Project: Womens talk in Beloved, by Tony Morrison

Foreword
We deemed it necessary to include a general overview of Beloveds plot in the belief that it will simplify your
understanding of our arguments. Therefore, the theoretical concepts introduced in the present paper can be
readily related to the actions and events taking place in the mentioned book that reflect the present concern:
womens talk.

Beloved is Toni Morrisons fifth novel. This novel is an attempt to grapple with the legacy of slavery.
Morrison based her novel on a real-life incident, whose main character is Sethe, a woman who loved something
other than herself so much, she has placed all of the value of her life in something outside herself: in her
children.
In the novel, Beloved is a girl who makes her appearance on two occasions. At first, she is the spirit of a
murdered child who haunts the house in which her mother Sethe and her sister Denver live. Later on, she returns
in flesh and blood so as to spend her un-lived life with her remaining family.
Sethe is a former slave who has escaped, pregnant with Denver, from Sweet Home, the house in which she
was working. She eventually goes to 124 Bluestone in Cincinatti. Baby Suggs, her mother-in-law, is waiting
there for her, along with Sethes two other boys, Buglar and Howard. After some years, unable to put up with the
haunting ghost, the boys run away, leaving Sethe and Denver alone with the childs spirit. The grandmother,
Baby Suggs, dies a broken woman. She had been a great positive force in Cincinatti's black community, regarded
by many as an inspiring holy woman.
Paul D is another Sweet Home slave who knows Sethe and her disappeared husband, Halle. After discovering
Sethes whereabouts, he goes to 124, staying with her and her daughter. He eventually succeeds in exorcising the
ghost.
Beloved returns in the form of a grown-up child and is received by Sethe and Denver without question.
Denver becomes her playmate and Sethe her greatest admiration. She feels depiction toward Paul D. After some
time, Paul D leaves at his own will when he learns that Sethe has murdered her own child.
Sethe, on discovering Beloved's identity, believes she has been given a second chance. She tries to make
amends for the past, but the girl's needs are devouring. The ghost does not forgive Sethe for her actions. Her
purposes initially seem benign and are never fully understood, but by the end of the novel her presence is deeply
destructive for the living people of 124.
A group of women, led by Ella, a former agent of the Underground Railroad, go to 124 to exorcise Beloved's
ghost. The ghost is forced to leave, but Sethe's spirit has been nearly broken. Paul D returns to her, vowing to
help Sethe heal herself. Denver, Paul D, and Sethe will build a new life, one in which they learn to deal with
their painful past while focusing on the future.

INTRODUCTION
Feminine and masculine are not what we are, not traits we have, but effects we produce by way
of particular things we do: Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts
within a reached regulatory frame which congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance,
of a natural kind of being (Butler, abstracted in Deborah Cameron, Performing gender identity:
young mens talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity, in Sally Johnson and Ulrike
Hanna Meinhof: Language and Masculinity, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).

Our present concern is with language and the social construction of gender, focusing on womens talk. For
this purpose, we deemed it necessary to take as our point of departure the way in which contemporary feminism
regards the issue of socialisation into gender roles, that is, the feminist stance will lead us to a deep analysis of
the reasons underlying the actual linguistic choices women make at the moment of speaking.
It has often been argued that the position women have adopted, if not been imposed, all throughout history
has been one of submission to men. This subordinate role has had consequences upon womens lives,
consequences which can be seen as being reflected upon the way they express themselves, their feelings and on
how they relate with other women as well as men. One of the consequences deriving from this inequality in
gender and which many scholars have set to study since the 1970s, is the imminent construction of womens
stereotypes, which cannot be said to be the result of a biological factor but rather a consequence of society. In
Poyntons words: ...biological sex (identification as female or male) needs to be distinguished from social
gender (identification as feminine or masculine) since the latter is not an automatic consequence of the former.
Gender is rather a social creation.
The asymmetry between women and men is not only reflected in the lexical choices they make. This can be
best explained by going outside the linguistic structure itself and paying attention to three constraining factors or
semiotic (meaning-making) systems: REGISTER, GENRE and IDEOLOGY. That is, in order to arrive at an
interpretation of the meaning of what is said by someone, we should consider the context of situation, the goal or
purpose of the talk and the beliefs and values implicated.
Taking into account what we have stated above, before scrutinising the lexical choices made by the female
characters in Morrisons Beloved, we will analyse more in detail genre, register and ideology, provided the
importance they have been attributed in the theoretical model the present work follows.

I. GENRE
As Poynton so rightly states, Genre deals with the question of goals, with what are recognised and socially
sanctioned as possible ends or purposes within a particular society

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 Genres are learnt according to certain social variables such as nationality, ethnicity, class or gender, being
class and gender the factors for determining access to and participation in prestigious genres and, of course, the
female gender has been the injured party. What is more, where women are recognised as having competence in a
genre, that genre will tend to have lower prestige or will be taken less seriously or even pejoratively. Even more
seriously, some genres in which women do have competence are not even recognised as such.
Since gender is a social creation, children are taught how to behave according to whether they are boys or
girls because their identification as male or female is of crucial importance to those around them. In this
teaching, women play an important role since the control of children is primarily handled by women. But
culturally, women are not seen as authority figures. This is illustrated in the following examples:

He know what he needs, said Denver.

Well, you dont, Sethe told her, and must not know what you need either. I dont want to hear another
word out of you.

I didnt train her like that. (Morrison, 44)

These are Shethe's words: she is talking about the way she has brought up her daughter Denver.

The fact that gender is not genetically endowed, but rather taught, can be found in the character played by
Paul D. There is an instance in which he feels uncertain about his masculinity. He is not sure if he was ever
really a man, or if he only acted like one because Garner taught him how. Mr Garner was the first master in
Sweet Home, before Schoolteacher, and he insisted that his slaves were the only male slaves in Kentucky who
were real men. It is worth highlighting that the upbringing here is handled by a man, and no woman takes part in
it.

II. REGISTER
The concern of register is related to what Malinowski called context of situation. In order to understand a
piece of language, one has to be acquainted with FIELD ( what the institutional context of the discourse is),
TENOR (what the relationship between speaker and addressee is), and MODE (what channel is being used to
communicate). The one is realised by experiential choices; the second, by interpersonal choices; and the third, by
textual choices.
For the purpose of the present paper, of these three situational variables we are going to focus on TENOR,
since the choice of pronouns of address as well as the way women express themselves depends on the
relationship to their addressee. In turn, it is worth pointing out that these interpersonal choices are made on three
dimensions:
1. Contact: social distance or intimacy dimension. In terms of contact, women are culturally defined as
contact-able. Relations between men in terms of contact can be friendly but not too close.
Sethe reflects exactly the opposite since she cannot be regarded as a public person. She is reluctant to live a
future and in her struggle not to do so she keeps to herself. It is Paul D who actually tries to convince her about
the fact that there is a world and a life outside 124.
2. Affect: attitudinal dimension concerned with attitude or emotion towards addressee (or towards the field of
discourse). In terms of affect, it is culturally acceptable for men to display the powerful emotions, especially
anger, but not for women to do so: men can be righteously angry, but women merely lose their tempers.
(Poynton)
In Beloved we find instances, among the many which fulfil the stereotype, in which Sethe and Baby Suggs
show their anger freely. Not to mention the case of Beloved, who is portrayed as a clear antithesis throughout the
whole story.
What you did was wrong, Sethe.
I should have gone on back there? Taken my babies back there?
There could have been a way. Some other way.
What way?
You got two feet, Sethe, not four, he said. []

Sweet, she thought. He must think I cant bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told him and after
telling me how many feet I have, goodbye would break me to pieces. Aint that sweet.
So long, she murmured from the far side of the trees. (Morrison, 165)

Upon having been asked by Denver how long he was going to hang around, Paul D says:

[] Paul D scratched the hair on his chin. Maybe I should make tracks.
No! Sethe was surprised by how loud she said it. [] (Morrison, 43)

She herself is annoyed by such sudden and straightforward display of emotion.

3. Power: ranges from equal to unequal, with the basis of that power deriving from at least one of the factors
specified. With respect to power it would seem that men are culturally legitimated as powerful and women not.
Women, on the other hand, are not legitimated in terms of power, hence relations between women and men in
general are culturally defined as between powerful and powerless and this shows up linguistically in a variety of
ways. In the novel under analysis, this powerful/powerless distinction is not realised primarily in terms of
whether the characters are women or men, but instead in terms of whether they are owners or slaves. However,
there are instances in which the power of men is shown in other ways other than the linguistic one:

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 - Paul D has the power of making Sethe talk about her past, a topic she would avoid talking about.
This is clearly shown when Sethe is found thinking: Not even trying, he had become the kind of man
who could walk into a house and make the women cry. [] Strong women and wise saw him and told
him things they only told each other . (Morrison, 17)
- Schoolteachers power is a physical one, determined by his status as owner. The society
portrayed in Beloved is exactly an unevenly distributed one; the low status of colour people (as opposed
to the relatively high status of whites) results in them being treated pejoratively.

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 III. IDEOLOGY
The term ideology is used to mean the body of ideas characteristic of a particular society or sub-culture.
Language is immersed in the ongoing life of a society, as the practical consciousness of that society.
In the novel, ideological meanings emerge out of particular power-configurations. Schoolteacher dehumanises
blacks: all of them are nameless niggers differentiated by what they wear. When we readers realise that the
nigger with the flower in her hat is Baby Suggs, the refusal of Schoolteacher to recognise black humanity
becomes even clearer. (Morrison, 149).

When Paul recalls his past as a slave, were introduced into the dialogue he held with the guard.
Breakfast? Want some breakfast, nigger?
Yes, sir.
Hungry, nigger?
Yes, sir.
Here you go. (Morrison, 107-108)

Schoolteacher was a cruel and sadistic master, interested in ways to break the wills of his slaves. He conducted
a pseudo-scientific study of the slaves, treating them in his study the way a biologist treats lab animals. His
nephews held Sethe down and stole her milk while schoolteacher took notes.

Another ideological dichotomy at issue in the book is that of woman opposed to man. According to Poynton,
this dichotomy involves a cluster of associated meanings. Thus, the man is seen as rational, logical, reasonable,
and in control of his feelings, compared to the woman, who is irrational, illogical, unreasonable, and emotional.
Though this is what is generally expected, this is not exactly so in Beloved given, perhaps, the time and the place
in which the novel is inscribed. Because of their condition as slaves, women tend to keep their feelings, emotions
and desires to themselves. Beloved is an exception to the rule but this will be analysed later.
It is worth pointing out that ideological structures are not imposed on the day-to-day reality of ordinary living
from the outside, so that the individuals can choose whether or not to adopt an ideological position. Ideological
structures are merely formalisations of patterns of behaviour characteristic of a particular society.

LEXIS
As it has been mentioned before, social life is socially constructed. The particular facts of this social
construction are, to a considerable extent, named (lexicalised), and those facts as meanings, become part of
the language used by members of that society.
The socially constructed world functions by restricting access to roles and activities in relation to what are
regarded as relevant social characteristics such as age, gender, class, etc. This is shown up linguistically in terms
of differences in how people are talked about. This latter fact we were all the time aware of when scrutinising the
language used by the female characters of the novel, since the post-Civil War-slavery context both restricts and
reflects choices made at the level of lexis, given the submissive condition women (such as Sethe and Baby
Suggs) have been subjected to all throughout their lives.
There is considerable evidence that the fields of discourse tend to differ for men and women and that, as a
consequence of this, topics of conversation differ, as well as grammatical structures. This speech characteristic of
women has been identified by Lakoff in terms of powerlessness. According to him, women talk as they do
because of their position of relative powerlessness both in the society as a whole and in the context of particular
relationships. In fact, this is the main reason why the women in Beloved behave the way they do in terms of their
linguistic choices.
The linguistic differences we are concerned with here will be now accounted for in the light of three strata:

Discourse stratum
Topic choice: As it has been previously mentioned, women are said to talk about certain topics which men do
not. The women in the novel do not depart from stereotypical notions. Their topics range from their children
upbringing, love, household, flowers, and clothes.

This here Sethe talked about love like any other woman; talked about baby clothes like any other woman,
[...] (Morrison, 164)

Speech function (speech act) choice and realisation: Men use many more commands. When women use
commands, they choose interrogatives, especially modalised, or even declarative clause. ( I wonder if you
would....) This is glossed as politeness.

Can I get you anything to eat maam? the girl asked.

No, darling. Id look favourable on some water, though. (Morrison,143)

This conversation takes place between Baby Suggs and a black girl called Janey. This a clear example in
which we can see the use of polite expressions used by women when addressing other people, especially when
this other is a woman who is of the same status as hers.

Initiating conversations: Women try to initiate conversations more than men but succeed less often because
of lack of male co-operation. This general statement we found revalidated in Beloved given both the inferior
position slave women enjoy and the striking way in which the two main women characters (Sethe and Denver)

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would rather converse: in isolation and to themselves. In this sense, Beloved can be regarded as a character who
deviates from the norm, since she is the only one who initiates conversations with topics which other women
would rather avoid talking about (e.g.: the past)

Lexico-grammatical stratum: grammar

Clause rank
Tags: several theories have dealt with this issue and they seemed to have arrived at different conclusions.
Some theories claim that women use more tag questions than men. Lakoff argues that they indicate lack of
assertiveness, which in turn reflects their lack of power. He says that women do this because they are less sure
about themselves and their opinions.
Other theories state that women use more tag questions because they are concerned about matters of
politeness and they are trying to involve the interlocutor in the conversation.
However, as it is mentioned in the book Alive to Language , such views have been challenged, and refuted,
with many researchers arguing that linguistic forms matter only insofar as they have a cultural value attached to
them; they do not , of themselves, have any power- related meaning.
When taking into account the dialogues in the novel, it is worth pointing out that several instances of tag
questions have been found in both mens and womens talk.

Modality/Modulation: women tend to use tentative expressions, or hedges, which include: modals ( would,
must, etc); modal adverbs (probably, possibly) and interpersonal metaphors (I think, I suppose). Women are also
said to use "super-polite" forms, that is, multiple modality (I was wondering if you could possibly just do me a
small favour, if you wouldn't mind). This is again related to the stereotype of tentativeness associated with their
powerless position.
The following example has been taken from a conversation held by two women slaves who are talking to
each other for the first time. This is closely related to the concept of politeness mentioned above.

No, darling. Id look favourable on some water though. (Morrison, 143)

Terms of address (vocatives): women are often named, titled and addressed differently from men. The
choices vary and this is related not only to the question of status and power but also to the question of social
distance.

Yes, maam.
Hows your family, honey?
[]
I want to work, Miss Lady.
Work?
Yes, maam. Anything.
Oh, baby, said Mrs. Jones. Oh, baby. (Morrison, 248)

This conversation takes place when Denver goes to Lady Jones house and asks her for food and a job. This is
the first time she leaves her house on her own, and she is moved to do so because she fears for her mothers life.
The choice of vocatives is useful in reflecting the kind of relationship between the two characters involved. Lady
Jones addresses Denver as honey first and then as baby, this clearly deriving from the fact that a relationship of
affection exists between them both. On the other hand, Denver addresses Lady Jones as Miss, showing respect
because of her being an older person.
We consider it important to point out that, in this particular case, vocatives are being used in order to make
the other person feel that she is being taken into consideration.

When Sethe leaves the keeping room, Denver confronts her:

What were you praying for, Maam?

Not for anything. I dont pray any more. I just talk.
What were you talking about?
You wont understand, baby. (Morrison, 35)

By means of using the vocative baby, Sethe is implying that Denver is not mature enough to understand
grown-up activities, while at the same time suggesting certain degree of asymmetry between them both.

Mr. Garner, she said, why you all call me Jenny?

Cause that whats on your sales ticket, gal. Aint that your name? What you call yourself?
Nothing, she said. I dont call myself nothing.
[...]
What he call you?
Baby. (Morrison, 142)

This extract shows that vocatives and titles play an important role in the novel given the fact that they make
explicit the kind of relationship that exists between the interlocutors, taking into account power, contact and
affect dimensions.

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 Group rank
It is believed that women tend to use adjectives of frequency, adjectives of approximation (about, around),
attitudinal adjectives (such as wonderful, darling), intensifiers (so, very, etc), and possessive constructions, with
more frequency than men. However, in the novel there is not such a clear-cut differentiation between both
genders.

Lexico-grammatical stratum: lexis

Field range: when talking, women and men include different lexical sets. For instance, women have more
command of the colour terminology. In Beloved, there are several occasions in which women show their concern
with colour of dresses, landscape and objects.

Swearing: it is generally associated with mens talk. In the novel, all the examples (which are few) of
swearing expressions have been uttered by men. The example below is said by Paul D when talking with Stamp
about Beloved:

Well, now shes a bitch. (Morrison, 235)

Euphemism and taboo language: people, especially women, tend to avoid referring to certain topics of
conversation in a straightforward way because those topics are considered taboo language. Instead, they make
use of euphemism. The matters usually avoided are sex, bodily functions, parts of the body, death, and so on.

I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name. (Morrison, 116)

This cryptic remark is said by Beloved to Paul D, who is being moved out of the house and is resting in the
cold house. It clearly shows the fact that sex was taboo language, at least for women.

Would he give his privates to a stranger in return for a carving? (Sethes stream of consciousness)
(Morrison, 203)

My plan was to take us all to the other side where my own maam is. (Sethes stream of consciousness)
(Morrison, 203)

Euphemism here is used in order to avoid speaking straightforwardly about death.

Silence is also seen as a way of complying with the female stereotype and the way women recur to in order to
avoid talking about certain topics, such as the past. The following serves as a perfect example:

Baby Suggs talked as little as she could get away with because what was there to say that the roots of
her tongue could manage? So the whitewoman, finding her new slave excellent if silent help, hummed herself as
she worked. (Morrison, 141)

Silence in this case clearly marks the suppression of criticism a characteristic of the speech of people who
were oppressed. The dimension of power being reflected here by Baby Suggs status, gender and race, which, on
the whole, render her hierarchically inferior.

Politeness markers: women are said to use more expressions like please, thank you, among others, since
they tend to be more sensitive to politeness strategies and to be more cooperative than competitive.

At this very point we want to highlight the fact that, even though most of these lexical features have been
accomplished and are clearly reflected in the novel, Morrison has created a character who flouts the female
stereotypic portrait: a ghost that represents the exception to the typical womanly behaviour. This device is even
more shocking if we take into account the historical context in which the novel is placed and the moment in
which it was written, a time in which it was almost utopian for women to deviate from the institutionalised norm.
It is worth pointing out that it requires so much courage to perform such a deviation that Morrison resorts to it
being achieved by an atypical character.
This revolutionary attitude Beloved displays is clearly reflected in the following instances:

I take the shoes! I take the dress! The shoe strings dont fix! she shouted and gave him a look so malevolent
Denver touched her arm. [] (Morrison, 65)

The above is Beloveds response to Paul Ds questioning of her background. What we have observed with
awe is that her linguistic behaviour challenges the way in which women were then expected to answer:
submissively.

Dont tell me what to do! Dont you never never tell me what to do! (Morrison, 76)

Whereas the previous example between Beloved and Paul D was an asymmetrical exchange and thus the man
was supposed to dominate (a feature he actually finds it impossible to display) the present example is a
symmetrical one. It belongs to a conversation maintained between Denver and Beloved, sisters nearly the same
age and belonging to the same social class; therefore we would expect the speech to flow with cooperativeness.

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However, once more, Beloved is an exception to the norm, exerting dominance and hence rendering the
exchange unequal.

You have to touch me. On the inside part. And you have to call me my name. (Morrison, 117)

In this example we observe, through the use of commands, the exertion of dominance by Beloved, even more
striking when it is combined with so taboo a topic.

CONCLUSION
Following Poyntons views, women and men as groups tend to make different selections at all linguistic
levels from phonology to genre. Such selections are to be understood as realising, and hence perpetuating, an
ideological opposition between male and female that maintains that the two are different in specifiable ways and
which validates [] the female and her activities as of lesser importance and value. (Poynton, 87-88).
We have tried to analyse this difference in the linguistic selections made by the female characters in Beloved.
However, we have also included examples provided by the male characters as we believed it essential to reach a
comparative analysis. Our study has been mainly a descriptive one, specifying features such as submission in
master-slave exchanges.
We also included what we believe are challenging deviations from the female stereotype, reflected here in the
linguistic choices made by the character played by Beloved. We found it interesting to note that whereas Sethe
seems to respect a gendered construction of society, Beloved breaks free from such gender constraints.
All in all, the reason why mens and womens speech differs is that they are brought up differently. []
Gender is accomplished in discourse ... that what we think of as womanly or manly behaviour is not dictated
by biology, but rather is socially constructed. And a fundamental domain in which gender is constructed is
language use. Social constructions of gender are not neutral, however; they are implicated in the institutionalised
power relations of societies. In known contemporary societies, power relations are asymmetrical, such that
womens interests are systematically subordinated to mens [], as Weedon (1987: 1) points out.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ardnt, V; Harvey, P. & J. Nuttall (2000). Alive to Language, CUP.
Cameron, Deborah. Chapter 26: Performing Gender Identity: Young mens talk and the construction of
heterosexual masculinity.
Candace West, Michelle M. Lazar and Cheris Kramarae, Discourse as Social Interaction, chapter 5: Gender
in Discourse.
Morrison, Tony (1987). Beloved. Vintage, 1997
Poynton, Cate (1989). Language and Gender: Making the Difference. Oxford University Press.
Wardhaugh, An introduction to Sociolinguistics. Chapter 13: Language and Sex.