Death Wish

What happens to someone who has nothing to look forward to in life because they have suffered so much that the only thing they want is death? “”We have to be steady. ‘ These things too will pass.’ What are you looking for a miracle?” asked Stamp Paid to Baby Suggs questioning what she was looking for in order for her to be happy. She responds “No … the back door.”(Morrison 179) But when the reader continues to the next sentence the reader discovers that she is actually literally talking about the back door of someone’s house. I interpreted this is a metaphor to her waning to seek peaceful refuge in death. In earlier chapters, Baby Suggs has admitted to having nothing to live for because her family was broken apart leaving her with nothing. Stamp Paid believes that these things will pass however, I Baby Suggs disagrees. How much time will take away the pain of her remembering what it is like to have all of her children dead or missing? People say that death is like sleeping you have no worries like you do when you are alive. Baby Suggs wants peace that she has never felt before. When someone suffers, they seek death to escape their reality. When you are dead, you do not have to worry about suffering like you did on earth. If your have a religious believe then you have the afterlife to look forward to. For example, if you believe in heaven, you can live there in utopia after you die discarding your horrific past. Death is an escape for people who have suffered. If Baby Suggs could erase her memories, would she still want to die? What does Baby Suggs have to live for? Stamp Paid was encouraging her to live on because Baby Suggs was the only real person that Denver had to keep her company. I am unsure that Baby Suggs felt the same way. Maybe she was too blinded by her own suffering or felt like she was to useless to be able to console and look after Denver. If Suggs had realized how much she was needed would she still have wished for death? Earlier on Baby Suggs was talking about her “exhausted marrow.” I linked it to phrases like “soaked to the bone or cold to the marrow” referencing a deep cold that goes deep inside oneself that you cannot shake. In Baby Suggs case, she is “exhausted to the Marrow” of her bones meaning that she is really tired maybe even to her soul. This also references how she is just plain tired of living. “So, in spite of his exhausted marrow, he kept on thought the voices and tried once more to knock on the door of 124,” shows that now Stamp Paid understands how Suggs feels tired of living and how he is willing to put off his “exhaustion” for the sake of Denver. Now he has someone to live for and help take care of.