Colors are the single rays of hope that brighten Baby Suggs's last days. She particularly craves lavender and the orange squares that lessen the forbidding neutrality of the keeping room both for her and for its subsequent inhabitant, Beloved, who also gravitates toward a rich, fiery hue. Touches of red signify Beloved — she is bathed in red blood, gravitating toward a flitting cardinal, and wrenching open the cloistered red heart within Paul D. The black community, designated as Bluestone Road, is like a sapphire, a jewel that forms in nature. Like a pearl evolving around grit or a diamond forced into sparkling life from dispirited carbon, Bluestone (a way station) colors black freedom with a reassuring luster.
Metal images appear, such as the knife that Paul D grips like a harpoon as he skewers Beloved with personal questions about where she came from and where she is headed. The iron in Sethe's eyes and the iron bit in Paul D's mouth that stops him from talking with Halle about his trauma represent the dichotomy of female strength versus male impotence. The cruelties of Sweet Home stiffen Sethe against all buffetings, even loss of respect for her much-loved husband; these same indignities harness Paul D like a dray animal and stop his mouth from communicating his loss of manhood.
Without imagery, Beloved would be a sterile ghost story, fit only for titillating audiences into a shiver and nervous giggle. Details, richly evocative and endlessly interconnected, support the framework of Beloved's plot. The multiple levels of communication perform multiple tasks:
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They tell the story.
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They describe the historic underpinnings of slavery.
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They reveal the dehumanizing effect of bondage and torture.
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They investigate the difference between male and female responses to powerlessness.
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They delineate the necessity for self-love.
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They crown the story with its ritualistic laying on of hands, the healing touch that restores wholeness.
