The Restorative Power of Sound: A Case for Communal Catharsis in Toni Morrison's Beloved

This article examines the spiritual leadership of Baby Suggs and the other women in the novel Beloved. Asserting that sound, embodied as cries and utterances, has significance that in many ways surpasses that of identifiable music, Reed situates the women's practices in the novel as a womanist theological tradition that considers the unique experiences of black women spiritual leaders. Through utterances such as women's preaching, narrative, cries, and moans, sound becomes the vehicle for communal restoration and the means by which the women in the novel demonstrate spiritual authority and feminine theological practice. Ultimately, the spiritual leadership of Baby Suggs provides the needed guidance in order for the community to attain its salvific goal through the restoration of the novel's protagonist, Sethe.