Symbolism of the Colour Red in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Abstract

Toni Morrison’s slave narrative Beloved (1987) can be called a stem text of American literature and has been studied extensively. Nevertheless, the gap in research concerning the translations of Beloved as well as the use of symbols such as colour in the novel is apparent. Thus, this thesis examines some of the meanings of red in Beloved and compares the original to the Estonian translation by Krista Kaer and Kalevi Kvell Armas (1997). The aim is to see whether the translators’ choices might influence the meaning of colour symbolics found in Beloved and this way have an impact on the readers’ perception of the importance of the red symbols . Previous papers analysing Beloved from various viewpoints are discussed in the first subsection of the literature review. As red is the colour of interest in this paper, works concerning both, the sources of red dye as well as potential meanings of the colour are examined in the second subsection. Methodology and analysis can be found in the second chapter. The phrases for empirical analysis were selected using close reading and the method applied in analysis was developed by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2002). The English phrases and their Estonian counterparts were first analysed separately and then compared to discuss the effect of potential changes on readers’ understanding of the symbols and occurring differences in the assigned value of the reds. The findings are highlighted in the conclusion of this thesis.