Out on a ship-Close reading-Erin

 "We are not crouching now   we are standing but my legs are like my dead man's eyes   I cannot fall because there is no room to    the men without skin are making loud noises   I am not dead   the bread is sea-colored   I am too hungry to eat it   the sun closes my eyes   those able to die are in a pile [...] the woman is there with the face I want   the face that is mine   [...] if I had the teeth of the man who died on my face I would bite the circle around the neck   bite it away   I know she does not like it" (249)

In this passage we get a glimpse into the mind of Beloved herself. The passage could be interpreted in many different ways. One way could be a grave full of the angry black dead. Some believe that it is a metaphor for an inescapable womb. I believe that Beloved is describing the conditions on a slave ship from the perspective of a women. The description fits almost all slave ships that participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

"There is no room". This quote describes the tightly packed conditions slaves were forced to endure. Every inch of the cargo hold was crammed to hold as many slaves as possible. They were left without adequate room or breathing space. They could not lie down or even change positions. In one description of a slave ship the space was so tight that many of the slaves died of suffocation. The condition were inhuman and allowed diseases to breed and spread. This left many slaves dead and/or emancipated. The slaves were then put in a pile or thrown overboard. Because these conditions were so intolerable many slaves chose to kill themselves as they believed that their souls would return home.

Another historical quote in this passage is "the circle around [the lady's] neck" as many slaves were chained in their ships so they would not escape. These chains were also dehumanizing techniques as they were chained like wild animals. The description Beloved gives above is of slave ships from the collective memory of slavery. This gives an idea of the dehumanizing conditions that slaves were put through.


Here is a long but good video about a slave ship:

For information about the slave trade and its impacts check out the video below: