Animal+Imagery


 * = Record Images of animals in //Beloved// Here. Please include the quote and the page/section number. =
 * ==== Dog's name is "Here Boy" (pg 6-1.1)--stray? Didn't know his name? Lack of connection to the dog? ====


 * One day the baby's spirit in the house slammed Here boy into a wall causing him to be paralyzed. "And when the baby's spirit picked up Here Boy and slammed him into the wall hard enough to break two of his legs and dislocate his eye,so hard he went into convulsions and chewed up his tongue, still her mother had not looked away." (Section 1.1, p.14) Maybe the little girl didn't like here boy? Saw him getting love and attention and she wasn't?

When recounting the story of Denver's birth, Sethe refers to Denver as an antelope. When Sethe was born, the thing she remembered most vividly was men and women dancing the antelope. Ever since then, she has connected birth and babies to the animal.
 * Section 1.1, p. 30 "But she could not, would not, stop, for when she did the little antelope rammed her with horns and pawed the ground of her womb with impatient hooves. While she was walking, it seemed to graze, quietly--so she walked, on two feet meant, in this sixth month of pregnancy, for standing still."
 * Section 1.3 p. 37 (hardcover) "..., but the thought of herself stretched out dead while the little antelope lived on- an hour? a day? a day and a night?- in her lifeless body grieved her..."

Sethe remembers Denver's birth and being incredibly hungry (figuratively or literally?), so much so that she compares herself to a snake.
 * Section 1.3, p. 31 "I was hungry to do it. Like a snake. All jaws and hungry."
 * Section 1.3, p. 32 "Down in the grass, like the snake she believed she was, Sethe opened her mouth, and instead of fangs and a split tongue, out shot the truth."

Beloved is described by Paul D as being as strong as a bull even though she appears to be really sick. Maybe he is seeing something in her that the other don't or maybe she has a strong spirit or personality even though she is sick.
 * Section 1.5 pg. 56 "Acts sick, sounds sick, but she don't look sick. Good skin, bright eyes and strong as a bull."

Paul D compares the Klan to a dragon out for their blood. This shows how the Klan evokes such a strong fear in the eyes of African Americans.
 * Section 1.7, pg. 66 "Desperately thristy for black blood, without which it could not live, the dragon swam the Ohio at will."

Paul D uses a metaphor to emphasize his feeling toward the situation: "Paul D had a feeling a large, silver fish had slipped from his hands the minute he grabbed its tail"-the silver color could also emphasize the importance of catching this "fish"
 * In this instance, he is referring to how evasive Beloved is towards his questions. Not only does he imply that Beloved is not human, but also that she is somehow lying to them about who she really is.(Hardcover, 1.7, pg. 78)

Hardcover, 1.7, Page 78 "Paul D had the strange feeling a large, silver fish had slipped from his hands the minute he grabbed hold of its tail" This shows that every time Paul D is closer to understanding Beloved, he is lead towards another conclusion. The fish is a metaphore for how slippery it is dealing with this mysterious girl, and how he can't ever catch her intentions.

Hardcover, 1.8 Page 94. There is imagery of Sethe being eaten alive by animals.
 * "Snake come along and bite you. Bear eat you up. Maybe you should of stayed where you was, Lu."


 * Denver sets out to find Beloved and make up after there fight. She finds Beloved standing at the creeks edge watching two turtles mate.
 * Section 1.9, Page 124 "A turtle inched along the edge, turned and climbed to dry ground. Not far behind it was another one, headed in the same direction. Four placed plates under a hovering motionless bowl...."

If the Sweet Home men ever decided to leave Sweet Home, they would be dead to the human race.
 * Section 1.9 Page 127 "Heavy sometimes and if the dogs were quiet and just breathing you could hear doves." Doves represent good and holy things and when there wasn't anything bad going on, you could hear them.\
 * "Watch dogs without teeth; steer bulls without horns; gelded workhorses whose neigh and whinny could not be translated into a language responsible humans spoke." pg. 125 section 1.13


 * Section 1.9 Page 129, "By the eighth day the doves were nowhere in sight,....." This shows that there is something bad that is going to happen because the doves mean holy and good and they are now gone.

The Cherokees Paul D meets call black people "buffalo men". It shows the contrast between the Native Americans and white people, because even though the Cherokee are characterizing black people as animals, it isn't dehumanizing.
 * "Buffalo men, they called them, and talked slowly to the prisoners scooping mush..." (1.10 hardcover: pg. 132)


 * In section 1.13 on page 148 it reads, "He who had eaten raw meat barely dead, who under plum trees bursting with blossoms had crunched through a dove's breast before its heart stopped beating." This shows that no matter how good and pure (dove) something is, bad things always overcome it.

This section is talking about how painful and difficult the path to freedom was for the slaves, and how it was very difficult to do it alone. Morrison uses vivid animal imagery to describe what would happen if they made the journey alone.
 * Section 1.15 pg 159 "Nobody could make it alone. Not only because trappers picked them off like buzzards or netted them like rabbits, but also because you couldn't run if you didn't know how to go"

The things animals do happen all around us. Paul D does not approve of Sethe's decision to kill her children to save them from slavery. He compares her act to that of an animal.
 * Section 1.15, page 162 hardcover, "She could hear birds and, faintly, the stream way down in the meadow. The puppy, Here Boy, was burying the last bones from yesterday's party."
 * Section 1.18, page 165 paperback "'You got two feet, Sethe, not four.'"

Dever is no longer important in Sethe's life, as she compares herself to chickens.
 * Section 1.17 pg 185 hardback "So Stamp Paid did not tell him how she flew, snatching up her children like a hawk on the wing; how her face beaked, how her hands worked like claws, how she collected them every which way..."
 * Section 3.1, page 281 hardback, "Everything was gone except two laying hens, and somebody would soon have to decide whether an egg every now and then was worth more than two fried chickens."

Section 2.2 pg 270 hardcover "Then he saw Halle, then the rooster, smiling as if to say, You ain't seen nothing yet. How could a rooster know about Alfred, George?"

Section 1.14 page 158 hardcover, "Cried the way she wanted to when turtles came out of the water, one behind the other, right after the blood-red bird disappeared back into the leaves."

Section 1.16 page 175 hardcover, "A crazy old nigger was standing in the woodpile with an ax. You could tell he was crazy right off because he was grunting-making low, cat noises like.