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What colors are introduced in Chapter 1, and how do they serve as symbols? Why does Baby Suggs request "color" on her deathbed?
In Chapter 1, the gray and white colors of the house at 124 Bluestone Road are emphasized; these are dull colors, faded like the memories that Baby Suggs has of her children. Baby Suggs yearns for color to contrast against the dullness, which mirrors the pain of dying. Morrison writes of Baby Suggs:
Her past had been like her present—intolerable—and since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color.
Life has been stripped of its color (as a metaphor for joy) for Baby Suggs, and since...
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