Toni Morrison cannot seem to get enough of sprinkling certain historical references into Beloved, but she also cannot help but hint at some Biblical references as well. Page 174's iconic introduction, "When the four horsemen came...", does not only urge the reader to continue reading, but it also provides a sense of ambiguity towards what exactly the four horsemen are, and their role in the novel. Morrison clearly elicits that they are the slaveowners (schoolteacher, one nephew, one slave catcher, and a sheriff) who are looking to take Sethe and her family back into Sweet Home. Yet, why did Morrison describe them as the four "horsemen", instead of merely stating that they were four white men?
To many, this may seem mysterious. However, the four horseman are much more than four white men who seem to have no morals. In the New Testament of the Bible, the four horsemen are symbols of the Apocalypse. Each horseman represents a certain part of the Apocalypse. For example, the horseman riding the white horse represents conquest, the horseman riding the red horse represents war, the horseman riding the black horse represents famine, and the horseman riding the pale horse represents death.
If the four horsemen remain a part of the Bible that mark the starting of the Apocalypse, why would Morrison hint at them in Beloved? I think that the answer to this question can remain opinionated, and that there are no right or wrong answers. Personally, I believe that Morrison's mention of the four horsemen as the four white men looking to take Sethe and her children back to Sweet Home serves to show the reader how these men must have looked like to Sethe. To her (and many others in her community), slavery was seen as an Apocalypse in a way -- they had no freedom and little to no resources available to them. "Conquest" (the white horseman) is seen in the fact that many slaveowners assumed control over their slaves lives -- they refused to see them as people, but saw them as possessions. "War" (the red horseman) is seen as the Civil War, which was fought for the freedom of slavery. "Famine" is seen as the hunger that many slaves experienced -- they were barely feed, and they were hungry for their freedom. "Death" is seen as the countless number of slaves who have died in this atrocious system, and it is also seen when Sethe attempts to kill all her children in a hope to release them from slavery. Essentially, the four horsemen of the Bible embody certain aspects of the slavery that Sethe and others experienced.
This take is really interesting and one I hadn't had thought of. This is really well read and shows how deeply you are taking into account the mystery of this novel. With this new theme in mind, we might find further parallels as we get into Part II.
ReplyDeleteI like this explanation of each of the different horsemen. I also think that the apocalypse in the story has already taken place. Because of the chronology of the story, we know about the downward spiral of 124. Baby Suggs loses her faith, the community she was building disappears, and Sethe loses her children and is haunted, literally, by it. I think that in some sense Beloved is a post-apocalypic novel.
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