle Passage, the reader is able to translate previously ambiguous references. The "men without skin" are clearly white sailors who offer their urine ("morning water") and moldy ("sea-colored") bread to the dehydrated Africans (211). The "little hill," a pile of dead bodies, is pushed from the bridge of the ship into the ocean. Later, it appears as if one of the white sailors or officers takes the young girl "inside" a cabin and rapes her: "I am going to be in pieces," she says, "he hurts where I sleep he puts his finger there I drop the food and break into pieces" (212). These and other allusions to the treatment and condition of Africans during the Middle Passage emerge in the narrative of Beloved.

The nineteen- or twenty-year-old woman who arrives at Sethe's house possesses the subjectivity of the African girl held captive on the slave ship in Part II. Nearly every reference the young woman makes, or question that she asks, derives from either her experience in Africa before being captured or her experience on the slave ship during the Middle Passage. The intensity of her memory indicates that the events of and surrounding the slave ship represent her primal scene.(1) In his article" 'Rememory': Primal Scenes and Constructions in Toni Morrison's Novels," Ashraf H. A. Rushdy redefines Freud's notion of the primal scene "as the critical event (or events) whose significance to the narrated life becomes manifest only at a secondary event, when by a preconscious association the primal scene is recalled" (303). At times, when recounting the primal scene, Beloved experiences visual and auditory hallucinations which seem to transport her back to the ship. At other times, an external "event" or sensation recalls the primal scene. For example, at one point, Beloved and Denver are in the cold house when Beloved "sits down on the pallet and, laughing, lies back looking at the cracklights above" (123). The light seeping through the roof triggers a memory from the slave ship ("daylight comes through the cracks" [201]), and Beloved begins to hallucinate, saying," 'I'm like this'" as she "bends over, curls up and rocks. Her eyes go no place; her moaning is so small Denver can hardly hear it" (124). The chapter ends with Beloved pointing to an invisible face which she says is her own.