I've never come across any shame down here, except shame like mine, except the shame of the hardworking black ladies, who call me Daughter, and the same of proud Puerto Ricans, who don't understand what's happened—no one who speaks to them speaks Spanish, for example—and who are ashamed that they have loved ones in jail.
The community of women of color that Tish meets in the Tombs, the jail where Fonny is being held, offers a relationship that verges on familial. They refer to her as 'daughter,' and together they form a community of women whose men are imprisoned. Additionally, the community that Tish finds in the Tombs crosses ethnic lines—it is Puerto Rican and African American women alike who she interacts with. This passage, found early in Beale Street, shows us the interlocking communities that Tish is a part of. She will rely on all of these communities throughout her pregnancy if she wants to survive the ordeal of getting Fonny out of jail.
People don't believe it about boys and girls that age—people don't believe much and I'm beginning to know why—but, then, we got to be friends. Or, maybe, and it's really the same thing—something else people don't want to know—I got to be his little sister and he got to be my big brother. He didn't like his sisters and I didn't have any brothers. And so we got to be, for each other, what the other missed.
Tish and Fonny's relationship started out platonic, even though they eventually fall in love. Since the beginning, however, Tish and Fonny are united in a way that is much more enduring and powerful than traditional relationships at that age. From the beginning of their friendship, Fonny and Tish feel like family to one another. They learn to respect the other's point of view, and mold themselves around the needs of the other. Eventually, this leads to a strong relationship between Tish and Fonny that is able to survive incarceration and pregnancy, as well as the physical and mental changes that they both bring.
The other places in Harlem are even worse than the projects. You'd never be able to start your new life in those places, you remember them too well, and you'd never want to bring up your baby there. But it's something, when you think about it, how many babies were brought into those places, with rats as big as cats, roaches the size of mice, splinters the size of a man's finger, and somehow survived it. You don't want to think about those who didn't; and, to tell the truth, there's always something very sad in those who did, or do.
In this passage, Tish emphasizes the hard background that many people in her neighborhood come from. She also touches on the socioeconomic tensions of New York City. It is hard for Tish and Fonny to find a quality apartment while they are searching for one downtown. Often, families have to make compromises when searching for something they can afford. The sad reality is that these compromises often come at the cost of the safety or liveability of that apartment.
Fonny had found something that he could do, that he wanted to do, and this saved him from the death that was waiting to overtake the children of our age. Though the death took many forms, though people died early in many different ways, the death itself was very simple and the cause was simple, too: as simple as a plague: the kids had been told that they weren't worth shit and everything they saw around them proved it. They struggled, they struggled, but they fell, like flies, and they congregated on the garbage heaps of their lives, like flies.
In this passage, Tish discusses the "death" that takes so many people from her generation. This death is caused by a racist system that pushes disenfranchised kids down. Even though Fonny, like other kids, has been told that he isn't worth anything by his schools (as well as by his mother and sisters) for most of his life, he is able to overcome this toxic mentality through his own creativity. This passage also places the blame on the system rather than the children themselves, which communicates the idea that if someone "fails" the system it is the system that has failed them. As long as the educational system is broken, it doesn't matter how long or how hard the children fight to stay afloat.
I listened to the music and the sounds from the streets and Daddy's hand rested lightly on my hair. And everything seemed connected—the street sounds, and Ray's voice and his piano and my Daddy's hand and my sister's silhouette and the sounds and the lights coming from the kitchen. It was as though we were a picture, trapped in time: this had been happening for hundreds of years, people sitting in a room, waiting for dinner, and listening to the blues.
In this passage, Tish feels connected to her family collective in the moments prior to the birth of her baby. The blues music surrounds her and she experiences a moment of bittersweet comfort. She feels connected to her cultural history, which allows her to understand that she is not alone. Instead, she is surrounded by all of the others who have sat as she had, around a record player with her family, listening to the blues. This thought gives her comfort in her time of trouble and need.
That night I dreamed, I dreamed all night, I had terrible dreams. In one of these dreams, Fonny was driving a truck, a great big truck, very fast, too fast, down the highway, and he was looking for me. But he didn't see me. I was behind the truck, calling out his name, but the roar of the motor drowned my voice. There were two turnings off the highway, and they both looked exactly alike. The highway was on a cliff, above the sea. One of the turnings led to the driveway of our house; the other led to the cliff's edge and a drop straight down to the sea. He was driving too fast, too fast! I called his name as loud as I could and, as he began to turn the truck, I screamed again and woke up.
The dream that Tish describes in this passage shows the tension and fear that Tish holds for Fonny's safety. She sees him in trouble, but feels powerless to help him. This passage appears during the climax of the novel, right after Tish tells Fonny that Mrs. Rogers has run away and he blows up at her. Tish's metaphor shows the pure terror and worry that Tish feels in these moments, when it feels like everything in her life is on the brink of falling apart.
I know both these young people. They shop here very often. What the young lady has told you is the truth. I saw them both, just now, when they came, and I watched her choose her tomatoes and her young man left her and he said he would be right back. I was busy, I could not get to her right away; her tomatoes are still on the scale. And that little good-for-nothing shit over there, he did attack her. And he has got exactly what he deserved. What would you do if a man attacked your wife?
This passage is what the Italian shop owner tells Officer Bell to get him to back off of Fonny. It is her testimony that sets Fonny free, because of her social capital as both a white woman and a business owner. Officer Bell is unable to do anything to Fonny after the shopkeeper says this to Officer Bell. This wounds Bell's pride and angers him, which causes him to develop an obsession with Fonny. Eventually, Officer Bell gets his revenge by framing Fonny for a crime that he did not commit.
When two people love each other, when they really love each other, everything that happens between them has something of a sacramental air. They can sometimes seem to be driven very far from each other: I know of no greater torment, no more resounding void—When your lover has gone! But tonight, with our vows so mysteriously menaced, and with both of us, though from different angles, placed before this fact, we were more profoundly together than we had ever been before.
In this passage, Tish shows how she and Fonny manage to keep their relationship stable while it seems like the whole world is fighting to keep them apart. This dinner between Tish and Fonny is a brief moment of levity in the midst of many stressful situations, including Tish's assault at the market, the troubling interaction with Officer Bell, and Daniel's depression. Despite the fact that Fonny knows that Officer Bell will come back for him, he makes the decision to be present and spend the evening with Tish, which causes them to fall more deeply in love with one another.
Hayward had tried to warn Sharon by telling her that he had never been able to describe a favela and that he very much doubted, if, after her visit, she would wish to try. It is bitter. The blue sky above, and the bright sun; the blue sea, here, the garbage dump, there. It takes a moment to realize that the garbage dump is the favela.
In this passage, Sharon takes in a Puerto Rican favela for the first time and does not know what to think about it. The natural beauty and the degradation of the land exist side-by-side in this scene; Sharon is torn between looking at the beautiful sea and the "garbage dump" surrounding her. Sharon's perception of this setting is through the eyes of an American tourist, who has never seen this kind of living before.
Fonny is working on the wood, on the stone, whistling, smiling. And, from far away, but coming nearer, the baby cries and cries and cries and cries and cries and cries and cries and cries and cries, cries like it means to wake the dead.
In the final lines of Beale Street, Baldwin leaves it completely ambiguous as to whether Fonny has made it out of jail in time for the baby's birth. Throughout the novel, Tish folds present-day events together with memories from the past. She weaves through them effortlessly while telling her story. For this reason, some scholars believe that the final paragraph of Beale Street is actually situated in the past, in which Fonny can hear his baby crying from the future, some time way down the line. The most morbid interpretations assume that because we never get to see Fonny out of jail as readers, it will never happen after the end of the book, and this is just a dream.
