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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Music
Music plays an important role in establishing the story’s mood and cultural context. The book’s title refers to a blues song about Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, a famous site of Black musical innovation. On the night they learn about the baby, Tish’s family listens to Ray Charles, and Tish imagines the moment as eternal, that they’re listening to the blues together over hundreds of years. Spirituals are mentioned frequently in the text, tying the story to themes of captivity through spirituals’ association with longing for freedom during slavery. Sharon, herself once a singer, and Mrs. Hunt each have scenes related to ecstatic gospel songs. Mrs. Hunt dances and sings to “Blessed Quietness,” and Sharon recognizes the band’s song in Puerto Rico as a mangled version of “My Lord and I.” At his apartment, Fonny plays protest music contemporary to the book’s historical period, showing that he and Tish identify with the activism of the time. All of the musical genres represented in the novel are specifically Black art forms, grounding the story firmly in Black life while simultaneously demonstrating the breadth and diversity of Black culture.
Biblical and Liturgical Allusion
References to the Bible and church liturgy form a strong motif throughout the novel. The opening epigraph, a line from a spiritual about the Virgin Mary expecting the birth of Jesus, sets up a comparison between Tish and Mary, establishing her pregnancy and her baby as sacred. When Sharon tells the family about the baby, she calls the brandy they drink a sacrament, marking it as a sacred occasion. Later in the book, Tish and Fonny’s actions are called “sacramental” because of their love for each other. The God of those loving connections is contrasted with the frightening and cruel God of Mrs. Hunt, who Frank points out crucified his own son, while Frank instead fights for his son’s freedom. In another quotation from a spiritual, a loving and powerful God is said to have delivered Daniel. These lyrics refer to God rescuing the prophet Daniel from the lion’s den, as Tish and Fonny hope he will rescue their Daniel from the trauma of his time in prison. The God that rises up in the song when Sharon decides to go to Puerto Rico to convince Victoria to change her testimony is an allusion to the story of Jonah, in which God raises a storm on the sea to push Jonah to fulfill his mission.
The Baby
The baby Tish and Fonny are expecting is a driving force in the novel, giving the family a source of hope and also a sense of urgency in their struggle to get Fonny released from jail. From the beginning of the book, Tish’s family and Fonny accept the news of Tish’s pregnancy with joy, welcoming the promise of life as a reminder to avoid despair at Fonny’s imprisonment. The baby is a reason for Fonny to keep faith, and he assures Tish he will be home to hold it in his arms. Tish’s family understands that the idea of the baby gives Fonny strength, and they encourage Tish to take care of herself to keep the baby growing for him. With Fonny in jail, the waiters at the restaurant feed Tish as a way of caring for their absent friend by caring for his growing family. The baby is also a constant reminder of the passage of time. Tish’s pregnancy gives the novel a structural boundary of six months, from her announcement to her family when she is three months along to the beginning of her labor, which ends the book.
