Style

By: Katharine Archer, Kelly

Kankowski, Chasa Monica, Taylor
Pagel
Morrison utilizes style to portray
the struggles and truths of
slavery through the details in the
setting and exposition, the
non-linear structure, stream of
consciousness, and magical realism
and point of view
Setting & Exposition
“124 was spiteful. Full
of a baby’s venom”
(Morrison 1: Chapter 1).

124
Setting & Exposition
“‘Follow the tree flowers,’
he said. ‘As they go, you
go. You will be where you
want to be when they are
gone.’ So [Paul D] raced
from dogwood to
blossoming peach”
(Morrison 112: Chapter 10)
Non-Linear Structure / Flashback
★ Paul D was “less than a chicken sitting in the sun” (Chapter 7)
★ “In that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid
rusted shut”(Chapter 7)
★ “they shoved him into the box and dropped the cage door down, his
hands quit taking instruction”(Chapter 10)
Non-Linear Structure Continued
★ Denver also suffers from these traumatic flashbacks
○ “I don't know what it is, I don't know who it is, but maybe
there is something else terrible enough to make her do it again”
(Chapter 21)
Stream of Consciousness
➢ Technique utilized throughout chapters 20-23
➢ Point of view of Sethe as a mother and Denver as her child
➢ The motif of motherhood
○ “nobody’s ma’am would run off and leave her daughter, would she?”
(Morrison 240)
➢ The loss of childhood because of her fear of her mother
○ “She cut my head off every night” (Morrison 243).
➢ Syntax and structure which implies she was educated
○ “If you can’t count they can cheat you. If you can’t read they can beat you”
(Morrison 246).
➢ Characterization of her father as a perfect man
○ “My daddy was an angel man. He could look at you and tell where you hurt
and fix it too” (Morrison 246)
 Stream of Consciousness Continued
➢ Point of view of Beloved as a victim
➢ Allusion to slave ships within Beloved’s
point of view
○ “I am always crouching his mouth smells sweet
but his eyes are locked” (Morrison 248: ch. 22)
○ “Small rats do not wait for us to sleep someone
is thrashing but there is no room to do it in”
(Morrison 248: ch. 22)
➢ Syntax and structure represents lack of
education and how she died very young
○ “A hot thing now we can join a hot thing”
(Morrison 252: ch. 22)
➢ Imagery and symbolism of the
iron circle around Sethe’s neck
○ “If I had the teeth of the man who
died on my face I would bite the
circle around her neck” (Morrison
249: ch. 22)
Magical Realism
Auditory and Visual Imagery: Personifying the Spectral
“two tiny hand prints in the cake...turned-over slop jars,
smacks on the behind, and gusts of sour air” (Chapter 1, 1,2)

Symbolism: The Motif of Touch

“Tumbling forward from her seat on the rock, she
clawed the hands that were not there. Her feet were
thrashing by the time Denver got to her and then Beloved”
(Chapter 9, 113)

“...she was feeling so fine letting Beloved massage away the

pain , the fingers...that had soothed her before they
strangled her” (Chapter 9, 115)
Point of View Hunting Imagery: likening slaves to animals
“Just think- what would his own horse do if you
beat it beyond the point of education...you'd be
holding out a piece of rabbit in you hand, and the
animal would revert - bite your hand clean off. So
he punished that nephew by not letting him come
on the hunt” (Chapter 16, 176)
Irony
“All testimony to the
results of the so-called
freedom imposed on
people who needed every
care and guidance in the
world to keep them from
the cannibal life they
preferred” (Chapter 16,
177).