Analicia Stevens
Mr.dewit
Eng 4/Daraja
12/21/13
Beloved Trees
When one thinks of the word tree what comes to mind? Most people would think of nature
because a tree belongs to nature. Some might see plants and the color green. One would think of the
wilderness and then think of wild animals, strems, and lakes. A tree symbolizes many things, question is
what does a tree symbolize to you. In some cultures a tree is holy or sacred like the cow or God
himself. A tree can become a map of history and tell what events took place when and where in
humanities history as well as mother earths. AI t can also be a compass for when people and animals
are lost. A tree symbolizes life and the cycle of life. A tree can symbolize somebodys strength courage
or a person personality. It can also symbolize the beauty in nature or in mankind. It can also symbolize
family history and keep track of family members. We use trees as a record of our family’s so that they
may never be lost and so that we know where we originate from. The diagram that is usually draw is
that similar to a tree, that why it called a family tree. In the book Beloved by Toni Morrison The word
tree or reference to a tree in some way shape or form is used. The tree is used in many different ways to
explain events or situations, or simply how someone keeps their eye on the good to block out the bad in
their life.
In the beginning of the book chapter one it talks about baby suggs and sethe and what
happened to them. Also how sethe is reminiscing on her mother and Sweet home and everyone else in
sweet home. it talks about how she is remembering sweet home even thought there was nothing sweet
or home about. She saw the shameless beauty in sweet home even though she did not want to
remember sweet home or even the fact that she was away from it some how she always talked about it
or thought of it. “Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her -
remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys. Try as she might to make it otherwise,
the sycamores beat out the children every time and she could not forgive her memory for that”(7).
The trees was a way for sethe to remember something “sweet” about sweet home. It was her
way of escaping the horrors and nightmares and awful things she endured in sweet home. Even though
there were boys hanging from the trees she could only think of the trees beautiful trees that the boys
hung from. Her mind or her would not let sethe think of the bad that was going on. She had blocked out
the boys and all the horrible things from her past out. So it would seem that if she started to think of the
boys hanging from the trees instead of seeing the boys she would see the beautiful trees. It is almost like
those boys are not even in her memory anymore only those beautiful trees that seem to make sethe
happy. It would also seem that the tree is a recurring thing for sethe but instead of a way for her to cope
with things it is her.
As the book goes on, paul D is visiting sethe and they are talking about their past and what each
one has been up to. Paul d is telling sethe that maybe she should leave her house and find a new place to
live and start fresh for her and denver if the house is causing her so much pain and suffering. Sethe tells
paul D that she can't move “ they”won't let her. Then she replies “I got a tree on my back and a haint in
my house , and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms”(18). Sethe tells him how
she is tired of running away and that she will no longer run away from her problems. When sethe says
that she has a tree on her back I thought it was a metaphor of some kind like “chip on my shoulder”. I
thought maybe she had a huge burden on her like her family or how it is just her and her daughter left
and no one else. Then Paul d replies that he does not see a tree on her back nor does her see one
growing. Sethe says that that what the white girl told her she had on her back. Because the tree is on
sethe's back sethe will never be able to see this “Tree”.
Then Sethe goes on to talk about how these men took her milk from her for her baby and then
Paul D gets her back on the topic of this tree that was on her back. Sethe talk about how “them boys
found out” she “told on em” and how the “schoolteacher made one open up” her “back, and when it
closed it made a tree” and how “it grows there still”(20). The tree looks like it symbolizes the bad the
has come in sethe life so far, but down the round it might symbolize something different. Later on Paul D
and sethe sleep with one another and Paul D begins examin sethe as she layed next to him and examined
“the wrought iron maze he exploded in the kitchen like a gold miner pawing through pay dirt was in fact
a revolting clump of scars.Not a tree, as she had said. Maybe shaped like one, but nothing like any tree
he knew because rees were inviting; things you could trust and be near;talk to if you wanted to “(25).
Then Paul D started to think of sixo and about how sixo walked for seventeen hours to meet a girl and
how he only rested for one hour and then walked back another seventeen hours back home. How time
never worked out for him and how he was laughing and how he could never cook potatoes right. Paul
D thought “Now there was a man, and that was a tree” He was “lying in the bed and the tree lying next
to him didn't compare”(26). To paul D sixo was a real man and the tree he talks about is sixo’s warm
and inviting personality, how a tree would be. But the “tree” next to him sethe, was no comparison to
sixo because she was not warm and inviting, and also her and her house told a sad story and had a sad
feeling. Sethe is laying down and before hand sethe was walking in the hills when this white girl named
amy tells sethe she has no business up in the hills and that t she better leave if she wants to live. Because
if not men were going to find her and cut her head off. Sethe's back and feet started to ache so Sethe
lays on her side while amy treats her wounds. “Its a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. see, heres the
trunk-its red and split wide open, full of sap, and this heres the parting for the branches. you got a
mighty lot of branches. leaves too, look like, and dern if these ain't blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms,
just as white. your back got a whole tree on it. In bloom”(93). This quote gives a detailed description of
what the tree looks like.It sems like the more pain sethe goes through or is in the bigger the tree seems
to get. But the tree may symbolize Sethe’s journey and her life than just the hurt she has been through.
Even though the tree is not a metaphor for what sethe has been through it can be used as one.
“Its a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. see, heres the trunk-its red and split wide open, full of sap, and this
heres the parting for the branches. you got a mighty lot of branches. leaves too, look like, and dern if
these ain't blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as white. your back got a whole tree on it. In
bloom”(93).The whipping marks resemble that of a tree, she got those marks from be whipped and
beaten. The branches in the tree can symbolize the hardship she has been through and it can also
symbolize every person or thing that has hurt her in her life. Then the buds and flowers can represent the
good that has come out of her life like her daughter and the people she has met in her life. The buds can
also be the family members she has lost along the way and how they will always be remembered. The
tree symbolizes sethe's over all strength that she has developed and how she is now able to face the
boys hanging from the beautiful trees that she say. Slo how she herself has become that beautiful tree
that she so loved to look at.
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