47 pages • 1 hour read
Dinaw MengestuThe Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Beautiful Things
The title of the novel comes from Dante’s Inferno, where he describes his emergence from hell into the bright world that awaits: “Through a round aperture I saw appear / Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears / Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars” (99). The passage evokes a sense of hope and optimism for Joseph, who aspires to write his own poetry about the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Other characters in the novel also notice unexpected “beautiful things.” The characters employ the adjective “beautiful” to describe and appreciate the remarkable and often undervalued beauty of “things” in their daily lives. Sepha tells Kenneth his newly acquired used car is “beautiful,” and he describes Judith’s wreck of a house as “beautiful.” Sepha also refers to Joseph and Naomi as “beautiful,” and uses the same adjective to describe himself, Joseph, and Kenneth in their early immigrant days. When Judith uses the word to describe Sepha’s outfit for attending his relative’s wedding, Sepha makes note: “’What a beautiful garment.’ Her use of the word “garment” struck me most—it was polite, almost formal, as if the word had been inserted into her sentence at the last possible moment out of an instinctive sense of cultural diplomacy” (17).
The “beautiful things” that appear throughout the novel are examples of brightness and hope, often standing in contrast to Sepha’s dark sense of reality. “Beauty” is often used to describe things that would not first appear so to the beholder. Sepha finds Emily Dickinson’s solitary life beautiful, Kenneth finds beauty in the exotic dancers in the strip club, and Joseph finds it in the ridiculousness of life and the guttural sounds of German. The motif of “beautiful things” runs throughout the novel and calls attention to the beauty of life, even in the darkest or most isolated of times. It’s in this beauty that we find the resiliency of hope that defines Sepha, even as he tries to avoid it.
General Logan Statue
The statue of General Logan sits in the middle of the Logan Circle neighborhood and represents the formal, officially sanctioned version of history. The city government deemed the Civil War general worthy of monumental representation. The statue of General Logan reminds Sepha of his years growing up in Ethiopia. General Logan started off as a colonel, like the many rising revolutionaries of Ethiopia. Logan fought for the Union in the Civil War, which eventually led to the end of slavery in the United States. Sepha finds comfort and familiarity in this figure of liberation, celebration, neglect, and rebirth. However, the statue is also a sterilized representation of history that focuses on the victory rather than the dark cause behind it.
The narrative is similar for Logan Square as a neighborhood. Once upon a time, the neighborhood was home to Victorian houses and upper-middle class families, and that is the narrative newcomers like Judith want to revive. However, Logan Circle’s history is more complex: It sits at the center of past race riots, contentious boundaries based on racial segregation, and, most recently, waves of gentrification and development. The monument, like the neighborhood itself, eventually falls into disrepair from years of neglect before it is finally cleaned up. Sepha views this as a sign of progress, but it is also a signal of the whitewashing of the neighborhood’s past and history itself.
Map of Africa
Behind the counter in Sepha’s store, there is an old, outdated map of Africa. Joseph, Kenneth, and Sepha reference the map when they engage in their weekly ritual of naming as many coups and dictators as they can remember. The men’s relationship with Africa, like the map itself, is also outdated and fading from memory. The borders and boundaries in Africa have changed dramatically in the last 20 years, with some countries disappearing and new ones arriving in their place. The men’s lives have changed in the 17 years they have been in the US, and they barely recognize themselves as being African; they aren’t even sure what that means anymore. The map itself symbolizes the relationship of the immigrant men who regularly meet up in the store. They, too, feel like time left them behind and they are now outdated, worn, and barley relevant to the contemporary world.
Books
Books are possessions in this story, and for the dispossessed, books are incredibly important. For Sepha, books contain stories fixed in time, like his own memories. Through books, he can preserve a semblance of a connection with Africa, America, and the people in his own life. He can escape, be distracted, and feign participation in society through books.
When Naomi checks out library books, he encourages her to put her name on the library card, even though the practice is now outdated. He values laying claim to the book and proving one’s possession of it for the historical record. Again, the book preserves something in time. Sepha keeps a book that is popular in Africa behind the counter on display in his store. He always has library books to read behind the counter as well.
Books also provide a means of connection with Judith, a woman with whom he wants to connect but feels entirely different. He notices Judith has more books than she has space in her massive house. Judith is also the author of a book, and Sepha reads her book as well as the books she mentions on American democracy. He and Naomi read The Brothers Karamazov out loud together, and Sepha originally buys a book of Emily Dickinson’s poems for Judith for Christmas, though he ends up giving them to his mother instead. Throughout the novel, books are windows through which Sepha can temporarily immerse himself in another world or connect with those around him.
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By Dinaw Mengestu
