Dissect - S6E3 - Don’t Hurt Yourself by Beyoncé (feat. Jack White)

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

We continue our serialized analysis of Beyoncé’s Lemonade by dissecting its third chapter “Anger,” which features the song “Don’t Hurt Yourself.” Beyoncé flips stereotypical gender roles to command the respect of her partner and reclaim her agency. But how long can her anger sustain? A visual guide for this episode can be found at dissectpodcast.com. Follow us on social media @dissectpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm Cole Kushna. And I'm Titi Shodia. Today we continue our serialized analysis of Lemonade by Beyonce. On our last episode, we dissected the chapter Denial. There, Beyonce described all the way she denied herself. She detailed her painstaking, often torturous attempts to transform for the sake of her husband who she worshipped like a god. Meanwhile, on screen, we witnessed Beyonce undergo another transformation, from a sleeping, silent,

suppressed servant to a powerful, life-giving goddess. Specifically, Beyonce channeled the Yoruba goddess Oshun, performing the song Hold Up while smashing out car windows with her baseball bat, Hot Sauce. At the end of the chapter, Beyonce's emotional transition from denial to destruction is crystallized as she stampedes a row of cars with a monster truck. It's here that we're presented with Lemonade's next chapter, the subject of our episode today, anger. I can wear her skin over mine, her hair, over mine, and as gloves. We can pose for a photograph.

All three of us, immortalized. You and you're perfect. In Tony Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the novel's Black 9-year-old narrator, Claudia McTeer, describes dismembering a toy doll. In the novel, we come to understand that the doll represents the white Eurocentric female beauty standards in America. Quote, I had only one desire to dismember it, to see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs, the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired pink-skinned doll was what every girl child

treasured. This quote, along with the novel as a whole, speaks to the complicated relationship between America's history of racial bias and the complex psychological effects it has on black women and children. Claudia dissects the doll in an attempt to better understand why this particular complexion is so preferred over her own, why she is subject to abuse and discrimination, simply because her features differ from this doll. In a similar way, Beyonce describes dissecting her partner's side chick in order to discover, as Morrison puts it, the desirability that escapes me. She is forced by her husband's infidelity to question her own allure and must wonder what specifically about this other woman is so irresistibly preferable. At the end of this

section of poetry, Beyonce suggests posing for a photograph. She says, All three of us, immortalized, you and your perfect girl. Of course, the perfect girl here is Beyonce grotesquely donning the sidechick's severed body parts. In the film's previous chapters, Beyonce attempted to attain perfection through silencing herself in intuition and through the religious rituals described in denial. Here in anger, Beyonce mockingly imagines perfection by physically stitching herself together with the side chick. In this way, Beyonce and Shire seem to be proposing a sarcastic solution to the Madonna whore complex, a psychological theory developed by Sigmund Freud.

Men with the Madonna whore complex view women in two distinct and mutually exclusive categories as either good, pure, and saintly madonnas, or as bad, promiscuous, and seductive whores. These men can have difficulty being sexually attracted to the women they love, while incapable of loving women they are sexually attracted to. Thus, these men are chronically dissatisfied in their relationships. In her poetic imagining, Beyonce sardonically displays just how unrealistic, deranged, and debasing her partner's expectations and views of women really are. She suggests taking a photograph to show her partner just exactly what this morbid arrangement of his looks like,

and to show the damage he's done to their family portrait, so to speak. This section of poetry also displays how psychologically stretched Beyonce has become due to her partner's betrayal. There's a kind of sleepless delirium in her words, as her outrage and resentment has progressed from cathartic aggression and denial to twisted murder revenge fantasy here in anger. And to this point, the image we see during this section of poetry is of a dark, descending stairwell in an abandoned building. When we next see Beyonce, she's in what appears to be an underground parking garage. It's here that the tone of the poem suddenly shifts. I don't know when love became elusive. What I know is no one I know has it.

My father's arms around my mother's neck. Fruit too ripe to eat. I think of lovers as trees. Searching for the same light. Why can't you see me? Why can't you see me? Beyonce begins this section, I don't know when love became elusive. What I know is, no one I know has it. It appears that Beyonce has become cynical and disillusion in her conception of love. She's been both betrayed by her partner and bamboozled by the picket fence ideal of domesticity. She's attained the house, husband, and child, yet here she is, unhappy, unsatisfied, unfulfilled. Beyonce and Shire allude to the false promise of patriarchal structure by citing that not only has she been left disillusioned by her understanding of love, but so has everyone she knows.

She cites her own parents' dysfunction to prove her point, knowing that our parents' relationship is so influential in forming our expectations of what relationship dynamics should look like. Beyonce then provides a haunting allusion to physical abuse, saying, my father's arms around my mother's neck. This line is used to pivot into a metaphor about trees as she continues, fruit too ripe to eat. I think of lovers as trees growing to and from one another, searching for the same light. This provides an incredibly potent metaphor about the ways in which relationships can evolve

over time. Partners become entrapped and entangled like unordily tree branches, twisted to the point of suffocating one another. hence the line about her father's arms around her mother's neck. Fruit too ripe to eat seems to comment on how our perception of the ideal partner, the perfectly ripe fruit, over time becomes too ripe, too old, too complicated, too rotten to enjoy anymore. Shire describes both lovers searching for the same light, the light required for nourishment, for sustainment. Aside from the obvious metaphor about love, this idea of searching for light seems to compare plants

and trees needing continual light to survive to the continual maintenance and love required to sustain a healthy, fulfilling relationship. It would appear that the light in Beyonce's relationship is so low that she no longer feels visible by her partner at all. She says, why can't you see me? Everyone else can. Beyonce seems to be contrasting the outsized adoration and attention she receives from the public with how unseen she feels by her partner.

We recall that this poem comes directly after Beyonce's baseball bat rampage while public spectators looked on with admiration, joy, and enthusiasm. With her beauty, command, and charisma so obvious to everyone else, she seems baffled that the one person privileged enough to see her in her entirety chooses not to see her at all. As anger continues into the song, Don't Hurt Yourself, it becomes clear that Beyonce plans to scream so loud that she's in person. possible to ignore. Don't Hurt Yourself finds Beyonce collaborating with Jack White, perhaps the most prominent modern figure in contemporary rock and roll. At an event that both were attending, Beyonce told White that she wanted to be in a band with him, a statement that ultimately led to this collaborative track. Don't Hurt Yourself deviates from the pop and R&B sounds typical of Beyonce's catalog, and instead features some of White's signature hallmarks,

commanding drums, snarling, distorted bass, and improvisatory. organ. This aggressive, domineering rock and roll production reflects the rage Beyonce's feeling at this point in the narrative. But like so much of Lemonade, the track also seems to be a deliberate nod to the history and legacy of black women, as rock and roll is not as foreign to Beyonce or to black women as one might think. In fact, those who truly know the history of the genre feel that rock and roll itself, or at least a large part of its sound, was irrefutably shaped by a black woman named Sister Rosetta Tharp. He's swinging.

Hear the words that I'm singing. Now known as the godmother of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Tharp was born in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. She started playing the guitar and singing at the age of four, and by age six, she was performing gospel music alongside her mother in their evangelical church. They later moved to Chicago, where Tharp was exposed to blues music. Tharp would blend gospel and blues to create what would become her signature sound. In the 1940s, Sister Rosetta Tharp transitioned from acoustic to electric guitar.

Part of her trademark sound was created by detuning her guitar strings a minor third, which accentuated the low end, made the strings easier to bend, and created a fuller, more powerful sound. Plus, the woman could just flat out play. Sister Rosetta Tharp is the pioneer of heavy, distorted electric sound that became a hallmark of rock and roll. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis, artists who are often credited as inventors of rock and roll, all claim to have been heavily influenced by Sister Rosetta Tharp's musicality, showmanship, and voice. Also among those early rock icons influenced by Tharp is the queen of rock and roll herself, Tina Turner.

Just like Tharp, Tina Turner and her electric showmanship, physicality, and commanding voice defied the traditional conventions of her era and would become one of Beyonce's biggest influences. Every now and then, when I think of inspiration, I think of the two Tina's in my life. That's my mother, Tina. And of course, the amazing Tina. Of Tina Turner's legacy, Daphne Brooks of The Guardian wrote, quote,

She catapulted herself to the forefront of a musical revolution that had long marginalized and overlooked the pioneering contributions of African-American women. Brooks here is undoubtedly referring to not only Sister Rosetta Tharp, but also artists like Bessie Smith, Cleo Gibson, Ida Cox, Memphis Mini, The Harlem Playgirls, Sippy Wallace, Big Mama Thornton, Ruth Brown, and Wanda Jackson, all influential black female musicians that are often forgotten in the discussion of rock and roll's legacy. Like so much of lemonade, Beyonce's embodiment of rock and roll and don't hurt yourself, acknowledges, praises, and shines a spotlight on this often forgotten legacy, defiantly working to reclaim space in a genre that has historically made little room for artists that are both black and female. Both the lyrics and visuals of Don't Hurt Yourself's First First, work to flip stereotypical gender dynamics.

Throughout the verse, Beyonce refers to her husband as boy, the first of many emasculating slights on the track. Meanwhile, Beyonce exalts herself in a fashion typical of male rappers in hip-hop. She cites herself as no average bitch, which instills what's typically a derogatory word with power and positive repute,

similar to how male rappers use the N-word to reference themselves positively. Likewise, Beyonce calls out the objective of the female body common in hip-hop, saying, you can watch my fat-ass twist boy, and then flips it, saying, as I bounce to the next dick boy. Again, Beyonce reverses the typical gender roles by objectifying and reducing her husband to a replaceable body part, she uses for nothing more than selfish, impersonal, sexual gratification.

Next, Beyonce screams, and keep your money, I got my own. Not to be mistaken for a gold digger, Beyonce continues her in power an emphatic assertion of independence by undermining the common trope that women marry rich men solely for their money. As a financially successful and savvy businesswoman, Beyonce is able to remove the power dynamic that her partner's wealth typically affords him. As the track continues, we get a reference to the civil rights activist Malcolm X. In the visual album version, the song actually stops after this reference in order to feature an excerpt from a speech Malcolm X gave in 1962. We'll hear that speech as well as unpacked the pivotal events that

inspired it right after the break. Welcome back to dissect. Before the break, we unpacked Don't Hurt Yourself's opening verse. After a powerful assertion of her own agency, we heard Beyonce compare herself to civil rights activist Malcolm X. In the visual album version, the song stops after this line, and we hear from Malcolm X himself. America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman. This excerpt is taken from Malcolm X's speech,

who taught you to hate yourself. When considering Beyonce's usage of this speech, it's important to understand the context and events that surrounded and prompted the speech in the first place. In 1962, tensions were high between the Los Angeles Police Department and the black community, particularly the nation of Islam. Under the direction of then-police chief William H. Parker, police officers kept black neighborhoods in local mosques under constant surveillance.

Just after midnight on April 27, 1962, two LAPD officers approached a group of men taking clothes out of the back of their car, which was parked in front of a mosque. What happens next is disputed. Officers claim that the men jumped them. But the men say the officers begin to. beating them without provocation. As a crowd began to form, an officer's weapon discharged and the bullet hit his partner in the elbow. Backup was called and 70 more officers raided the mosque. The officers attacked Nation of Islam members inside the mosque at random. Within 20 minutes,

seven members had been shot, one of which was killed while his hands were above his head in a position of disarm. This man's name was Ronald Stokes. After an investigation, the courts claim the officers' actions were justified and no charges were brought against them. This recalls many of the recent incidents of unarmed black boys and men being gunned down by police officers that were later acquitted. Later in Lemonade, mothers of slain black boys and men like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown will appear on screen holding portraits of their murdered sons. As we saw in Pray You Catch Me, Beyonce is using Lemonade to highlight the history and reverberating effects of the continual violence and injustice against black Americans,

be it the 21st century's Trayvon Martin, the 20th centuries Ronald Stokes, or the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries countless victims of slavery. Whether he is educated or whether he is dumb, whether he's a Christian or whether he's a Muslim, as long as he is black and a member of the Negro community, the white public thinks that the white policeman is justified in going in there and trampling on that man's civil rights and on that man's human right. Over 2,000 people

attended the funeral of Ronald Stokes, and it was here Malcolm X gave his Who taught you to hate yourself speech. In it, he discusses how the killing of Ronald Stokes is an attempt to divide and weaken the black community. Midway through the speech, Malcolm X describes how the subjugated condition of black people in America

has created an environment for black people to begin hating themselves. Who taught you, please? who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach to get like the white man? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose

and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to? So much so that you don't want to.

to be around each other. This sounds eerily similar to the poem we heard Beyonce recite in denial, where she bleached her skin and became silent in her pursuit to be more acceptable. Considering this in conjunction with the passage about black women being the most disrespected, unprotected, and neglected people in America, it appears Beyonce is saying that the mistreatment of black women is generational, systemic, and permeates the entire demographic. also that the lack of respect, protection, and the neglect came from inside the house as well as in society. In Beyonce's marriage, her partner taught her how to hate herself, perhaps because her partner hates himself.

We recall Beyonce's mission statement of Lemonade, how she wanted to show, quote, the historical impact of slavery on black love and what it has done to the black family. slavery, segregation, continual systemic injustice, slanderous media portrayals, these all work in tandem to complicate the psychology of the black community, the effects of which can express themselves in a myriad of ways, including in a relationship or marriage. At the same time, we recognize Beyonce's use of this specific Malcolm X excerpt is not to seek pity for black women. It is to celebrate the strength that is in every fiber of us existing as black women.

This point is solidified with what appears on screen when the Malcolm X clip is played. We see visual portraits of everyday black woman on the streets of Louisiana. Their strength is silently yet effectively acknowledged as Malcolm X speaks on their mistreatment. Yet here they stand. Strong, beautiful, resilient. In verse 2, Beyonce begins, I am the dragon breathing fire. In traditional symbolism, a fire-breathing dragon represents unrestrained anger and chaos, a fitting metaphor in a chapter titled anger. Beyonce then continues her comparison to animals of strength, saying,

Beautiful main, I'm the lion. Beautiful man, I know your lion. Here we get an instance of what's called holo-rime, a literary form where two lines rhyme almost entirely. And within this holo-rime, we find two uses of homophones, which are two words that have the same pronunciation, but have different meanings and or spellings. The first homophone is between Maine as in a lion's mane and man as in her partner's male gender. The second homophone is lion, as in the animal, and lion as in not telling the truth. It's an extremely clever way to

contrast the differences of character between Beyonce and her partner. She compares herself to a lion's Maine, and by doing so, once again assumes the alpha position of dominance, as it's male lions that have manes and are considered the kings of the jungle. During this line in the film, Beyonce is shot from a low angle, accentuating her towering dominance. As soon as she says lion, the shot is put in slow motion, giving us time to marvel at her mane, which are long, flowing corn row braids. As we've already seen throughout Lemonade, the various stylings of Beyonce's hair reflect her current emotional state. For example, Beyonce's hair was covered for the majority of the opening chapter intuition, which signified her repressed state. A pivotal moment in that chapter

came when Beyonce removed her hood, exposed her natural hair for the first time, and jumped off a building in a transformative leap of faith. We can actually find similar symbolism in Beyonce's braids here in anger. Originating in Africa, cornrows have been adorned by black women for centuries. In some African cultures, the style of your cornrows indicated your marital status, age, family, tribe, or simply express your personal style. When Africans were taken in the slave trade, colonizers took efforts to eradicate these Africans of the cultural heritage of their homeland. Knowing the significance of Africans' hair, one of the first things colonizers did was shave their heads. This calls to mind the Tignon Laws of Louisiana, which required black women, free or free or. or enslaved, to cover their hair to show they belong to a slave class.

Throughout the years, African Americans have fought to reclaim a piece of our heritage through our hair. For many African American women, wearing our hair in braids has become generational, something we, our mothers, our grandmothers, and so on, have all chosen to adorn. Hair also became a prominent feature and symbol of the American Civil Rights Movement. It was here that black activists began the Black is Beautiful movement. which encouraged black people to embrace their natural hair via afros, braids, and cornrows, in resistance of white European beauty standards. Even today, black women's hair continues to be a civil rights issue.

As recently as 2017, high school twin sisters Maya and Deanna Cook were removed from extracurricular activities, barred from prom, sent home, and threatened with suspension for attending school with braids. While on the red carpet in 2015, black assurricular. actress Zendaya Coleman wore her hair in faux locks. Fashion police host Juliana Rancic said she looked like, quote, she smells like pachuli oil or weed, unquote. In response, Zendaya said, there is already harsh criticism of African American hair in society without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge others based on the curl of their hair. My wearing my hair in locks on the Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light. To remind people of

color that our hair is good enough. And this seems precisely the intent of Beyonce wearing her hair braided when she references a lion's mane. She's attempting to change the narrative surrounding black women's hair from an unprofessional, unkempt distraction to be covered up, to a powerful crown, a symbol of strength, resistance, and a recognition and preservation of African heritage. There's one last thing to note about the line Beautiful Man I Know Your Lion, as it seems to reference Beyonce's own song Beautiful Liar from her 2006 album, B-Day. Beautiful Liar is about a cheating man, so the reference here on Don't Hurt Yourself would make sense.

And while on its own, this connection might appear to be a stretch, the reference actually triggers what seems to be a sequence of self-references to songs in Beyonce's catalog. The next lines and don't hurt yourself are, You ain't trying hard enough, You ain't loving hard enough, You don't love me deep enough, we're not reaching peaks enough. While on its surface,

this expresses Beyonce's frustration with her partner's effort and dedication. The latter two lines about not loving deep enough and not reaching peaks enough, recall the hook of the song Rocket from Beyonce's self-titled album. Directly after what appears to be a reference to this hook and rocket, Beyonce continues Don't Hurt Yourself Singing, Blindly in Love.

This phrase structure of describing being in love with an adjective or adverb is a hallmark of Beyonce's discography. Her first solo album was titled Dangerously in Love and contained a song by the same name. Her first single from that album was titled Crazy in Love and features Jay-Z. Finally, her self-titled album featured the single, Drunk in Love, and also features Jay-Z. Beyonce's performance of the line Drunk in Love contains a similar vocal flourish to her performance of the line blindly in love. Let's hear the two back to back. When we consider the references to these handful of songs that express Beyonce's love, dedication, and sexual attraction, to whom we assume is her husband J. Z.

We recognize how potent and devastating saying blindly in love, hereon don't hurt yourself, truly is. It undermines and negates everything she expressed about her husband in those songs, chalking it up to her being naive, young, and unable to see the inequality in their relationship. Finally, the verse ends with Beyonce singing, I fucks with you, till I realize I'm just too much for you. Like many lines in the song,

we recognize Beyonce's mentality here as a complete 180 from her display of insecurity on intuition and in the opening poem of denial. There, Beyonce expressed how she felt she wasn't enough for her partner and underwent torturous rituals to change for his sake. Here, Beyonce expresses the exact opposite, claiming to be too much, too powerful, too strong-willed for her partner to handle. Like so much of this song, the final line of the verse threatens the patriarchal order as Beyonce no longer undercuts or suppresses her emotions, strength, and needs to fulfill the longstanding gender roles and expectations that too often marginalize women. As Don't Hurt Yourself continues, we find two references to songs from the 1970s. Beyonce repeats here, Let It Be, a phrase that is now inseparable from the 1970 song by The Beatles and the title of their last album together.

Let It Be seemed to be in part a comment about the band's breakup. and the song itself is a consoling record about letting go and moving on. The phrase here on Don't Hurt Yourself functions in a similar way, as Beyonce suggests that her and her husband should just let it be and move on from each other. Beneath this section, the drums open up as the track prepares for its dramatic crescendo. Interestingly, there is a second drum track layered beneath the drums that have been playing throughout the song. This second drum track is actually a sample from the 1971 song, When the Levy breaks by Led Zeppelin.

Performed by John Bonham, this drum introduction is now iconic. From Dr. Dre to the Beastie Boys to Bjork, it's been sampled nearly 150 times and is often referred to as the most well-known drum sound in rock history. For Don't Hurt Yourself, the drumbeat is chopped up before being inserted into the track. While musically, the sample adds density and dynamics to don't hurt yourself, it actually doesn't feel all that needed, especially considering how much money is likely required to use the sample. But when looking into the history of the song,

we come to understand that it was likely used for its historical significance as much or more than its musical contribution. When the Levy Breaks wasn't actually written by Led Zeppelin. Rather, it was written and originally recorded by blues duo Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Mini in 1929. If it keeps on ready, Levy's going to break. If it keeps on rainy,

When the levee breaks was written about the devastating aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States. After heavy rains in the summer of 1926, the Mississippi River began to swell, breaking over 140 levees. Over 27,000 square miles of land was inundated, causing the displacement of 640,000 people. nearly 80% of which were African-American. The displaced African-Americans were kept in refugee camps at gunpoint and forced to rebuild the levees and plantations. And so when we hear Kansas Joe McCoy saying,

I works on the levy mama both night and day. I ain't got nobody. Keep the water away. We know he's referring to the forced labor of African-Americans. My voice on a lap. Mom, both night and day. I was going to love it Mom both night and day

Beyonce's allusion to the Kansas Joe and Memphis mini Original is important to consider when listening to Don't Hurt Yourself. On the surface, Beyonce seems to be equating the breaking of a levy to the unleashing of her rage, a nod to the original's opening line.

If it keeps raining, these levees are going to break. The rain in this context could be the lies and deception of her cheating partner. The breaking of the levees then serve as a warning shot for what's to come. Destruction. This falls in line with the water imagery we've seen so far in Lemonade.

As Ocean promises, with water comes change and transformation. In the case of flooding, it's a transformation of the land from peaceful and steadfast to a wasteland that's eventually rebuilt, to only then be annihilated again by another flood. This is the cycle. The same destructive cycle that Beyonce refers to in Lemonade with respect to relationships, relationships that are sturdy and reliable are then ruined and in need of rebuilding to only then be ruined in the next generation, a curse from generation to generation.

As Don't Hurt Yourself continues, Beyonce's comparison to a fire-breathing dragon comes to fruition, and the song reaches its dramatic climax. Beyonce screams, Who the fuck do you think I is? This line mirrors the song's opening line, which if you recall was censored the first, time around. Bleeping the first iteration of the track's opening moments makes the uncensored,

unrestrained version of the line all the more impactful, all the more cathartic. Having begun as brush fire, Beyonce's anger is now raging flames of destruction. She brings back the emasculating boy of the first verse as she tells her husband to kiss her ass, then informs him she's currently destroying all his possessions. This is followed by the song's hook. The hook revolves around the concept that when Beyonce's partner hurts, lies, and plays her, he's equally hurting, lying to, and playing himself. As a person who respects the sanctity of marriage, Beyonce here seems to be emphasizing the symbiotic, cyclical nature of two people in a relationship, that the pain or joy felt by one is in turn felt by the other. As someone who clearly doesn't

understand this dynamic, her partner is now learning through direct experience. It is his reign that broke the levy, and now he must experience the destruction of the tumultuous flood that he himself caused. Beyoncé is an involuntary catalyst for the flood. Her godly wrath is the preordained result of his dishonesty, his betrayal. Beyonce is simply the vessel for the karmic reaction of his sins. This more cosmic view of cause and effect is alluded to in the hook's final line, when you love me, you love yourself, love God herself. At first, it may seem Beyonce here is calling or comparing herself to God, and demanding her partner worship her as such. This interpretation would fall in line with the numerous comparisons she's made to powerful figures

like Malcolm X, fire-breathing dragons, and lions, as well as her transformation into the goddess Oshun in the previous chapter. But additional context comes by way of the visual that appears on screen during this line. In large white letters over a black screen, we see the phrase, God is God and I am not. Beyonce shows a self-awareness here that her comparison to God is metaphoric. It may also be a meta-comment on the protagonist's current emotional state, that the fire-breathing female currently fucking shit up displays none of the meekness, humility, and forgiveness that the Christian God is believed to exhibit.

Nonetheless, the illusions to Beyonce as God continue as don't hurt yourself ends with a damning outro. Beyonce's anger coalesces into an alter. as she threatens to leave her husband for good if he ever dares to betray or disrespect her again. This warning is underscored by Beyonce taking off her wedding ring and throwing it directly at the camera. Here, we can't help but notice the necklace Beyonce is wearing, which features a large diamond-encrusted enque pendant. The ink is a hieroglyphic symbol originating in ancient Egypt. It resembles a cross, but has an oval loop in place of the top vertical bar. On the most basic, basic level, the ench symbol is used to represent the word for life, or breath of life. And various

gods in ancient Egypt were depicted holding the aunt to symbolize their life-giving power. We immediately think of Beyonce's comparison to God in the line, You know I give you life we just heard in the song's outro. But we've learned by now that the use of these blatant symbols in lemonade often come with deeper meaning if only we do a little research. In ancient Egypt, the aunt cross represents balance between eternal life and death and the union between male and female. This latter idea is best expressed by its nickname, the key of the Nile, as in the Nile River that runs through Egypt. Every year, heavy summer rain in the Ethiopian highlands send a torrent of water that flooded the banks of the Nile. When the flood subsided, it left thick mud that

became excellent soil for growing crops. Since rainfall is nearly non-existent in Egypt, this annual flood was essential to the survival of ancient Egyptians. In those ancient times, it was believed that the marriage of the gods Osiris and Isis that took place at the Nile was responsible for setting off these annual life-producing floods. The Unc, or Key of the Nile, thus came to represent this event, with the lower cross symbolizing the male, Osiris, the loop representing the female, ISIS, and the union of the two representing the marriage of opposites that brings fertility and life. On its most basic level, the onk joins the numerous references to African history and heritage

throughout lemonade. While we get a direct allusion to the onk with that line, I know I give you life, the deeper connection here is between the symbiotic relationship between male and female, between husband and wife, which was the very essence of don't hurt yourself's hook. When Beyonce states that our partner hurts him when he hurts her, she's pointing out the disruption of the transformative potential of life and fertility as the result of their union, the exact concept of Anken bodies, and it's Beyonce's hurt and frustration over this cosmic disruption that's at the heart of Beyonce's anger. We also get an added layer to our understanding of floods, something we spoke about at length earlier. While we previously saw the flood of Beyonce's rage

as an all-consuming destructive force, when considering the key of the Nile and the fertility and life bestowed by the floods of ancient Egypt, we understand how flooding can be a temporary yet necessary step in the cycle of creation, a step toward the renewal of life, and in Beyonce's case specifically, a step toward the renewal of her marriage. Conclusions.

In the aforementioned novel, The Bluest Eye, the story's protagonist, a young black girl named Pacola, is subject to continual racial discrimination and abuse. Relating to our discussion of Malcolm X's, who taught you to hate yourself speech, Pacola believes she's ugly because she's black. She becomes obsessed with white European beauty standards,

believing that if only she had blue eyes, all her problems would disappear. One day, Pecola is treated callously by a store owner who doesn't want to touch her when she hands him money. Walking home, Pacola is triggered when she trips on a crack in the sidewalk. Quote, anger stirs and wakes in her. It opens its mouth and like a hot mouth,

mouth puppy laps up the dredges of her shame. Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger, a reality and presence, an awareness of worth. It's a lovely surging. Her thoughts fall back to Mr. Yakubowski's eyes, his flemy voice. The anger will not hold. The puppy is too easily surfeited. It's thirst too quickly quenched. It sleeps. The shame wells up again. It's muddy rivulets seeping into her eyes. This moving passage from the bluest eye lends incredible insight into the layers that are often beneath exterior manifestations of anger.

It can be short-term relief from hurt and shame, an emotion justifiable, but ultimately unsustainable, without the resurgence of the pain that gave rise to the anger in the first place. Much of Morrison's insight can be applied to Beyonce's current emotional state, the pain she expressed in intuition, and the torturous feeling of an act. inadequacy and self-hate expressed in denial, has given way to anger, which allows her to,

as Morrison put it, gain a sense of being, an awareness of worth. She is able to reclaim her agency, reversing stereotypical gender roles to tower over her partner and society at large in a display of masculine wrath and vengeance. But however justified and understandable it may be, it's hard to imagine the intensity of Beyonce's rage sustaining with any kind of real permanence. As Morrison observes, anger will eventually subside, and you're left again with the underlying hurt that gave birth to the anger. Indeed, the water that breaks the levee and floods dry land will inevitably subside, allowing victims of the flood to flee forever, or stay and begin the process of rebuilding. For Beyonce, she's working her way toward the latter, for as much as she

might try to forget about her partner, she simply can't. This is the song Sorry from Lemonade's next chapter, Apathy. A chapter will discuss line by line, frame by frame next time on Dysect. Dysect is a production of Spotify Studios. Remember, you can find visual guides for each episode on Dysectpodcast.com, which also includes links to any articles cited on today's episode. While you're there, be sure to check out our limited season six merchandise, and be sure to say hi on social media at Dicect.

podcast. Today's episode was written by Titi Shodia and me. Additional analysis by Maggie Lacey and Michael Bundalo. Additional research by Gail Acosta. Audio editing by Eric Bass and me. Song Recreations by Andrew Atwood. Theme music by bureaucratic. Okay, thanks everyone. Talk to you next week.