Morrison uses color to symbolize the life Paul D desires as he is heading North. When Paul D asks the Cherokee man "how he might get North. Free North. Magical North," (Morrison 112) he conveys his desire for a free, safe, happy and even somewhat magical life. Equating color with this life, the Cherokee man replies, "Follow the tree flowers." When one thinks about or describes flowers, their colors are always import

Just as Paul D desires a better life after slavery, so does Baby Suggs. As a slave, Suggs was suppressed and did not experience the type of life she desired. Morrison indirectly demonstrates this by purposely leaving out any descriptions of color in Suggs's life when she was a slave. Morrison uses this absence of color to express that Suggs had lived the life which she had longed for. She did not experience independence, freedom, safety nor a sense of community when she was a slave. However, after she was sold, she searched for color, or the life that she had wanted. For, "she had never had time to see, let alone enjoy it before" (Morrison 201). Enjoying every color that she could, trying to compensate for the time wasted as a slave, Suggs retreated to her room and concentrated on color. It "took her a long time to finish with blue, then yellow then green" (Morrison 201). Making explicit the absence of color while Suggs was a slave and then describing the way she relished the colors of her newly acquired freedom, Morrison conveys Suggs's fulfillment of the life she had longed to have when she was a slave. Finally, as her life ended, Suggs was happy with the freedom, sense of community and family that she had achieved.

Denver, being a slave to her mother's love, had much in common with slaves on a plantation. Both Denver and the slaves at Sweet Home were deprived of freedom, safety, happiness, family and a sense of community. Although some slaves, like Sethe, did see color, they did not understand them and, therefore, could not enjoy them. They had desired to know color but they were so dehumanized by slavery that they could not achieve that desire. Slaves had to live their life "being astonished by the beauty of this land that was not" theirs (Morrison 268). "They cling to its banks to lap water and tried not to love it;" for, their life was not their own (Morrison 268). Thus, when the slaves are able to experience color, like Denver when she is a part of the community, the symbolism of color is very powerful. It symbolizes a character's ability to own a feeling or emotion. For example, when Sugars dies, she concentrates on color because that is one thing in her life which she owns. The effects of slavery have destroyed her family, community and even freedom. Therefore, she focuses on color because it is her own experience and the happiness she feels from pondering color is her own.

Although Suggs lives this free-life for a period of time, eventually her family, community and sense of happiness fall apart. Before Suggs threw a party to celebrate her united family and new found happiness, she was venerated by the black community. Suggs was safe, free and thankful for her present life. After her celebration feast, when "Sethe was in jail with her nursing baby...[and] her sons were holding hands in the yard, terrified of letting go," Baby Suggs "just up and quit" (M

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Approximate Word count = 1974
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)