" Then something. The plash of water, the sight of her shoes and stockings awry on the path where she had flung them; or Here Boy lapping in the puddle near her feet, and suddenly there was Sweet Home rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and although there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty. It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves. 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)
Overall Toni Morrison's writing is very jarring, because of how she brings you into reading something beautiful but then it is disrupted by something viciously disturbing. We can see that in this passage when Sethe is reminded of her past life in Sweet Home the moment she sees Here Boy lapping in the puddle next to her feet, but Sethe has these recurring dark memories constantly because of her rough past experiences. She is unable to move on because of the things she has endured, seen, and emotionally felt. Her past memories haunt her in the present day. And she can not look at sycamore trees the same way that she did before she seen young boys lynched upon them.
In a way that image scarred her vision of what beauty is. The sycamore trees that she thinks of as the most beautiful trees in the world are associated with the deaths of young boys, which has made them horrifying to her now. She realizes that the beauty of the sycamore trees masked the horrible things associated with it, which is why she wonders if a place as terrible as hell is masked with beauty.
There is a lot of comparison/contrast and juxtapositions in the book. And the comparisons are between sad and heartwarming things. Sethe is conflicted between wanting to move on, but her past memories the good and bad, keep her from being able to do so. The author does this to send the message that if you feel like you are ready to move on, you never know what will drag you back in terms of your emotions. If you do move on your past life will interfere with your new one.
What I expect to read later on in the book (not textually) is Morrison relating the many desirable aspects of her life to horrible things she has experienced. In Sethe’s mind she will always have that underlying fear of being hurt by her past. Sethe does not like the reminders of what she endured, which is why she has tried to start a new life, but even the subtlest things bring her back to the past. This is what I think we’ll all be able to see throughout the book; Sethe trying to move on but her past will continue to haunt her.- Halemah Shuman
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