Select a short section from the spring chapter that identifies a particular incident of diction or style that is particularly revealing. Identify and analyze the author’s use of literacy devices. List three questions about the short passage.

Morrison is a master of style and figurative language, but in terms of choosing a passage that is "revealing," I think the introductory paragraph to this chapter, wherein the speaker describes her association of spring with "the remembered ache of switchings," is especially poignant and revealing in the context of the novel:

The first twigs are thin, green, and supple. They bend into a complete circle, but will not break. Their delicate, showy hopefulness shooting from forsythia and lilac bushes meant only a change in whipping style. They beat us differently in the spring. Instead of the dull pain of a winter strap, there were these new green switches that lost their sting long after the whipping was over. There was a nervous meanness in these long twigs that made us long for the steady stroke of a strap or the firm but honest slap of a hairbrush. Even now spring for me is shot through with the remembered ache of switchings, and forsythia holds no cheer.

The literary devices in this passage are manifold. Perhaps the most effective use of language here, however, is in the juxtaposition of ideas. The opening sentence appears to be literal, a description of the "green" and "supple" first twigs of spring. The theme of the seasons that lends structure to this novel, however, suggests that both this line and the following sentence also have a figurative meaning: those in the "spring" of their lives may "bend into a complete circle, but will not break." In our spring, then, we are resilient and malleable. The next sentence seems to continue this impression in its description of "showy hopefulness," personifying the twigs; but then the second half of this sentence offers a jolt: this "meant only a change in whipping style." What has appeared to be a symbol of youth and regeneration has a second, rather sinister connotation for the speaker. The "showy hopefulness" of both reader and speaker has been dashed by the bathetic conclusion to the sentence.
The "nervous meanness" of the long twigs is contrasted unfavorably to the "steady stroke of a strap" or the "honest slap of a hairbrush." It is as if the unknown quality in spring and spring's branches leads to a sense of uncertainty in the sort of pain it delivers, something we may understand both literally and figuratively. Meanwhile, the undefined articles in the sentence "they beat us differently in the spring"—who are "they?"—adds to the general "nervous" sense of the passage, echoing the speaker's own feelings of anxiety connected to spring. In the concluding line of this passage, the speaker defines the season as "shot through" (an interesting use of language that suggests the shoots that emerge in spring) with "the remembered ache of switchings." What should have been a beautiful symbol of youth and regeneration has become associated, for the speaker, with punishment.


How does this passage relate to the wider context of the book?


What do you think Morrison means by the phrase "they beat us differently in spring?"


Having read the "Winter" chapter, do you think the speaker remembers Spring more unfavorably than Winter? Or does she remember each unfavorably in different ways?