Notes

ith a conspicuous deficit of emotion. The project of Morrison's novel is to regis- ter and index the vital relationship between the "personhood" of African Americans and the specific songs of former slaves. This is to say that the original description of slave song in Douglass, looming in the background of Morrison's novel, shapes her handling of music and song, her insistence on its signal importance as an indicator of human status in Beloved. Morrison shows how song defines and affirms slave "personhood" in a world where slave humanity is constantly challenged and denied. Morrison's treatment of song in Belovedprovides the reader with a testimony that is significantly different from the testimonies set forth in the slave narratives. Morrison's testimony does not end with the establishment of slavery's barbarity; it chronicles her characters' endurance and ability to survive during and after these periods of physical brutality and psychological abuse. The principal characters of the novel-Sethe, Paul D, and Sixo-all associate song with their humanity and use it as a shield against indignity and despair.

Often in Beloved,when characters cannot read or write or even talk about the brutality they experience as slaves, they sing to affirm their participation in life and defend their status as human beings. Song offers slaves the opportunity to express their personal testimonies while remaining within the framework of their larger cultural experiences-all without actually speaking of their shame and trauma. Although Nellie McKay does not specifically identify song as a response to the silencing of slave stories in the introduction to her Belovedcasebook, she acknowledges the need for an alternate slave "voice:"

She includes the ability to sing among the barestand most rudimentary essentials of human existence early in the novel. At the house on Bluestone Road,if PaulD could "walk,eat,sleep, [and]sing,"he could survive and "askedfor no more"(41).

On the individual level,Paul D "/change[s]the words," "throwing in a line if one occur[s]to him" to establish an element of personal testimony in the song. They would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaningjargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaningto themselves.(57)