One thing that I've found really interesting while reading Beloved is the theme of colors. It's something that has kept coming back throughout the book, and it's clearly really meaningful and symbolic. We're told that Baby Suggs has this weird fascination with colors – she constantly wants to be shown different colors by Sethe and Denver. The way Sethe sees it, 124 is so devoid of color, it makes sense that Baby Suggs would be so “starved for colors.” Apparently everything in their house is either brown, grey, white, or some other muted, neutral shade. The only things that have any color are two patches of orange on a quilt. It seems depressing, and it is. But, what makes it more depressing is thinking about why exactly 124 is devoid of color. We’re pretty much given the answer – after Beloved dies Sethe stops seeing things by their colors. It reminded me of when Denver was asked a question she couldn’t handle and went deaf for years. One sentence which was especially striking to me was, “It was as though one day she saw red baby blood, another day the pink gravestone chips, and that was the last of it.” At this point color is so intertwined with Sethe’s trauma and grief that having it in her home is too painful. It’s so heartbreaking. For most of us colors are a hugely important part of life – that’s why we say things like “seeing in color” to mean happiness and taking in the beauty of life. It’s not like Sethe just doesn’t see color at all – she says color is a part of her everyday life from sunsets to her job at the restaurant. But even though she sees it, since Beloved’s death she hasn’t ever really seen it. It’s almost like she blocks it out. As a result, her family and her home are utterly starved of color. It’s symbolic of the way that Sethe and Baby Suggs’ life basically just stopped 18 years ago.

The two orange patches, being the only color at 124, are symbolic of the lost possibility of a beautiful life – of everything Sethe could have had. They “signaled how barren 124 really was.” If the quilt were only dark, without the two orange patches, it might be hard to notice the lack of color. But, just like Sethe's 28 days of freedom, the orange patches are a stark reminder of what she’s missing out on. Just enough for her to get a taste of what it feels like, but in the end it’s only a small patch on the quilt of her lifetime. As much as it’s a depressing reminder though, it seems like it almost might represent hope on some level. Beloved is also fascinated by the orange patches, and in this case the orange is framed as “cheery.” Given the return of Beloved, maybe the orange patches represent a real prospect for happiness and unity for the family. Maybe instead of looking at it as nagging reminder of the past it can be seen as a chance for a hopeful future.