Water in Lemonade and Other Stories
By Anna Johnson
While watching Beyoncé share her story through her powerful visual album, it is easy to see that water is one of the most recurring symbols. Historically, water has many meanings within different cultures, often aligning with a “metaphor for spiritual nourishment and salvation.” It is associated as fluid and everchanging, “formless, containing potential form and possibilities.” As simple as water is, the meaning of birth, death, and regeneration is not. Its presence in Lemonade is intentional, adding to Beyoncé’s journey rather than just accompanying it.
At the end of the first chapter of the visual album titled “Intuition,” Beyoncé is shown jumping off of a building, which you would assume would lead to her death. Instead of hitting the ground, she is shown fully submerging in water to end the chapter. This is intentional as philosophically water is “the home of emotions, intuition, and inspiration,” ending the chapter titled as one of water’s traits submerged within it physically.
When the next chapter “Denial” begins, she is seen taking off the black pants and hoodie she wore the previous chapter to be in nude-colored clothes. This represents rebirth as she is taking off the clothes associated with her before jumping off the building in the water, suggesting a new start or beginning by letting go of her past. She trades in the dark color symbolized as “evil, darkness, night, and despair” for lighter-colored tones associated with being open and vulnerable. The poetry at the beginning of this chapter written by Warsan Shire states “ [I] Confessed my sins And was baptized in a river Got on my knees and said, “Amen”” as Beyoncé is submerged and battling herself. The reference to confessing sins and getting baptized correlates to her time in the water being a time of rebirth, as many Christians recognize their time after being baptized as their new life and as being a new person.
After being “reborn,” Beyoncé has a completely different look as she opens the doors of a church as water pours out from inside the building. Rushing water is “an indication for a spiritual cleansing” which is seen by the viewer as the “new” her is wearing a statement color, a stark contrast to the dark neutral colors worn previously. This new version of her after being cleansed is confident as the water escapes, another noticeable difference in comparison to the woman staying among the high grass and hiding in dark clothes that we are introduced to in “Intuition.”
Beyoncé connects the symbol of water to other texts that we have studied in class, most noticeably her homage to the story of Ebos Landing shared in Daughters of the Dust. The story as its told describes the Igbo people who were purchased and taken to St. Simon on a small boat. When they got off the boat, they did not walk and go to the white purchaser but instead walked together into the water, committing suicide together as an act of rebellion. Although water is often representing life and rebirth, it can also represent death. This resonates with the story of Ebos Landing as water represents both the physical death of the slaves who rebelled as well as the regeneration and rebirth of entering a new chapter spiritually, ending their physical lives as slaves and no longer having to fulfill that role. She honors this story before and during the “Forgiveness” chapter by having the scene look remarkably similar to Daughters of the Dust, with long white dresses as multiple people are walking in the water off the shore together, like in the story of the Igbo people.
Outside of Lemonade, water is used to symbolize birth and regeneration as we saw in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. When Beloved arrives to 124, she walks out of the water, marking her entering the story and the birth of her character. She goes inside and proceeds to “drink cup after cup of water” and spills some before announcing her name to be the same as what Sethe called her murdered child. These pieces of her entering the world are put together by Sethe when she says tells Beloved her entrance “proved and connected to the fact you dribbled clear spit on my face the day I got to 124.” Although the water in Beloved is used differently than in Lemonade or Ebos Landing to reincarnate Sethe’s dead child, it still represents birth, death, and regeneration, showing how powerful the symbol of water is across all stories.
