Morrison the Poet

Obviously the ending of Beloved was confusing to me, and it can be looked at in many different ways. But, what struck me most was how poetic the last two pages are. I've reread those pages six times since I've gotten home. I think the poetic turn Morrison takes makes for an incredibly entertaining ending. It's one of the best I've ever read.

There's numerous instances of rhyme in the section. For example, "...how can they call her if they don't know her name? Although she has claim..." and "There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed..." both show rhyme and slant rhyme (323). Morrison also includes alliteration in her concluding pages: "...a latch latched and lichen attached" (324).

Don't get me wrong, the imagery throughout the entire novel is awesome. However, it's extra awesome in the ending. The rustling of Beloved's skirt and her knuckles brushing against sleeper's cheeks are two really powerful images.

Lastly, the refrain "...not a story to pass on" enhances the poetic aspect of the ending. The eerie context and musicality of the ending reminds me a lot of James Whitcomb Riley's poem "Little Orphant Annie." In the poem, the orphan, Annie, visits a home and works to earn her board and keep. While she's there she tells the children about other bad children who didn't behave and got snatched up by goblins. The line "An' the Gobble-uns'll git you/ Ef you/ Don't/ Watch/ Out." They're similar in their sing song-y aspects but also in that they feature a stranger (Annie and Beloved) entering a home and teaching a family how to live through beneficial (Annie) actions or Beloved's not so healthy actions.

As with any prose poem, it's important to know who the speaker is and who's being spoken to. Identifying the speaker is the easy part. Like the majority of the novel, we have a third person narrator. It's incredible difficult to identify the "they" in the ending. The most literal interpretation would be to assume the "they" is the Cincinnati community and "those who had spoken to her" are obviously Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. Someone mentioned in class that the "they" could be all African Americans and to come to terms with the difficult past of slavery they need to place their feet in Beloved's footsteps. I'd like to expand the "them" to the point that it encompasses all Americans. And we need to deal with the past by facing it head on.