If Beale Street Could Talk

by

James Baldwin

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on If Beale Street Could Talk makes teaching easy.

Love, Support, and Hope Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Love, Support, and Hope Theme Icon
Racism, Fear, and Isolation Theme Icon
Shame, Judgment, and Morality Theme Icon
Time and Anticipation Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If Beale Street Could Talk, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Support, and Hope Theme Icon

In If Beale Street Could Talk, a novel about the cruelty and injustice that black people face in America, James Baldwin shines a light on the fortifying effects of love. Although the details of her lover’s unfair imprisonment are dispiriting, Tish maintains a sense of hope, thanks to her supportive family members. In turn, she is able to visit Fonny—her fiancé—and give him the same kind of loving encouragement. Following her mother’s advice to “trust love,” Tish eventually quits her job so she can visit Fonny every day, a decision that has a profound effect on his ability to embody resilience despite the psychologically taxing conditions of prison. Even as his situation gets gradually worse, these visits are like sustenance to him, constantly reminding him that Tish and her love—in addition to their unborn child—are reasons to persevere through the injustice and racism that landed him in prison and keeps him there. In showing how Tish’s visits buoy Fonny, Baldwin conveys the restorative and enduring powers of meaningful human connection, suggesting that love can give people hope even when seemingly nothing else will.

Tish has every reason to be pessimistic about the future. After all, the man she loves has been wrongfully accused of rape, and she’s pregnant with his child. Worse, Mrs. Rogers—the rape victim who was manipulated into identifying Fonny as her rapist—has disappeared, meaning there’s almost nothing Fonny’s lawyer can do to dispute her accusation. Luckily, though, Tish has a strong support network at home, as her parents and her sister work hard to do whatever they can to make her situation easier. One night, when she’s feeling particularly dispirited, her mother sits her down and says, “I don’t want to sound foolish. But, just remember, love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.” By saying this, she acknowledges the difficulties of Tish’s situation while also celebrating the beauty that comes along with being in love. Of course, Tish is distraught because Fonny is in prison, but the reason this situation is so emotionally difficult in the first place is that she loves Fonny, and this should remind her that she has something special—after all, she wouldn’t be so upset if her and Fonny’s love wasn’t genuine. Tish has “trusted love” to guide her through life thus far, so it would be foolish to suddenly stop paying attention to its powers in this time of sorrow.

Because of her mother’s wise words, Tish finds herself capable of giving Fonny a sense of assurance, reminding him that he is part of a community that loves him dearly. This is critical to his survival, since he might otherwise crack under the pressures of living in prison without any indication that his life will improve. When she nears her due date, Tish even decides—at the urging of her father—to quit her job so she can visit Fonny every day, and though at first she feels guilty for not earning money to help with Fonny’s legal fees, she soon sees that simply being there for him is the best thing she can do. “My presence,” she notes, “which is of no practical value whatever, […] is vastly more important than any practical thing I might be doing. Every day, when he sees my face, he knows, again, that I love him […].” In this passage, Tish recognizes that it’s more important for Fonny to feel loved and supported than it is for her to make extra money to put toward his defense. Since her family members are all contributing their own cash to the cause, Tish is able to throw all her energy into making sure Fonny feels like he has a strong and loving network backing him through this difficult time. To that end, Tish also observes that her frequent visits reassure Fonny “that others love him, too, love him so much that they have” urged her to quit her job to be with him. “He is not alone; we are not alone,” she writes, showing that gestures of love create a sense of security and community.

Because Tish’s parents give her love and support, she’s able to do the same for Fonny. As a result, readers see that kindness and genuine connection perpetuate themselves. Unfortunately, though, so do resentment and animosity. This is the case for Fonny’s family. For instance, Fonny’s father, Frank, loves him dearly and will do anything to help him, but he’s at odds with his wife, Mrs. Hunt, who’s hesitant to help Fonny because she resents him for getting arrested. What’s more, Frank’s daughters, Adrienne and Sheila, take after their mother, so he has strained relationships with them, too. In turn, nobody in this family is capable of supporting one another, as made clear when Joseph (Tish’s father) visits Frank one night to talk about Fonny. When Frank’s daughters come into the kitchen and ask what’s going on, Frank throws a glass and yells at them. “[Joseph] sees that Adrienne loves her father with a really desperate love,” Tish narrates. “She knows he is in pain. She would soothe it if she could, she does not know how. She would give anything to know how.” Tragically, Adrienne can’t give Frank the support he needs because their love is strained. As a result, Frank finds himself unable to stay strong for Fonny; feeling unsupported, hopeless, and alone, he commits suicide.

In this way, readers see how life-changing it can be to uplift a person with love. Unlike his father, Fonny has a group of people who do understand how to “soothe” him, which is exactly what Tish does in her visits. “Something travels from him to me,” she writes, “it is love and courage. Yes. Yes. We are going to make it, somehow.” Using only “love and courage,” then, Tish embodies a kind of optimism, which she then conveys to Fonny, helping him believe that together they’ll survive these hard times—a notion that communicates Baldwin’s faith in the unmatched power of love.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…

Love, Support, and Hope ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Love, Support, and Hope appears in each chapter of If Beale Street Could Talk. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire If Beale Street Could Talk LitChart as a printable PDF.
If Beale Street Could Talk PDF

Love, Support, and Hope Quotes in If Beale Street Could Talk

Below you will find the important quotes in If Beale Street Could Talk related to the theme of Love, Support, and Hope.
Troubled About My Soul Quotes

I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass.

And I didn’t say it the way I meant to say it. I meant to say it in a very offhand way, so he wouldn’t be too upset, so he’d understand that I was saying it without any kind of accusation in my heart.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:

And I’m not ashamed of Fonny. If anything, I’m proud. He’s a man. You can tell by the way he’s taken all this shit that he’s a man. Sometimes, I admit, I’m scared—because nobody can take the shit they throw on us forever. But, then, you just have to somehow fix your mind to get from one day to the next. If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you’ll never make it.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:

I can’t say to anybody in this bus, Look, Fonny is in trouble, he’s in jail—can you imagine what anybody on this bus would say to me if they knew, from my mouth, that I love somebody in jail?—and I know he’s never com­mitted any crime and he’s a beautiful person, please help me get him out. Can you imagine what anybody on this bus would say? What would you say? I can’t say, I’m going to have this baby and I’m scared, too, and I don’t want any­ thing to happen to my baby’s father, don’t let him die in prison, please, oh, please! You can’t say that. That means you can’t really say anything. Trouble means you’re alone.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

Now, listen, […] you got enough on your mind without worrying about being a bad girl and all that jive-ass shit. I sure hope I raised you better than that. If you was a bad girl, you wouldn’t be sitting on that bed, you’d long been turning tricks for the warden.

Related Characters: Sharon (speaker), Tish (Clementine)
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:

Tish […], when we was first brought here, the white man he didn’t give us no preachers to say words over us before we had our babies. And you and Fonny be to­gether right now, married or not, wasn’t for that same damn white man. So, let me tell you what you got to do. You got to think about that baby. You got to hold on to that baby, don’t care what else happens or don’t happen. You got to do that. Can’t nobody else do that for you. And the rest of us, well, we going to hold on to you. And we going to get Fonny out. Don’t you worry. I know it’s hard —but don’t you worry. And that baby be the best thing that ever happened to Fonny. He needs that baby. It going to give him a whole lot of courage.

Related Characters: Sharon (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Related Symbols: The Baby
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:

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. And perhaps I clung to Fonny, perhaps Fonny saved me because he was just about the only boy I knew who wasn’t fooling around with the needles or drinking cheap wine or mugging people or hold­ing up stores.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:

I felt the way I’d felt all day, alone with my trouble. Nobody could help me, not even Sis. Because she was cer­tainly determined to help me, I knew that. But maybe I realized that she was frightened, too, although she was trying to sound calm and tough.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Ernestine (Sis), Arnold Hayward
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

She moved away from me a little and put my glass in my hand. “Unbow your head, sister,” she said, and raised her glass and touched mine. “Save the children,” she said, very quietly, and drained her glass.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Sharon, Joseph, Ernestine (Sis)
Page Number: 47
Explanation and Analysis:

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—I always knew it. My God caused me to know it many a year ago. The Holy Ghost will cause that child to shrivel in your womb. But my son will be forgiven. My prayers will save him.

Related Characters: Mrs. Hunt (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt), Frank Hunt
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

And Mrs. Hunt added, “These girls won’t be bringing me no bastards to feed, I can guarantee you that.”

“But the child that’s coming,” said Sharon, after a moment, “is your grandchild. I don’t understand you. It’s your grandchild. What difference does it make how it gets here? The child ain’t got nothing to do with that—don’t none of us have nothing to do with that!"

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt), Sharon, Ernestine (Sis), Mrs. Hunt
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

They said—they still say—stole a car. Man, I can’t even drive a car, and I tried to make my lawyer—but he was really their lawyer, dig, he worked for the city—prove that, but he didn’t. And, anyway, I wasn’t in no car when they picked me up. But I had a little grass on me. I was on my stoop. And so they come and picked me up, like that, you know, it was about midnight, and they locked me up and then the next morning they put me in the lineup and somebody said it was me stole the car—that car I ain’t seen yet. And so—you know—since I had that weed on me, they had me anyhow and so they said if I would plead guilty they’d give me a lighter sentence. If I didn’t plead guilty, they’d throw me the book. Well […] I was alone, baby, wasn’t nobody, and so I en­tered the guilty plea. Two years!

Related Characters: Daniel Carty (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:

Man, it was bad. Very bad. And it’s bad now. Maybe I’d feel different if I had done something and got caught. But I didn’t do nothing. They were just playing with me, man, because they could. And I’m lucky it was only two years, you dig? Because they can do with you whatever they want. Whatever they want. And they dogs, man. I really found out, in the slammer, what Malcolm and them cats was talking about. The white man’s got to be the devil. He sure ain’t a man. Some of the things I saw, baby, I’ll be dreaming about until the day I die.

Related Characters: Daniel Carty (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:

I know I can’t help you very much right now—God knows what I wouldn’t give if I could. But I know about suffering; if that helps. I know that it ends. I ain’t going to tell you no lies, like it always ends for the better. Some­ times it ends for the worse. You can suffer so bad that you can be driven to a place where you can’t ever suffer again: and that’s worse.

[…]

I don’t want to sound foolish. But, just remember, love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.

Related Characters: Sharon (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:

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. I now began to realize that my judgment of these women had had very little to do with morals. (And I now began to wonder about the meaning of this word.) 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?

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Will you listen to me? Please? Of course, she’s lying. We know she’s lying. But—she’s—not—lying. As far as she’s concerned, Fonny raped her and that’s that, and now she hasn’t got to deal with it anymore. It’s over. For her. If she changes her testimony, she’ll go mad. Or become another woman. And you know how often people go mad, and how rarely they change.

Related Characters: Ernestine (Sis) (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt), Victoria Rogers, Arnold Hayward
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

We are certainly in it now, and it may get worse. It will, certainly—and now something almost as hard to catch as a whisper in a crowded place, as light and as definite as a spider’s web, strikes below my ribs, stunning and astonishing my heart—get worse. But that light tap, that kick, that signal, announces to me that what can get worse can get better. Yes. It will get worse. But the baby, turning for the first time in its incredible veil of water, announces its presence and claims me; tells me, in that instant, that what can get worse can get better; and that what can get better can get worse. In the meantime—forever—it is entirely up to me. The baby cannot get here without me.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Ernestine (Sis)
Related Symbols: The Baby
Page Number: 122
Explanation and Analysis:

It seems to me that if I quit my job, I’ll be making the six o’clock visit forever. I explain this to Fonny, and he says he understands, and, in fact, he does. But understand­ing doesn’t help him at six o’clock. No matter what you understand, you can’t help waiting: for your name to be called, to be taken from your cell and led downstairs. If you have visitors, or even if you have only one visitor, but that visitor is constant, it means that someone outside cares about you. And this can get you through the night, into the day. No matter what you may understand, and really understand, and no matter what you may tell yourself, if no one comes to see you, you are in very bad trouble. And trouble, here, means danger.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt)
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

I know you worried about the money. But you let me worry about that. I got more experience. Anyway, you ain’t making no damn money. All you doing is wearing yourself out, and driving Fonny crazy. You keep on like you going, you going to lose that baby. You lose that baby, and Fonny won’t want to live no more, and you’ll be lost and then I’ll be lost, everything is lost.

Related Characters: Joseph (speaker), Tish (Clementine), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt), Frank Hunt
Related Symbols: The Baby
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis:

My presence, which is of no practical value whatever, which can even be considered, from a practical point of view, as a betrayal, is vastly more important than any practical thing I might be doing. Every day, when he sees my face, he knows, again, that I love him—and God knows I do, more and more, deeper and deeper, with every hour. But it isn’t only that. It means that others love him, too, love him so much that they have set me free to be there. He is not alone; we are not alone.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt), Sharon, Joseph, Ernestine (Sis), Frank Hunt
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:
Zion Quotes

I opened my mouth to say—I don’t know what. When I opened my mouth, I couldn’t catch my breath. Every­thing disappeared, except my mother’s eyes. An incredible intelligence charged the air between us. Then, all I could see was Fonny. And then I screamed, and my time had come.

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, cries like it means to wake the dead.

Related Characters: Tish (Clementine) (speaker), Fonny (Alonzo Hunt), Sharon, Frank Hunt
Related Symbols: The Baby
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis: