Shame, Judgment, and Morality Theme Analysis

A significant part of Tish’s emotional journey in If Beale Street Could Talk has to do with her struggle to reject shame. Unfortunately, she often feels a sense of dishonor, since she’s aware that society might judge her for being a pregnant nineteen-year-old with an imprisoned lover. This kind of unfair judgment is exactly what Mrs. Hunt—Fonny’s mother—sets forth when she first hears about the pregnancy, ultimately shaming Tish and trying to make her feel like she’s done something disgraceful. Thankfully, though, Tish’s parents and sister have already gone out of their way to make sure Tish knows she hasn’t done anything wrong by getting pregnant, stressing how important it is that she maintain a sense of pride and dignity even when people like Mrs. Hunt try to cut her down. Because of this, Tish maintains her self-respect, knowing that the only thing she’s guilty of is loving Fonny. Her difficult situation also encourages her to reevaluate the way she judges other women, as she briefly considers what it would take for her to become a prostitute, since she knows that she and her family will need extra money if they’re ever going to get Fonny out of jail. As she thinks in these terms, she realizes she has been casting unfair judgment on prostitutes for her entire life, finally understanding that the gravity of certain situations can change a person’s moral inhibitions. In this regard, Tish comes to value the significance of developing an internal pride, one that helps her ignore arbitrary notions of shame and dishonor that others mercilessly cast upon her. This, Baldwin insinuates, is how to cultivate self-assurance in the face of unfair judgment.

When Tish tells Fonny’s family that she’s pregnant, Mrs. Hunt doesn’t try to hide her scorn, making it clear that she doesn’t think Tish is reliable enough to care for a child. “And who is going to be responsible for this baby?” she asks. This might seem like a practical question, but it’s much more than that, since Mrs. Hunt condescendingly insinuates that Tish isn’t “responsible,” shaming her for thinking she can raise a child. Going on, Mrs. Hunt shows her disdain in an even more blatant manner, saying, “I guess you call your lustful action love. I don’t. I always knew that you would be the destruction of my son. You have a demon in you.” Mrs. Hunt tries to make Tish feel guilty about having gotten pregnant, even suggesting that she has destroyed Fonny’s life, though it’s quite clear that the true “destruction” of his life has to do with the fact that he’s been unfairly imprisoned. Nevertheless, Mrs. Hunt pounces on this opportunity to frame Tish as disgraceful and immoral, perhaps hoping to avoid her own feelings of inadequacy as a mother by focusing on what she thinks are Tish’s shortcomings.

Fortunately, Tish doesn’t let Mrs. Hunt’s hurtful words get to her, because her own family has made sure to tell her she shouldn’t cower in shame. When Tish tells her mother about the pregnancy, Sharon responds by saying, “What you crying about? Now, listen, you got enough on your mind without worrying about being a bad girl and all that jive-ass shit.” Similarly, when Tish’s father, Joseph, finds out, he eventually says, “Don’t you go thinking I think you a bad girl, or any foolishness like that.” It’s quite clear, then, that Tish’s parents want her to cast any notions of shame out of her head, insisting that getting pregnant doesn’t mean she’s a “bad girl” who should feel guilty about her situation. This sentiment becomes even more pronounced when Tish’s sister, Ernestine, sees her hanging her head after telling their parents about her pregnancy. “Unbow your head, sister,” she says. Ernestine encourages Tish not only to banish her feelings of guilt, but to adopt a sense of pride, subtly reminding her that she’s about to bring life into the world—a fact worth celebrating.

Tish’s relationship to the ideas of shame and morality changes as Fonny’s case becomes less and less hopeful. At one point, she lies awake at night and thinks about whether or not she’d be willing to cross certain boundaries to raise money to get Fonny out of jail. Thinking about the prostitutes she has known throughout her life, she reassesses the way she has judged them. “I remembered women I had known, but scarcely looked at, who had frightened me; because they knew how to use their bodies in order to get something that they wanted,” she reflects. It’s worth noting that Tish has thought for her entire life that she has “known” these prostitutes when, in reality, she has “scarcely looked at” them. This illustrates how quickly people cast judgment, foolishly assuming they know a person without actually taking the time to understand their life. “I now began to realize that my judgment of these women had had very little to do with morals,” Tish continues. “[…] My judgment had been due to my sense of how little they appeared to want. I could not conceive of peddling myself for so low a price. But, for a higher price? For Fonny?” When she thinks this, Tish realizes that no woman sells her body without having a good reason. What she previously failed to understand but is now attuned to is that it’s difficult to determine the morality of a situation—such as prostitution—without fully examining its complexities.

Although Tish herself doesn’t end up resorting to prostitution, she learns through her own desperation that it’s all too easy to cast shame on people who are only doing what they can to survive. As she strives to uphold her own pride during this turbulent period, Tish’s ideas about shame change, allowing Baldwin to intimate that conventional notions of disgrace often have “very little to do with morals.” By establishing this, the author suggests that people ought to learn to confidently reject the arbitrary kinds of shame that others might force upon them.