what is sweet home

The tree on Sethe's back suggests the need to aestheticize painful experiences. Real trees are referred to at several points, establishing a motif of trees as a source of protection, comfort, and pleasure-when Sethe remembers Sweet Home, she always thinks of the beautiful trees. Through language and imagery, the scars from Sethe's pain and humiliation become a tree in bloom, a source of life and shelter. Using language to transform a scar into a tree parallels part of the work done by the novel: it is an attempt to make sense of a painful legacy through the power of words and of art.