2. Beloved (1987)- for TSPSC JL/DL
Biography of Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison's writing was also
greatly influenced by her family. Her grandparents had relocated from to Ohio
during the national movement of blacks out of the South known as the Great
Migration. After leaving their farm in Alabama, Morrison’s mother’s parents
(Aredelia and John Solomon Willis) moved to Kentucky, and then to Ohio. They
placed extreme value in the education of their children and themselves. John
Willis taught himself to read and his stories became inspiration for Morrison's
Song of Solomon (1977).
Morrison was an extremely gifted
student, learning to read at an early age and doing well at her studies at an
integrated school. Morrison, who attended Hawthorne Elementary School, was the
only African American in her 1st grade classroom. She was also the only student
who began school with the ability to read. Because she was so skilled, Morrison
was often asked to help other students learn to read. She frequently worked
with the children of new immigrants to America.
Morrison's parents' desire to protect
their child from the racist environment of the South succeeded in many
respects: racial prejudice was less of a problem in Lorain, Ohio than it would
have been in the South, and Chloe Wofford played with a racially diverse group
of friends when she was young. Inevitably, however, she began to experience
racial discrimination, as she and her peers grew older. She graduated with
honors in 1949 and went to Howard University in Washington D.C. At Howard, she
majored in English and minored in classics, and was actively involved in
theater arts through the Howard University Players. She graduated from Howard
in 1953 with a B.A. in English and a new name: ‘Toni Wofford’ (Toni being a
shortened version of her middle name). She went on to receive her M.A. in
English from Cornell in 1955.
After a teaching stint at Texas
Southern University, Toni returned to Howard University and met Harold
Morrison. They married, and before their divorce in 1964, Toni and Harold
Morrison had two sons. It was also during this time that she wrote the short
story that would become the basis for her first novel, The Bluest Eye.
In 1964, Morrison took a job in
Syracuse, New York as an associate editor at Random House. She worked as an
editor, raised her sons as a single mom, and continued to write fiction. In
1967, she received a promotion to senior editor and a much-desired transfer to
New York City. The Bluest Eye was published in 1970. The story of a young girl
who loses her mind, the novel was well received by critics but failed
commercially. Between 1971 and 1972, Morrison worked as a Professor of English
for the State University of New York at Purchase while holding her job at
Random House and working on Sula, a novel about a defiant woman and relations
between black females. Sula was published in 1973.
The years 1976 and 1977 saw Morrison
working as a visiting lecturer at Yale and working on her next novel, Song of
Solomon. This next novel dealt more fully with black male characters. As with
Sula, Morrison wrote the novel while holding a teaching position, continuing
her work as an editor for Random House, and raising her two sons. Song of
Solomon was published in 1977 and enjoyed both commercial and critical success.
In 1981, Morrison published Tar Baby, a novel focusing on a stormy relationship
between a man and a woman. In 1983, she left Random House. The next year she
took a position at the State University of New York in Albany.
Beloved, the book that many consider
Morrison's masterpiece, was published in 1987. Mythic in scope, Beloved tells
the story of an emancipated slave woman named Sethe who is haunted by the ghost
of the daughter she killed. The novel is an ambitious attempt to grapple with
slavery and the tenacity of its legacy. Dedicated to the tens of millions of
slaves who died in the trans-Atlantic journey, Beloved could be called a
foundation story (like Genesis or Exodus) for black America. It became a
bestseller and received a Pulitzer Prize.
In 1987 Toni Morrison became the
Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of Humanities at Princeton
University. She is the first African American female writer to hold a named
chair at a university in the Ivy League. She published Jazz in 1992, along with
a non-fiction book entitled Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination. The next year she became the eighth woman and the first black
woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. 1998 saw the publication of her
seventh novel, Paradise. In subsequent years she published Love (2003), A Mercy
(2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015).
One of the most critically acclaimed
living writers, Morrison has been a major architect in creating a literary
language for Afro-Americans. Her use of shifting perspective, fragmentary
narrative, and a narrative voice extremely close to the consciousness of her
characters reveals the influence of writers like Virginia Woolf and William
Faulkner: two writers whom Morrison, not coincidentally, studied extensively
while a college student. All of her work also shows the influence of
African-American folklore, songs, and women's gossip. In her attempts to map
these oral art forms onto literary modes of representation, Morrison has
created a body of work informed by a distinctly black sensibility while drawing
a reading audience from across racial boundaries.
Beloved (1987)
Context:
Beloved is Toni Morrison's fifth novel, published in 1987. Beloved
became a best seller and received the 1988
Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Its reception by critics was overwhelming, and
the book is widely considered Morrison's greatest novel to date.
Mythic in scope, Beloved is an attempt
to grapple with the legacy of slavery.
Morrison based her novel on a real-life incident, in which an escaped slave
woman who faced recapture killed her children rather than allow them to be
taken back into slavery. In the novel, the protagonist's near-recapture follows
the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, part of the Compromise of 1850, which stated
that escaped slaves, as property, could be tracked down across state lines and
retrieved by their old masters.
Beloved is a haunting and dark novel,
full of gothic elements and acts of terrible violence. Morrison explores themes
of love, family, and self-possession in a world where slavery has only recently
become a thing of the past. Beloved is
the ghost of Sethe's murdered child (It represents the power of the legacy
of slavery), returned after 18 years for unclear reasons, embodied as a
full-grown woman at the age that the baby would have been had it lived. Part
history, part ghost story, part historical fiction, the novel also seek to
understand the impact of slavery, both on the psychology of individuals and on
the larger patterns of culture and history.
Beloved also presents a powerful
account of the foundation of black. The institution of slavery destroyed much
of the heritage of the Africans brought to the Americas; the novel partially
recounts the creation of a new people and culture, a people displaced and
forced to forge a new identity in the face of brutality and dehumanization.
Beloved is the book which Morrison
continued her narrative experiments. The structure is fragmentary, and written
with great psychological intimacy, closely tied to the consciousness of each
character and weaving suddenly between past and future. More time is spent
describing past events than the action of the current moment, than the present.
The novel is often repetitive, telling the same stories of the past again and
again, giving more information with each repetition. All of the characters of
the novel, former slaves and the children of former slaves, suffer a troubled
relationship to their own past.
The question of the rightness of
Sethe's terrible act is a difficult one moreover, it is a question that the
novel does not attempt to answer in a definitive way. Morrison is more
concerned that we understand why Sethe did what she did, as well as the ways
that her decision has haunted her ever since. The novel effectively conveys the
brutality and dehumanization that occurred under slavery, putting Sethe's act
in context without necessarily condemning it or excusing it.
The novel is dedicated to "Sixty Million, and more"- anonymous
first victims of the slave trade who died during the transatlantic crossing.
The novel reminds us of their suffering, and invites the reader to contend with
the past and the legacy of slavery. In
1998 it was adapted for a film starring Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. The
film met mixed critical response and was a box office failure, a testament, at
least, to the uniquely literary qualities of the novel.
Short Summary
In 1873, Sethe and her daughter Denver
live in 124, a house in a rural area close to Cincinatti. They are ostracized from the community for Sethe's
past and her pride. Eighteen years have passed since she escaped from slavery
at a farm called Sweet Home. Sweet
Home was run by a cruel man known as school teacher, who allowed his nephews to
brutalize Sethe while he took notes for his scientific studies of blacks. Sethe
fled, although she was pregnant, delivering the child along the way with help
from a white woman named Amy. Sethe's husband, who was supposed to accompany
her, disappeared. After her escape to Cincinatti with her four children, Sethe
enjoyed only twenty-eight days of freedom before she was tracked down by her
old master. Rather than allow her children to be returned to slavery, she
attempted to kill all of them, succeeding only in killing the baby girl.
Rejected then by her master, who saw she was no longer fit to serve, Sethe was
also saved from hanging and was released to raise her remaining three children
at 124.
The ghost of the dead baby began to
haunt the house. The two sons, Howard and Buglar, left after having
particularly frightening encounters with the ghost. The grandmother, Baby
Suggs, died a broken woman. Baby Suggs had been a great positive force in
Cincinatti's black community, regarded by many as an inspiring holy woman. After
what happened to Sethe, she gave up her preaching and retired to bed, asking
only for scraps of color. Years after her death, Denver and Sethe continue to
live in the house alone. Sethe works as a cook, and Denver spends her days
alone. Denver is terribly lonely but is also afraid to leave the yard even
though she is eighteen years old.
In 1873, two visitors come to 124. The first visitor is Paul D, a man who was a slave with Sethe back at Sweet
Home. Paul D, like Sethe, is haunted by the pain of the past. He witnessed and
suffered unspeakable atrocities before the end of the Civil War brought him his
freedom, and he has survived by not allowing himself to have strong feelings
for anything or anyone. He has particularly dark memories of time spent in a prison
for blacks, where he worked in a chain gang by day and was kept in a box in the
ground at night. The second visitor
is a girl named Beloved. It gradually becomes clear that she is the ghost of
the dead baby come back to life, at the age that the baby would have been had
it lived. Awkward, unable to speak like an adult, and dressed in strange
clothes, Beloved seems vulnerable at first but proves to be powerful and
malicious. Her purposes initially seem benign and are never fully understood,
but by the end of the novel her presence is deeply destructive for the living
people of 124.
Paul D becomes Sethe's lover, staying
for a time despite friction between him and the two young girls. Beloved
despises him, and she tries to divide Sethe from Paul D. Paul D eventually
leaves when he learns that Sethe murdered her own child. Sethe, on discovering
Beloved's identity, believes she has been given a second chance. She tries to
make amends for the past, but the girl's needs are devouring. The ghost does
not forgive Sethe for her actions. Beloved settles into the house like a
parasite, growing ever stronger as Sethe grows weaker. Sethe's sanity begins to
unravel, and Beloved only grows more demanding. Denver is forced to go to the
community for help.
A group of women, led by Ella, a
former agent of the Underground Railroad, go to 124 to exorcise Beloved's
ghost. The ghost is forced to leave, but Sethe's spirit has been nearly broken.
Paul D returns to her, vowing to help Sethe heal herself. Denver, Paul D, and
Sethe will build a new life, one in which they learn to deal with their painful
past while focusing on the future.
Beloved Character List
Sethe
Born on a distant plantation that she
barely remembers, Sethe is the child of an African-born slave woman whose name
she never knew. As a young teenager she was brought to Sweet Home, where she
took a man named Halle Suggs for her husband. She had four children, pregnant
with the fourth when she fled Sweet Home on foot and alone. When schoolteacher,
the brutal master at Sweet Home, tracked her down, Sethe attempted to kill her
children rather than see them returned to slavery. Sethe has a troubled
relationship with her own past, often not willing to speak about it but
obsessively reliving it in her own head. She has a mass of scars on her back
that resemble a tree.
Beloved
Beloved is the ghost of Sethe's third
child, murdered to protect her from schoolteacher. Her real name is never
known. She is the embodiment not only of the baby's ghost but also the legacy
of slavery. She represents the power of the past to intrude into the present.
Beloved is named after the first two
words said at the funeral-Dearly Beloved-which
she mistook as referring to the dead. "Dearly Beloved," however,
actually refers to the people at the funeral.
Paul D
Paul D was one of the Sweet Home men.
He has also suffered horribly, and has reacted by shutting away any deep
feelings. He shows up at 124 and tries to make a life with Sethe. He is
powerless against Beloved, who seduces him as a way of controlling him and
dividing him from her mother. After nearly twenty years of freedom, he is still
unsure of the source of his manhood and his humanity.
Denver
Sethe's daughter. She is the grown up
daughter of Sethe who was born during Sethe's flight to the North. Denver is
eighteen years old and terribly lonely. She has not left the yard of 124 by
herself for twelve years. She has a possessive need for Beloved, and initially
will do anything to please her. But she is also a very dynamic character; by
the end of the novel, she is transformed into a strong and independent young
woman with a new understanding of her mother.
Baby Suggs
Halle Suggs mother and Sethe's
mother-in-law. Halle bought her freedom, which she accepted because she saw how
much it meant to him. She did not expect how much it would mean to her, feeling
while still a slave that she was too old to enjoy freedom anyway. But freedom
transformed Baby Suggs, giving her a new understanding of what it meant to be
alive and transforming her into a kind of holy woman for Cincinatti's black
community. Sethe's tragedy, however, broke Baby Suggs' spirit, and she spent
her last days bed-ridden and somber.
Halle Suggs
Halle Suggs was Sethe's husband and
the father of all of her children. Halle vanished at the time when he was
supposed to flee to the North with Sethe; later, it is discovered that he
witnessed Sethe's brutalization at the hands of schoolteacher and his nephews.
When Paul D last saw Halle, he had gone insane.
Schoolteacher
Mr. Garner's brother-in-law.
Schoolteacher was a cruel and sadistic master, interested in ways to break the
wills of his slaves. He conducted a pseudo-scientific study of the slaves,
treating them in his study the way a biologist treats lab animals. His nephews
held Sethe down and stole her milk while schoolteacher took notes. When it was
discovered that Sethe told Mrs. Garner what they had done, schoolteacher had
one of his nephews whip Sethe, giving her the distinctive scars on her back.
Amy Denver
A former indentured servant, Amy
helped Sethe to escape to the North, saving Sethe's life and helping to deliver
her baby. Amy was trying to get to Boston so she could buy carmine colored
velvet. Sethe's daughter Denver is named after her.
Howard and Buglar
Sethe's sons and her two older
children, she tried and failed to kill them when schoolteacher came. The two
boys fled years ago after particularly frightening encounters with the ghost.
Sethe has recurring dreams of her boys walking away from her, unable to hear
her as she calls for them to come back.
Mr. Garner
The old master of Sweet Home, Mr.
Garner was generous by the standards of slave owners, and insisted that his slaves
were the only male slaves in Kentucky who were real men. His
"enlightened" slavery, however, proves to be a sham after his death
and was full of contradictions and hypocrisy even in his life.
Mrs. Garner
Mr. Garner's sickly wife. She brought
schoolteacher to Sweet Home after Mr. Garner's death. She spent the last months
of her life bed-ridden and very ill.
Sixo
One of the slaves at Sweet Home, Sixo
was one of the planners behind their flight to the North. He regularly visited
a woman who lived thirty miles away, dubbed the Thirty-Mile woman. He was close
to Paul D during the time of Sweet Home, but was killed during their escape
attempt.
Paul A, Paul F
The brothers of Paul D. All three
brothers were at Sweet Home for most of their lives, until Paul F was sold and
Paul A died during the escape.
Ella
A woman who was an agent on the
Underground Railroad. She took Sethe on the final leg of her flight to the
North. When Ella was a girl, she was shared by a white man and his son. After
Sethe killed her child, Ella becomes one of her harshest critics. Later, she
softens her opinion, and organizes the woman to go and exorcise Beloved from
124.
Stamp Paid
Born with the name of Joshua, Stamp
Paid changed his name after his wife was taken to the bed of their master's
owner. Stamp felt he had paid all of life's debts in that year. Stamp worked as
an agent for the Underground Railroad for many years. When schoolteacher came
for Sethe, it was Stamp who saved Denver's life. He is a friend to the family
and also to Paul D.
Lady Jones
Lady Jones teaches the black children
of Cincinatti how to read and write. She is mixed-race, with yellow hair that
she despises. She was once Denver's teacher. When Denver flees 124 looking for
help, she turns to Lady Jones.
Nan
Nan was the one-armed woman who nursed
children back at the plantation where Sethe was born. Sethe has more memories
of Nan than of her own mother.
Janey
Servant to the Bodwins. She spreads
the story of Beloved's return through the black community. She was working for
the Bodwins when Baby Suggs first arrived, and she is still working for them
when Denver is looking for work decades later.
Edward Bodwin and Miss Bodwin
Brother and sister, they are former
abolitionists and try to be helpful to the black community. They own 124, which
they allowed Baby Suggs and her family to use. Edward Bodwin witnesses the
exorcism of Beloved.
Brother
Paul D's old tree, which he named
"Brother"
Chokecherry
tree
The scar on the Sethe's back,
resembles Chokecherry tree.
Here
Boy (= a dog)
It never entered the house (124) after
having been injured by the baby ghost. Finally disappeared after the arrival of
Beloved(ghost). Sethe asks Denver, where Here Boy has gone to, Denver answers
that he has disappeared for good.
Themes, Motifs, Imagery and Symbols
Eyes
of iron
Sethe is constantly described as
having eyes of iron, and her refusal to run anymore shows some of her
determination-as does the story of her successful escape from slavery while
pregnant.
Trees
The tree is often an image of
protection, comfort, pleasure and shelter throughout the book (Paul D's tree at
Sweet Home, Sethe’s memories of beautiful tress in SweetHome; Denver's boxwood
room, the flowering trees Paul D follows to the North in a flashback later in the
novel). Denver's time in the green room
reveals her painful loneliness, and is yet another example in the book (along
with Paul D's old tree, which he named "Brother") of trees providing
comfort to human beings.
The tree on Sethe's back (chokecherry
tree) suggests the need to aestheticize painful experiences and it symbolizes
the legacy of slavery. Through language and imagery, the scars from Sethe's
pain and humiliation become a tree in bloom, a source of life and shelter.
Colour
Amy’s quest for carmine (red) velvet
is reminiscent of Baby Suggs desire for colored cloth. Small pleasures, such as
the simple pleasure of looking at a colored piece of fabric, were for both Amy
and Baby Suggs a deep relief after a life of hardship.
Sex
History is what has brought Sethe and
Halle together, and together in bed, they can think nothing of the future: they
return obsessively and repeatedly to memories of their past, shared and
otherwise. The sex in the present has been disappointing, not nearly as sensual
as Paul D's memory of the corn he ate on the first day Halle and Sethe made
love. This preoccupation with the past and the disappointing sex in the present
emphasizes the power of the past, its constant intrusion into the present, its
burden on the characters, its ability to shape/undermine characters perceptions
of present events. When Paul D and Sethe have sex, they have thirty years of
Paul D's fantasies of her as a burden; no sex can live up to that kind of
pressure.
Ownership
Ownership is an important theme throughout
the book: for the ex-slaves, to feel that something belongs to them, whether a
place or a person, is a loaded issue. Sethe stays in the house partly because
she feels a bond to the place: it is her own, ghost and all, even if the deed
to the property is not officially hers. All who visit know it is her home, and
she cannot forget that she was never able to own anything as a slave. Part of
slavery's legacy is this inability to lay claim: one cannot say "my
mother,""my husband,""my daughter" with a feeling of
security, because they cannot belong to you if they are the property of
another. The kind of "ownership" that comes along with love and
familial bonds is ruptured by the unnatural ownership of slavery.
relinquishment
of selfhood
The slaves feel that they have no self
of own. Denver and Beloved find the Self lodged in the identity of another. Denver
conflates her own identity with the identity of Beloved, just as Beloved
conflates her own identity with Sethe's. She cries and feels that "she has no self," showing how
absolutely dependent she has become on Beloved's presence and approval. Beloved,
in turn, sees herself as one with Sethe. When she sees "her face,"
she means the face of her mother-which, in her mind, is equivalent to herself. (Like
infants). The novel also powerfully conveys the feeling of suddenly owning
oneself, of having been a slave and then being free.
Absence
of names
The unnamed Baby (Beloved) is named
indirectly and posthumously. Denver is named after a white girl, Amy
Denver. Thirty-Mile-Woman and Stampaid
(Joshua) are other examples. Babay Suggs’ old master never called her by any
name at all. Baby Suggs refused to go by her newly discovered name(Jenny
Whitlow), keeping instead the name her husband gave her, the name she has been
called by other blacks for all of her life. Sixo, perhaps the most absurd name
in Beloved, epitomizes the dehumanisation of slavery in Beloved (derived from
number given to him). Other Characters at
SweetHome like Paul A, D, F too demonstrate same dehumanisation through
enumeration.
Chapter
wise- Summary and Analysis
Part
One, Chapters 1 Summary:
The year is 1873, and Sethe, a former
slave, lives with her daughter Denver in "124," a house in rural Ohio. The house is haunted by the ghost
of one of Sethe's children. Denver is the only living child who is still with
Sethe; the two boys, Buglar and Howard, had fled by age 13 after having
particularly frightening encounters with the ghost. Baby Suggs, Denver's
paternal grandmother, died shortly after the boys left. Baby Suggs was a
weathered woman, unsurprised by the fleeing of the boys, insisting only that
Sethe and Denver should bring bits of color into the house, especially during
the gray Ohio winters. Baby Suggs was unmoved by the disappearance of her eight
children.
The spirit of the dead baby is
persistent and often malicious (years ago, the baby crippled the family dog).
Sethe paid for the child's tombstone by having sex with the mason, ten minutes
for seven letters, which was enough for the word "Beloved." The way
the child died is hinted at, as we are told that Sethe can remember the feeling
of the baby's blood.
Eighteen years have passed since Sethe
escaped from Sweet Home, the farm where she was a slave. Sweet Home was
originally run by Mr. Garner, but after he died and Mrs. Garner became ill, a
cruel man called schoolteacher came to run the farm. The actions of
schoolteacher were the catalyst for Sethe's flight.
Today, Paul D, the last of the Sweet Home
men, turns up on Sethe's doorstep. He was one of five men: Paul D Garner, Paul
F Garner, Paul A Garner, Halle Suggs, and Sixo. All the men, back in those
days, were in their twenties. Back at Sweet Home, Sethe was originally bought
to replace Baby Suggs, Halle's mother. Halle had bought Baby Suggs' freedom
with money earned by hiring himself out every Sunday for five years. Sethe
arrived at Sweet Home, a young woman with "iron eyes and a backbone to
match." The men waited a year while Sethe chose which one of them she
would have for her partner. Desperate for women, the men dreamed of Sethe and
had sex with calves while they waited. She finally chose Halle, sewing herself
a dress so that their legally and religiously unsanctified marriage would have
some feeling of celebration to it.
Sethe invites Paul D into the house.
Paul D immediately encounters the ghost, in the form of a pool of red light.
Sethe explains that the mysterious happenings in the house are the doing of her
dead baby's ghost. In the world of the living, Denver receives Paul D with
apprehension, feeling left out of the rapport and the shared history between
her mother and this new male guest. Denver breaks down and says that she can't
stand living at 124 anymore: no one comes by, not only because of the haunted
house, according to Denver, but because of Sethe. Paul D's presence somehow
allows this breakdown: he is described as the kind of man in the presence of
whom woman feel comfortable crying. When Paul D asks why they don't leave, Sethe
is adamant: she will not run from anything ever again.
She tells Paul D about the tree on her
back, a cluster of scars in the shape of a chokecherry tree. Right before she
fled from Sweet Home, Sethe sent her two sons and her daughter up to
Cincinatti, where they were left with Baby Suggs. Sethe was pregnant with
Denver, but the third child, the girl, still needed Sethe's milk. Sethe tells
Paul D that schoolteacher's nephews took her milk, and when she told Mrs.
Garner about it schoolteacher found out and responded by having one of the boys
whip her. The scars are still there.
Paul D touches Sethe's breasts and the
ghost becomes violent, shaking the entire house. Paul D tries to fight back,
shouting loudly and smashing up parts of the house in the process. The rumbling
stops. The ghost's presence can no longer be felt, and Denver resents Paul D
for having gotten rid of it; the ghost was the only other company Denver had.
Part
One, Chapter 2 Summary:
Sethe and Paul D have sex, which is
disappointing for both of them. Paul D has longed for Sethe for thirty years,
and the experience has been quick and unexciting. Paul D, looking at Sethe,
dislikes the way her breasts lay flat on her and is repulsed by the clump of
scars on her back, refusing now to accept the comparison between the scars and
a tree. He remembers the trees of Sweet Home and the shelter they once provided
him; under a special tree he called Brother, he rested in the shade with his
friend Sixo, one of the slaves at Sweet Home. On a few of the rare free days
the men had, Sixo used to take long treks to see a woman thirty miles away.
Consequently he was the one Sweet Home man not sick with longing for Sethe
The sex is equally disappointing for
Sethe. She resents his earlier exhortation to her to leave the house; it's the
first and only home that has been her own. The slaves had to become used to not
being able to lay claim to things: although Sethe was lucky enough to be
married for six years to one man who fathered all of her children, Baby Suggs
eight children had six fathers. Baby Suggs lost all of her children while they
were young, except for Halle-and Halle, too, she eventually lost. Being with
Paul D reminds Sethe of the way Halle used to treat her-more like a brother,
rather than one who could lay claim to her.
When Halle and Sethe decided to get
married, Sethe told Mrs. Garner of their decision, who reacted pleasantly (but
rather unpassionately) to the idea. When Sethe asked if there would be a
wedding, Mrs. Garner laughed and called her sweet. Sethe wanted to have
something, so she secretly made a dress. She was fourteen years old.
The first time Halle and Sethe made
love, it was in the cornfield. Although the two thought they were hidden, from
the rustling in the field all of the Sweet Home men knew that Halle had been
chosen. They watched mournfully, and then cooked some of the corn from the
field and ate it. The corn, at least, is a simple pleasure that no one takes
from them.
Part
One, Chapter 3 :Summary:
Denver has a secret place where she
spends time alone, in the woods behind 124. There is a place where five boxwood
bushes planted in a circle have grown together into a canopy, forming a round
and empty room with green leaves and branches for walls. She spends hours at a
time there, paradoxically isolating herself in the room to seek relief from her
loneliness.
Years ago, after a session in her
secret place, Denver came home and looked in through a window to see her mother
kneeling in prayer. A white dress was kneeling next to her mother and had its
empty sleeve around Sethe's waist. The tenderness of the phantom's gesture
reminded Denver of her own birth.
Sethe has only vague memories of her
own birthplace somewhere far from Sweet Home. She was not allowed to be with
her own mother. Just a child, she helped tend the babies and watched rows and
rows of black women, all of whom she called Ma'am, but one of whom was
"her own." Sethe learned to recognize her mother, although they were
never allowed to be together, because her mother alone wore a cloth hat.
When Sethe herself was a mother,
fleeing from Sweet Home and pregnant with Denver, she received unexpected aid
from a poor white girl named Amy. Amy, a recently released indentured servant,
saved her life. Amy and Sethe ran into each other by chance: the white girl was
trying to walk to Boston because she was obsessed with the idea of finding some
carmine-colored velvet. Sethe, with a baby about to come, a torn-up back, and
destroyed swollen feet, was barely able to crawl. Amy led her to a lean-to and
massaged her damaged feet, telling Sethe to endure the pain because
"Anything dead coming back to life hurts."
When Denver told Sethe about the
phantom dress, Sethe talked to her about memory: even after a thing is
destroyed, its presence remains, not only in minds but somehow in the real
world. She told Denver about schoolteacher, who was Mr. Garner's
brother-in-law. He came with his two nephews and always took notes while
observing the men and Sethe, studying them pseudo-scientifically. Sethe explained
some of this to Denver and then they both decided that, judging from the
apparition of the dress, the baby ghost had plans.
After his failed escape from Sweet
Home, Paul D spent time in a prison in Georgia, working in a quarry by day and
going crazy in a box in the ground at night. He sings songs, some of which he
learned in Georgia, while he works. His heart is described as being closed up,
and Sethe's presence threatens to open it. Paul D decides to stay for a
while-although he has a pattern of settling in and wandering out soon
afterward-and his decision makes Sethe hopeful.
Sethe tells him some of the story of
when schoolteacher found her, after she had reached Cincinatti. Somehow she
managed to avoid being taken back to Sweet Home, but she did spend some time in
prison. Paul D wants to know more, but speaking about jail reminds him of his
own experience in Georgia. He drops the subject. Sethe is hopeful about a
future with Paul D, but her the future is still primarily "a matter of
keeping the past at bay." Her mission is still to protect Denver from this
past.
Part
One, Chapter 4: Summary:
After Paul D has stayed at 124 for a
few days, Denver asks him how long he plans to "hang around." The
question hurts Paul D's feelings, and he never really answers it. Sethe
chastises her daughter strongly and then apologizes for her, but she refuses to
hear any of Paul D's criticism of Denver. Paul D sees from Sethe's behavior
that she loves her daughter fiercely, and he remarks to himself that it's
dangerous for a former slave to love anything so much-love must be rationed,
because what and whom one loves can be taken away at any time.
Paul D, in part to make peace with
Denver, brings the two women to the carnival, which sets aside Thursdays for
black people. The other blacks, who usually shun Denver and Sethe, treat them
with some gentleness when they are with Paul D. Paul D has the best time of
anyone, buying gifts for the women and bending over backwards to make sure they
enjoy themselves.
On the way to and from the carnival,
Sethe sees that their three shadows look like they are holding hands. the
figures of the shadows holding hands, Sethe sees a symbol of a future the three
of them could have together. For once, Sethe is thinking of the future, and the
shadows stand as mirror opposites of the ghost baby. She wanted to make a new
life with Paul D and the two girls. She believes she can take care of all of
them, just like when she first arrived in Ohio, when "she had milk enough for all." She understands herself as
a provider
Part
One, Chapter 5 :Summary:
A woman, the narrator tells us, walks
out of the water, and, exhausted, she rests all day and all night by a mulberry
tree. The air hurts her lungs. Finally, she manages to get up and slowly walk
to the yard of 124, where she sits on a tree stump. Her skin is new, like a
baby's.
Coming home from the carnival, Sethe,
Paul D, and Denver find the girl. On seeing her, Sethe has a powerful urge to
urinate(symbilzes losing of water- babay birth), and runs off. She does not
make it to the outhouse and voids an unbelievable amount of water-as much as
when she lost her water before Denver's birth. Sethe has no idea of Beloved's
identity, but she decides to let the girl stay at 124 indefinitely.
The girl's name is Beloved, and she
does not seem to have a last name. Paul D wants to ask more questions but knows
that a black woman on her own must be running from something bad, so he doesn't
press the issue. Beloved is feeble and asks for water, of which she drinks an
incredible amount. She sleeps for four days, a possessive Denver Denver finally
has a new friend and started tending to her. When she gets well enough to eat,
all she asks for are sweets. She moves like an old woman, supporting herself
and taking tiny steps.
Paul D is suspicious: although Beloved
acts weak, he has seen her pick up the rocker with one hand. He shares these
fears with Sethe, who does not believe him. When Paul D asks Denver, who was
there, to confirm his story, she denies it. The ghost, at this point, seems
benign enough, but her power is hinted at by Paul D's story.
Part
One, Chapter 6: Summary:
Beloved is obsessed with Sethe,
watching her every move, following her around the house. Beloved is also
obsessed with hearing stories about the past. Sethe tells her stories that she
seldom shares. Beloved also seems to know, before the stories are told, about
events and things that she could not possibly know about. While Denver want to
know only stories that concern herself, Beloved wants to know everything about
Sethe-in part, perhaps, because for Beloved, Sethe is part of her.
Back at Sweet Home, Sethe got a pair
of crystal earrings from Mrs. Garner, who gave them to Sethe perhaps out of
guilt that Sethe clearly wanted a real wedding and wasn't going to get one.
Sethe took to stealing scraps of fabric, from which she sewed an ugly and
bizarre-looking dress.
Beloved also asks Sethe about her
mother, and if her mother ever fixed her hair. The answer is No: most nights,
Sethe's mother did not even sleep in the same cabin as Sethe. She worked from
before dawn until late at night in the rice paddies, and on Sundays she slept
all day. But Sethe does remember that her mother showed her a mark, like the
mark cattle get from a brand. Her mother told her that if something happened to
her, and Sethe couldn't tell her identity from her face, she would know by the
mark. All of the other slaves with that mark were dead. Later on, Sethe's
mother was hanged, but the body was so mutilated that she could not make out
the mark anyway.
Sethe's links to her own mother are
painful. Although her mother did not get to raise her, conditions led both of
them to the act of infanticide. Sethe's name is a trace of heritage left to
her, but although she bears her father's name she does not know the name of her
own mother, and she has forgotten the language of her childhood. Nan and her
mother were of the generation brought over on a slave ship, and the violence of
that act has cut off Sethe's heritage, leaving her with no legacy beyond the
history that begin with slavery. She forgets her language, but, like her
mother, commits infanticide.
Retelling this story brings memories
that Sethe had buried deep down: she remembers suddenly that when she was
little she spoke a different language, with Nan, the one-armed slave woman who
tended the children, and with her own mother. She cannot remember the language
anymore, and realizes that it might have something to do with the vagueness of
her memories of the world before Sweet Home. She also remembers Nan telling her
that Sethe was the only baby her mother kept-her father was a black man, and
Sethe inherited his name. The other babies were from when Sethe's mother was
raped by white men, and she threw them all away.
Denver wonders why Beloved seems to
know what questions to ask about Sethe's past.
Part One, Chapter 7: Summary:
Paul D grows increasingly suspicious
of Beloved, probing her with questions. Beloved reacts angrily, and Denver
sides with her against him. Later, Sethe and Paul D have an argument about her.
Sethe insists that it's no trouble to feed her, while Paul D thinks they might
find somewhere else for Beloved to live. During the argument, Sethe insists
that all men want to wrong women, all men including Halle, because he took off
and ran when they were supposed to escape to the North together. But Paul D
reveals that he did see Halle again, and Halle had gone mad. He was sitting
next to a butter churn, butter all over his face. Paul D believes that Halle
was watching from the loft when schoolteacher and his nephews took Sethe's
milk. Paul D wanted to say something to him, but he couldn't because he had an
iron bit in his mouth at the time.
Sethe is horrified. When she hears a
story, her brain immediately begins to imagine it. She cannot imagine the
future, but the stories of the past are vividly imagined in her head. So she
sees her husband watching, impotent, while she is abused, and then she sees him
by the churn, realizing that he was putting the butter on his face because he
was remembering the milk that the boys took from Sethe. She dreads hearing the
rest of Paul D's story.
Paul D tells her that while he had the
bit in his mouth he watched a rooster strutting around the yard and felt that
his own masculinity was inferior to the bird's (the rooster's name,
significantly, was Mister). He intends to tell her more, but she stops him by
rubbing his knee. Paul D thinks it is just as well-he doesn't wish to show her
"the tobacco tin buried in his
chest, where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut." Sethe, in
rubbing his knee, feels like she is kneeding dough, something she does every
day, and the ritual helps her to beat back the past.
Part One, Chapter 8: Summary:
Upstairs, Beloved and Denver dance.
Denver asks Beloved what it is like on the other side. Beloved tells her that
on the other side she is small, curled into fetal position, and it is hot with
no room to move. She has come back to see Sethe's face. When Denver asks her
not to tell Sethe what she is, Beloved becomes angry, warning Denver not to
tell her what to do. Denver, Beloved warns her, she can do without, but she
must have Sethe. She asks Denver to tell the story of how Sethe gave birth to
Denver in the boat. (The dynamic between Denver and Beloved is unhealthy;
Beloved is fickle and selfish, like a child, only wants Sethe. Denver often
feels rejected and lonely)
Amy showed Sethe where a lean-to was,
and tried to tend to her wounds. It was Amy who said that the scars on Sethe's
back were a chokeberry tree (symbolizes the slavery's legacy). Amy wondered
what God could be up to. Sethe, to everyone's surprise, lived through the
night. Sethe and Amy found a boat the next morning, and in that boat Amy helped
Sethe to give birth to Denver. They came ashore and tended to the baby that night,
dressing the infant in rags from their own bodies. The next morning, Amy asked
Sethe to tell the baby about her and then set off on her own, afraid to be
caught with a runaway.
Part One, Chapter 9: Summary:
Sethe feels the need to go to the
clearing where Baby Suggs used to preach. Baby Suggs did not give sermons, but
instead instructed the crowds of black folks to laugh, dance, and love their
bodies, in particular their hearts and mouths (in sharp contrast to Paul D's
need to keep his heart locked away.) Sethe wants to go there now to pay tribute
to Halle, and she feels the need to commune with Baby Sugg's spirit. But she
remembers, too, that Baby Suggs died in grief, embittered against whites and
without hope for the future, all because of what happened to Sethe. Baby Suggs
griefs that 'Those white things have
taken all I had or dreamed and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad luck
in the world but whitefolks.',"
After Amy left and Sethe was on her
own, she walked until she found a black man with two boys. The man was Stamp
Paid, who gave her some eel and a coat in which to carry her baby. He left her
at a relay station, where a woman named Ella came to pick her up, having been
left "the sign" by Stamp Paid. Ella brought her to Baby Suggs, whom Sethe
had never met before. Finally, she had made it, although she had to wait until
the next morning to see her children so as to avoid frightening them with her
haggard appearance. Baby Suggs bathed Sethe and soaked her feet, and Sethe
began her life as a free woman. Her third child, a girl, whom she had not seen
since she sent her ahead with the Railroad, had started to crawl. Sethe was so
happy that for a while the realization that she was free seemed more like a
dream, unable to hit her with full force.
In the clearing with Beloved and
Denver, Sethe tries to feel Baby Sugg's presence. She feels Baby Sugg's fingers
caressing her neck, they way they once did in life, but then the fingers begin
to choke her. Beloved and Denver rescue her, and Denver tells her that Baby
Suggs would never hurt her. Beloved massages Sethe's neck and kisses her, too
passionately, her breath smelling like milk. Sethe tells her she's too old for
that. Still, the visit to the clearing makes Sethe feel better, and she also
decides that she wants Paul D in her life. She goes back to cook up dinner for
all, remember the first day she arrived at 124, when she had milk enough for
all.
Beloved hates Paul D, because he takes
too much of Sethe's attention. She listens to the to of them for a while and
then leaves to go outside. Denver confronts her about the clearing, telling her
that she knows Beloved was choking Sethe, even if she did "rescue"
Sethe afterward. Beloved warns Denver not to cross her and runs away.
Denver remembers when she used to go
to school. When she was seven, she walked away from home and found the house of
Lady Jones, a mulatto woman who taught black children reading, writing, and
math. The year of school (in which she was avoided by her classmates without
realizing it) ended when Nelson Lord asked Denver "the question."
When Denver asked her mother "What happened
to her mother?," she became deaf, not even hearing her mother's answer
or anything else for two years. She regained her hearing when she heard the
baby ghost crawling up the stairs.
Denver's childhood deafness shows some
of the danger of the past, from which Sethe has always tried to protect her
daughter. The question represents the power of the past to impair life in the
present. But Denver's hearing also returned because of the sound of the ghost
baby.
Part One, Chapter 10: Summary:
After failing to escape from Sweet
Home, Paul D was sold to a new master, whom he tried to kill. He was sent to
Georgia. At a prison for blacks, he was kept in a small box in the ground at
night and let out during the day to work in a chain gang. At night, he trembled
uncontrollably. After months, a powerful rainstorm gave the men a chance to
escape. Still chained, they ran until they found a Cherokee encampment. The
Cherokee broke their chains. The level of brutality in Georgia far exceeded
anything he had experienced at Sweet Home, and showed him how little his life
was valued.
Paul D, instructed to follow the
blossoms (which would keep him going North) found his way to Delaware, where he
stayed with a weaver woman for eighteen months. All of these experiences he put
away in the "tobacco tin" lodged in his chest, and "nothing in this world could pry it open."
(but Beloved is not of this world.)
Part One, Chapter 11: Summary:
Beloved moves Paul D. Inexplicably, he
begins to feel uncomfortable sleeping with Sethe. He begins to sleep in the
rocker, then in Baby Sugg's old room, then in the store room, then in the cold
house. The moving, he knows, has nothing to do with Sethe, but is involuntary,
yet he can do nothing to prevent it.
Beloved comes to him in the cold house
and tells him to touch her "inside part" and call her by her name.
Paul D tries to resist, but he cannot. She insists, and he does as she asks,
horrified by his own actions. As he touches her, he repeats the words "red heart" again and again, like a
mantra.
Beloved shows her intent to be rid of
Paul D, first by moving him, and then by using sex to try to conquer him. Paul
D cannot resist her, and it shows the Beloved's power. He has survived slavery
and a Southern prison for blacks, but he cannot resist the ghost. The sex is
horrific and desperate and not entirely under his control, but Paul D's
vulnerability and defeat by the ghost reminds him of his own human feelings.
Part One, Chapter 12: Summary:
Denver remembers the "original
hunger," before Beloved came. But even now, she cannot consistently win
Beloved's approval or her smiles. She is desperate for Beloved to love her, and
she fears that Beloved might leave again.
Sethe comes to believe that Beloved
was locked up by a white man-all Beloved can remember is standing up on a
bridge looking down and one white man. We later realize that the one white man
is schoolteacher, but Sethe believes that Beloved was locked up and used for a
white master's pleasure. Sethe remembers Ella, the woman who took her on the
last leg of the Underground Railroad. Ella was locked up by a father and his
son for a year, and Sethe thinks something like that may have happened to
Beloved.
Denver follows Beloved out to the cold
house, where Beloved vanishes into thin air. Denver begins to cry, worse than
when Paul D first came: "Then it was for herself. Now she is crying
because she has no self." But Beloved reappears, and asks mysteriously if
Denver can see "her face." Denver cannot, and asks whose face it is,
to which Beloved replies, "Me. It's me."
Part One, Chapter 13: Summary:
Paul D wonders about his masculinity.
Mr. Garner prided himself on having slaves who were men, and Paul D believed
him, but now he wonders about the value of masculinity bestowed on him by a
white master. Once Garner died, after all, that masculinity proved terrifyingly
easy to take away. And now, he finds himself unable to beat Beloved. He begins
to wonder if she is more than just a girl.
He resolves to tell Sethe, but cannot,
and instead asks if Sethe will have his child. He is growing to love Sethe more
and more, but Sethe gives an ambiguous response. Later that night she tells him
that he won't be sleeping outside anymore, but should come upstairs where he
belongs. He is grateful to her, only the second time in his life he has been
grateful to a woman. The first was in Delaware, when the weaver woman gave the
half-starved fugitive Paul D some sausage.
Sethe does not want to have Paul D's
baby, but she is happy to have him home. She is beginning to understand
Beloved's identity, although it is not yet totally clear to her.
Part One, Chapter 14: Summary:
Beloved is infuriated by Paul D's
return into the house, but Denver defends him, saying that he is there because
Sethe wants him there. It shows some sign of independence, as well as
consideration of her mother's feelings and desires.
Beloved fears that her body might fall
apart, knowing that it could happen at any moment. Holding herself together
takes great effort, and she fears waking up to find herself in pieces. She
loses a wisdom tooth and is afraid that the process is beginning, but Denver
assures her that it's normal. Beloved tells her it hurts and Denver asks why she
doesn't cry. So she does, as if the idea had never occurred to her before.
When she learns how to cry, we see how
like and unlike a baby she is: all experiences are new for her and she has to
learn them like an infant does, but some of those experiences (like crying) are
things that should come instinctively to a human.
Part One, Chapter 15: Summary:
After Sethe's arrival at 124, Stamp
Paid got two buckets full of blackberries and brought them to Baby Suggs. With
that as the beginning, a giant feast came about spontaneously, a celebration
for all of the black people in town. Afterwards, the other blacks in town
actually resented Baby Suggs, feeling that her generosity was a sign of pride.
They began to resent her preaching and her fortune at having so many members of
her family with her.
Baby Suggs originally allowed Halle to
buy her freedom only because it had seemed to mean so much to him. She was
convinced that she was too old to really need freedom, but as she was driven
north by Mr. Garner she suddenly was intoxicated by the knowledge that she was
free, noticing her hands and realizing that they were her own, and feeling her
heartbeat-noticing it, in a way, for the first time. Baby Suggs then asked Mr.
Garner why he and his wife always called her Jenny. He revealed that
"Jenny Whitlow" was her legal name, the one on her bill of sale. Baby
Suggs told him that Suggs was her husband's name, and she was always called
Baby, and that no one ever called her Jenny.
Baby Suggs's first stop was at the
Bodwins', a brother and sister who were abolitionists. Janey, their black
servant, gave Baby Suggs water to drink and told her that her family all lived
in the area. The idea was wondrous to Baby Suggs, who thought then and there
that she might be able to find the scattered bits of her own family (after two
years of fruitless attempts and letters, Baby Suggs gave up). She met the
Bodwins, generous white people who let her stay at 124 and voiced their
disapproval of slavery. Mr. Garner spoke up, reminding them that he allowed
Halle to buy Baby Suggs's freedom, but she thought silently that her son would
be working off that debt for years to come.
After the feast celebrating Sethe's
arrival and the arrival of Baby Suggs's grandkids, Baby Suggs could smell the
disapproval of the community in the air, and she had a vague premonition of the
disaster that was coming.
Part One, Chapter 16: Summary:
Twenty-eight days after Sethe arrived
at 124, schoolteacher, one of his nephews, the slavecatcher, and the sheriff ("The
four horseman" refers to the Four Horsemen (Famine, War, Pestilence,
Death) of the Apocalypse, as described in the Bible. Their arrival signifies
the end of the world) came to reclaim Sethe and her children. Sethe, on seeing
them, ran into the shed and killed the crawling baby girl's throat. She tried
to kill Howard, Buglar, and Denver, but did not succeed. Howard and Buglar she
only managed to wound, and Denver she attempted to throw against a wall. Stamp
Paid leapt in and saved Denver's life. Schoolteacher saw then that she would
never be a good slave again: "you just can't mishandle creatures and
expect success." The sheriff told the other three white men to leave,
saying that it was now his business.
Baby Suggs moved in and tried to take
control of the situation. She told Sethe to nurse Denver, but became infuriated
when Sethe absent-mindedly brought Denver to her chest without cleaning away
the dead baby's blood. They fought over the child, Baby Suggs finally slipping
on a puddle of blood. Denver drank her sister's blood along with her mother's
milk. Then Denver and Sethe were carried into town in the sheriff's wagon, a
crowd of blacks looking on disapprovingly at Sethe's straight back and
unashamed eyes.
It is narrated from the perspective of
schoolteacher and his nephew then shifts back to that of the blacks. This shift
in narration shows how schoolteacher dehumanizes blacks : all of them are
nameless "niggers" differentiated by what they wear. (here "nigger with the flower in her
hat" is Baby Suggs). In the eyes of the schoolteacher all of the blacks are different specimens of animal.
Part One, Chapter 17: Summary:
During the days, Paul D and Stamp Paid
work with hogs. Cincinatti is the city
of pork, exporting the valuable meat back to the Northeast. Stamp Paid
shows Paul D the old newspaper clipping about Sethe killing her baby daughter.
Paul D insists that the woman in the picture is not Sethe because "that ain't her mouth." Stamp Paid,
remembering that horrible day, thinks about the fact that no black person sent
warning to Sethe. The four white people were riding towards 124 with "the
Look," and everyone who saw it knew what it meant. Stamp believes that
there was some meanness that caused the inaction of the black community,
jealousy (about Baby Suggs preaching, fine house and intact family. He keeps
these thoughts to himself.
But Stamp Paid helps Paul D to read
through the article, at the end of which Paul D is still insisting the woman in
the drawing cannot be Sethe.
Part One, Chapter 18: Summary:
Sethe, confronted by Paul D about the
newspaper article, tries to explain herself. She circles the room wildly,
starting by talking about the child who died, and then about what it was like
to be free. Suddenly, Sethe was allowed to be selfish, to live her life as if
it were her own to live. And her children were free; she felt for the first
time that she could love them fully, because in Kentucky they had not been hers
to love. What she doesn't tell Paul D is that when she saw schoolteacher's hat,
it was as if a giant flock of birds was beating in her head. She could not
allow her children to be taken.
Sethe still insists that she did the
right thing. She still believes that her children were better off dead than
under schoolteacher's rule. Paul D is frightened by her and her claims, feeling
that Stamp Paid showed him the article not just to warn him of what Sethe had
done but of what Sethe tries to claim. Sethe loves her children too much, not
knowing where "the world stopped
and she began." What she wanted for her children was guaranteed
safety, and she was willing to kill them to get it for them. Paul D also is
still ashamed of his sex with Beloved, feeling her eyes on him through the
ceiling. He tells her that she has two
legs and not four, implying that she is a human and not an animal and that
she should have found another way. He leaves 124.
Sethe's literal circling of the room
parallels the way she tells her story, moving around, filling in gaps, trying
to explain all the circumstances leading up to the horrible event. Her
insistence on loving her children so fiercely actually scares Paul D, who
believes that ex-slaves should not love
so much. He accuses her of having love that is "too thick," but
from Sethe's point of view love is either thick or worthless.
Part
Two, Chapter 19: Summary:
To Stamp Paid, 124 is
"loud." He can hear the voices as he approaches the house, like a
chorus of the dead. He wants to see Sethe and make sure everything is all
right. Ever since he learned that Paul D left 124 on the same day that Stamp
showed him the newspaper clipping, he has felt guilty. He worries that he did
not take the feelings of Sethe or the well-being of Denver into consideration,
and that perhaps he was infected by the feelings of the community toward Sethe.
The last time he visited 124 was when he brought Baby Suggs's body out for
burial. Sethe did not sing with the others at the funeral, and back at the yard
of 124 afterward, the other mourners did not touch the food Sethe prepared.
Sethe, in turn, did not touch any of theirs, and she forbade Denver to touch
any of it as well.
At the door, Stamp Paid cannot enter
the house. At the homes of blacks whom he has helped, he always enters without
knocking, but today for some reason at 124 he feels the need to knock-and is
not able to do it. He goes to 124 day after day, never working up the courage
to knock on the door.
Sethe, to show the girls that Paul D's
flight is not going to break her, takes the girls ice-skating. The three have a
wonderful time, laughing and falling on the ice, not a soul to see them. At the
end of the day, Beloved hums a bit of a song that Sethe made up to sing to her
children. Sethe finally realizes who Beloved is. (Beloved is not only a ghost
of dead baby but of the legacy of slavery) She goes to bed to consider the
significance of what has happened.
Stamp Paid, still trying to make
himself go to 124 and knock on the door, remembers how Baby Suggs was broken
after what happened to Sethe. She never preached anymore, embittered and
retiring to bed to think about colors. Stamp realizes now what Baby Suggs felt;
he, too, has begun to feel tired "in his marrow." One day, while in
the river, he found a bit of ribbon attached to a black girl's hair, the hair
still attached to a piece of scalp. That small discovery was what made him feel
fatigue, after a lifetime of tirelessly helping blacks.
Sethe, coming downstairs the morning
after her discovery, is overjoyed. She makes breakfast, deciding it's all right
to be late for work. The whole world, she feels, is in her home.
As Sethe walks to work, she thinks
about all of the things that have taken place, rejoicing at her daughter's
miraculous return, but also remembering her time in jail and the way that her
own sons had become frightened of her. She remembers the way that Baby Suggs
was broken and life became lonely after Sethe got out of prison, but now she
feels like she can live with her daughters in the "timeless present."
Meanwhile, Stamp Paid finally knocks
on the door. No one answers, and Stamp looks through the window to see Denver and
Beloved. Not recognizing Beloved, he is uneasy. The supernatural voices around
the house are still loud. He goes to see Ella, who speaks with disapproval
about Sethe. She voices doubt that Sethe was even Halle's wife, and suggests
that the white girl who supposedly helped Sethe to make it to the North must
have been a ghost. Stamp is angry to learn the Paul D is sleeping in the church
basement, and that no one in the black community has offered him a place to
stay. No black man should have to ask for help, according to Stamp. He sets
Ella straight, telling her that Paul D knew Sethe and Halle years ago. Ella
suggests that the girl he saw through the window is the ghost of the dead baby.
Stamp, still feeling guilty about
showing Paul D the article, searches for him. He also tries to learn the
identity of Beloved so that he can help Sethe if he can.
At work at the restaurant, Sethe
pilfers supplies rather than wait in line at the general store, where all of
the black customers are served last. Her stealing still makes her feel guilty,
and it reminds her of Sixo, who stole a baby pig and ate it. He attempted to
justify it to schoolteacher, who beat him anyway "to show him that
definitions belonged to the definers-not the defined."
Sethe also remembers the difficulty of
caring for her children while working; no other women were around, and she had
to find a way to do all of her chores and take care of her babies. Sethe's
internal monologue in this chapter is trying to explain Beloved why she did
what she did, she goes over the reasons again, explaining them to the reader
and, perhaps most importantly, to herself. She remembers schoolteacher and his
strange questions, his scientific measuring of the slaves body parts. She wants
to tell Beloved something she has never told anyone: one day, while Sethe was
working in the yard, she overheard him telling his nephews to list Sethe's
human characteristics in one column and her animal characteristics in another.
Sethe was horrified and was somehow shamed, too shamed to tell Halle about what
she had heard. That night in bed, Sethe talked about missing Mr. Garner. Halle
was none too eager to judge Mr. Garner too kindly, reminding Sethe that
although Baby Suggs was bought and sent to freedom, Mr. Garner brought in Sethe
and will own all of their children.
Sethe and the others decided to try to
escape on the Underground Railroad. Life under schoolteacher was becoming
increasingly difficult. But Sethe got her children through, sending three of
them ahead on the Railroad and staying behind to wait for Halle. Later, on her
own, she got through the journey to get to her children, walking by a mass of
hanged black boys, one of whom was probably Paul A. Still speaking to Beloved
in her mind, she seeks redemption and recognition of all that she suffered to
reach her children: "Your remember that, don't you; that I did? That when
I got here, I had milk enough for all?"
Stamp Paid believes that the voices
around 124 are the voices of black angry dead. He thinks about what whites say:
that under every black skin, no matter how polite the black person is on the
exterior, a jungle is waiting. Stamp agrees that often it's true, but he
believes that the jungle has been planted there by whites. The jungle has
spread and spread, invading the whites who originally planted it.
The narrator tells us that mixed in
with the voices around the house were the thoughts of Sethe, Denver, and
Beloved: "unspeakable thoughts, unspoken."
Part Two, Chapter 20: Summary:
Sethe’s stream of consciousness
narration
The next four chapters are stream of
consciousness, the first in the head of Sethe, the second in Denver's head, the
third in Beloved's, and the fourth a mixture of all three. Stamp Paid, in
previous chapter, heard many voices but did not recognize (they are unspeakable
and unspoken thoughts.)
Sethe begins by claiming the returned
ghost as her own daughter("Beloved,
she my daughter. She mine”) and insists that she does not need to explain
herself because her daughter has come back of her own free will. She remembers
the milk that was taken from her, and then she remembers when she herself was
nursing, and Nan had to nurse her along with white babies. She remembers her
mother's body. She says now she understands why Baby Suggs pondered
color-because she had never had a chance to look at her world and enjoy it. She
promises to show Beloved the world, colors and smells, the way a mother should.
She recalls Amy, Mrs. Garner, what she can remember of the way they looked. She
remembers taking the three children to the waiting spot for the Underground
Railroad agent and deciding to wait because Halle was nowhere to be found. It
was after she had been whipped. Sethe blames Paul D for her not being able to
recognize Beloved right away. She wonders about her own mother, refusing to
believe that she was hanged for running because she would not have run without
Sethe. She remembers her mother's face, which was deformed into a permanent
smile from wearing the bit so often. Sethe tells Beloved that she wanted to die
with her baby, but had to stay because of the three surviving children. She was
not allowed, at that time, to rest in peace. She believes her daughter will
bring that peace to her, so that she "can sleep like the drowned."
She closes as she opened, claiming Beloved as her own.
Part Two, Chapter 21: Summary:
Denver's stream-of-consciousness
narration.
"Beloved is my sister."
Denver reminds us that she swallowed Beloved's blood along with her sister's
milk, and that the sound of her ghost restored her hearing. Denver has always
been afraid of Sethe, although she does not known that she was nearly dashed
against the wall by her. Howard and Buglar knew they had nearly been killed,
and would terrify Denver with stories of how to kill Sethe if she ever tried to
kill one of them again. Denver is afraid that whatever made Sethe do it could
come again; she knows it comes from outside of the house, out in the world. She
has never left 124 by herself since she was a pupil at Lady Jones' house-and
that was twelve years ago. Twice she has been outside of the yard of 124 in
that time, and both times she was with Sethe.
Denver feels it is her responsibility
to protect Beloved should Sethe try to kill the girl again. She describes a
recurring nightmare she had as a girl, in which Sethe decapitated her every
night and then carried her head downstairs to braid her hair. Denver has waited
years for her father to come, dreaming of him. She idealizes her father,
calling him an angel-man. She misses Baby Suggs, remembering Grandma Baby's
instructions to love her body. She remembers that Baby Suggs warned her that
the ghost was greedy and needed lots of love. Denver claims Beloved as her own
again: "She's mine, Beloved. She's
mine."
Part Two, Chapter 22: Summary:
Beloved's chapter is the most
disjointed and difficult of the four.
"I am Beloved and she is mine." Beloved lays claim to her
mother, remembering her face. She insists she is not separate from her and that
"there is no place where I stop." Her mind does not wander to the
past, but insists that she is in a timeless present: "All of it is now it
is always now there will never be time when I am not crouching and watching
others who are crouching too" She speaks of men without skin (the school
teacher and the slave traders)who frighten her, daylight that comes through
cracks, a world where there is no room to move and rats that do not wait for
them to sleep to attack them. A man's dead body is on top of her. People try to
thrash but there is no room. Bodies pile up along with the living.
She sees "the woman with my face" in the sea-possibly Sethe. There are
clouds between them, and she sees a basket of flowers and Sethe's earrings. She
is desperate not to lose her. The imagery is varied: there are clouds, water,
then she is standing in the rain, there is night and day, the image of Sethe's
face through the water, repeated reference to "a hot thing."
Sometimes she is standing, sometimes she is curled up like a fetus. She want
her face to join with Sethe's. Finally, Beloved is resurrected, emerging from
the water and finding the house and the face she has wanted to join.
Beloved describes world as eternally a
slave ship. Sixty million or more died
on the voyage from Africa (Toni Morrison dedicates this novel to them), and
the slave ships were cramped and deadly places, where the bodies of the living
and the dead were crammed into dark, rat-infested cargo holds.
Part Two, Chapter 23: Summary:
All four voices mix for this final
chapter in the sequence. Beloved reiterates her need to "join," to be
one with Seth. Sethe took her face away, Beloved believes, and Beloved refuses
to lose that face again. The voices speak to each other, Sethe and Beloved,
Beloved and Denver, and then the three together. Sethe asks Beloved for
forgiveness, but Beloved avoids the question. (she does not forgive her mother
for the murder) Denver warns Beloved that Sethe is dangerous. Beloved insist on
her complete connection to Sethe, saying that they are laugh and laughter, and
that she wants Sethe's face. Again and again, we hear the words of one woman
claiming another for herself. By the end of the chapter, it is unclear who is
speaking, and we close with three repetitions: "You are mine/You are mine/You are mine."
Part Two, Chapter 24: Summary:
Sitting on the church porch steps,
Paul D drinks and feels that his tobacco tin has been pried open, leaving him
vulnerable. He wonders if he should have lost his mind back when Sixo did, if
it was going to come to this moment anyway. He remembers his family, and for
the first time we hear that Paul A and Paul F were his brothers. He cannot
remember his mother and never met his father.
Sweet Home was as good a life as a
slave could have while Mr. Garner was alive, although Paul D vividly remembers
when one of his brothers was sold and separated from him. No one believed the
bad stories Baby Suggs, Halle, and Sixo told about other slave-holding estates.
All depended on Garner; after his death, the precariousness of their position
became clear. He continues to think obsessively about Garner's proclamations
that his slaves were all men: "Was he naming what he saw or creating what
he did not?"
Paul D recalls the plan they had made
to escape on the Underground Railroad. The plan was made months in advance, but
had to be altered because Sethe became pregnant. More and more complications
arose, until the final run was a disaster. Halle and Paul A were nowhere to be
found. Sixo and the Thirty-Mile woman showed up, but all three of them were
pursued. Sixo and Paul D were captured by a large group of men with guns,
including schoolteacher. Sixo would not stop singing, until schoolteacher
decided he would never be acceptable as a slave again. They tried to burn Sixo
alive, but the fire was not fast enough, and Sixo would not stop singing or
laughing and shouting. It was the only time Paul D ever heard him laugh. The
men shot him to silence him. The white men talked to each other about
schoolteacher's problems at Sweet Home, and Paul D learned his price for the
first time: $900.
Back at Sweet Home, in chains, Paul D
had a final conversation with Sethe. When he saw her eyes, they were all black,
like iron, without any whites left in them. He was ashamed to be there, chained
in front of her. She told him that she was going to run, and because she was a
woman and pregnant Paul D never expected to see her alive again.
Analysis:
Paul D cannot separate his strategy
for closing off his heart and survival. Now that he cannot stop himself from
feeling, he wonders if he should have died with Sixo; Paul D believes that to
allow himself to have feelings will destroy him.
The description of their plans and
failed escape are narrated in the present tense to give the memory a vividness,
to show how powerful and present the run for freedom is for Paul D's mind
still. He never saw his brother again, he lost Sixo, and his fortunes turned
for the worse.
Paul D, Paul A, and Paul F were
brothers, but their shared name emphasizes the loss of self under slavery. All
the boys were interchangeable pieces rather than individual human beings. They
were differentiated by letter, like exhibits in a courtroom or identical items
on a list. After his capture, Paul D heard schoolteacher name his price. For
the first time, he knew his worth as a piece of property. He began to ask
himself how much each of them cost, marveling that the members of the only
family he'd known had prices attached to each of them. Sethe, he realizes, was
a valuable item, because she was property that could reproduce itself. The fact
that he still finds himself thinking along these lines shows that Paul D is
still unable to lay claim to himself. His fear about his manhood and its source
also shows that fear. He is not sure if he was ever really a man, or if he only
acted like one because Garner taught him how. Twenty-five years after Sweet
Home, he feels uncertain about his masculinity and is unsure of his own worth
as a human being.
Part Two, Chapter 25: Summary:
Stamp Paid visits Paul D to try and
make him reconsider his decision to leave Sethe. He tells Paul D the story of
his name: when he was a young man, his wife was taken in by their master's son.
For a year, Stamp (his name was Joshua then) did not touch his own wife. When
she finally came back, his reaction was not joy but misdirected rage. He had a
fantasy of breaking her neck. To help him deal with his rage, he changed his
name, figuring that all debts had been paid during that year.
He defends Sethe's actions. Paul D
tells Stamp that he is frightened of Sethe, but even more frightened of Beloved.
Stamp is curious about where Beloved came from; he suspects, as Sethe once did,
that she might have been locked up by a white man and used sexually until she
escaped.
Analysis:
Stamp, like Baby Suggs, rejected the
name on the bill of sale. Baby Suggs took the name used by her loved ones; she
wanted to keep her identity tied to her relationships with other blacks, rather
than to the papers that were part of her status as a slave. Rather than take a
new name that had its origin in the speech of loved ones, Stamp took his name
from something he lived through. His name also refers to his role as a
messenger and envoy for the Underground Railroad-he was the "stamp
paid," the thing that guaranteed that the thing being sent (the people
escaping through the Railroad) would make it to the destination. His name is a
badge of honor; like Sethe's scars, it is a sign of what he has been through
and survived, and defies schoolteacher's command that definitions stay in the
hand of the white definers. By rejecting names given to them by whites, Baby
Suggs and Stamp Paid make themselves the definers.
Part Three, Chapter 26: Summary:
Sethe has seemingly lost her mind,
able only to care for Beloved. It is as if Denver does not exist. Sethe and
Beloved play games all day long, and Sethe spends extravagant sums on expensive
fabric to make colorful dresses for the three of them. She arrives late to work
repeatedly and loses her job. Beloved, in turn, demands everything. When the
playing began, Denver was included, but soon it became clear that the two of
them were more interested in each other. At first, Denver was afraid for
Beloved, but after a time she became more concerned for her mother. Beloved is
growing fat while Sethe wastes away, and they are running out of food. There is
also constant fighting, as Sethe tries to explain herself to Beloved, who
refuses to forgive her. She describes the world of the dead as a terrifying
place, and is not interested in Sethe's explanations. When Sethe tries to
assert herself, Beloved flies into a rage.
In April, Denver decides that she has
to go for help. Beloved is destroying her mother; they are all "locked in
a love that wore everybody out," and Denver is afraid for her mother's
life. She finds the courage to leave the yard of 124 for the first time since
she was seven, and she makes her way to Lady Jones. (transformation of Denver
from a timid and awkward girl to a self-reliant young woman)
Lady Jones is a mulatto woman with
yellow hair; she despises her Caucasian features and married a dark-skinned
black man. Because of her light skin, she was picked to go to a school for
black girls, and now she teaches the unpicked children of Cincinatti. She
remembers Denver, who was one of her brightest students, and tries to help her.
Without mentioning the ghost, Denver tells her old teacher that Sethe is sick,
and Lady Jones feels great sympathy for their situation.
Over the next few weeks, Denver keeps
finding baskets with food in them, with little scraps of paper on which the
senders' names are written. Denver returns the baskets and thanks the senders,
and so for the first time she gets to know the people in Cincinnati's black
community. Lady Jones gives her reading lessons.
The home situation gets worse, as
Beloved grows more demanding. Sethe continues to try and explain herself to
Beloved, telling her about the horrors of slavery and why she did what she did.
She never wanted her daughter to be whipped or have to break her back working
like a beast of burden. Above all, she wanted no one to list her daughter's
characteristics on the animal side of a sheet of paper. She wants Beloved's
forgiveness, but Beloved will not give it. However, Denver listens to her
mother's explanations. Realizing that she cannot depend on the community to
feed them forever, Denver resolves to get a job. She goes to the Bodwins to ask
for help.
Janey, the servant who was there at
the arrival of Baby Suggs, still works for the Bodwins. Compared to other
whites, the Bodwins are very generous to the black community. Denver sees about
getting a night job, telling Janey that Beloved is a cousin who bothers Sethe
and contributes to her illness. Before Denver leaves, she sees a piggy bank in
the shape of a black boy with exaggerated features, the words "At Yo'
Service" written on the base.
Janey spreads the tale that Sethe's
dead baby has returned and is punishing her. The story grows as it spreads, and
sympathies in the community are with Sethe. Ella, despite her past distrust of
Sethe, organizes the women to go and free 124 of the ghost. When she was shared
by the white father and son years ago, she gave birth to a baby and neglected
it until it died. She does not want the past to interfere with living now,
because living in the present, as she sees it, is difficult enough.
On the day that Edward Bodwin comes to
124 to pick up Denver for her first day of work, thirty women of Cincinatti's
black community go to rid the house of Beloved. They stay out in the yard,
praying and singing. Beloved goes to the porch to confront them, pregnant and
naked. Sethe loses control; when Mr. Bodwin comes up the road she is convinced
that schoolteacher has come to take Beloved and she runs at him with an ice
pick.
Part Three, Chapter 27: Summary:
Paul D returns to 124, knowing from
Here Boy's presence that Beloved is truly gone. (Here Boy is the dog who was
always terrified of the ghost.)
Stamp Paid has told Paul D about the
strange events at 124. The voices he once heard have stopped. Mr. Bodwin has
decided to sell 124, but it may take some time to find a buyer. He will not
press charges against Sethe for the attempted murder, because he was so fixated
on Beloved that he did not realize Sethe was trying to kill him. Before Sethe
reached him, the women, including Denver and Ella, were able to tackle Sethe to
the ground. Mr. Bodwin believes Sethe was trying to kill one of them. Beloved
vanished. One minute she was there, naked and pregnant, and the next she was
gone.
Paul D also ran into Denver as she was
on her way to work at the Bodwins'. Despite their previous dislike for each
other, the two had a polite conversation. Denver confided that she believed
that Beloved was more than the ghost of her dead sister, but she does not say
more than that. She told Paul D that she believes she has lost her mother for
good, and exhorted him to treat Sethe well if he visits 124.
Paul D has been trying to make sense
of the stories circulating in the community. Some say Beloved came back to make
Sethe attack Mr. Bodwin, because Mr. Bodwin was the man who saved her from
hanging for the murder of her child. All say that they saw the ghost and then
it vanished. A boy who was in the woods behind the house that day claims he saw
a naked woman running through the forest, a woman with "fish for
hair."
Paul D contemplates his failed escape
attempts, working as a slave in both North and South. He ran from Sweet Home,
Brandywine, Georgia, Wilmington, and Northpoint, and every time he got caught.
At the end of the Civil War, as he tried to make his way North, he saw that blacks
were still unsafe, massacred by angry whites throughout much of the South.
His return to 124 is sad. He sees
signs of Beloved everywhere: ribbons and other brightly colored cloth, bought
for Beloved's pleasure; a garden planted for a child; and, hanging from a wall
peg, the dress she wore when she first arrived. Sethe has nearly lost her mind,
and lies in bed, unable to care for herself. She has no desire to live or work
for living anymore; as Baby Suggs did, she has retired to bed and never leaves.
Paul D tells her he's moving in, and
that he'll take care of her at night, when Denver is away. Sethe remembers all
of the people who have been with her and then left her: her sons, Amy, her
mother, and Beloved. She begins to cry, telling Paul D that Beloved was her
"best thing."
Paul D wants to make a life with
Sethe, deal with their past and build a future with her. He tells Sethe that
she is her own best thing, and a bewildered Sethe replies, "Me? Me?"
Part Three, Chapter 28: Summary:
The narrator tells us that Beloved is
slowly forgotten, first by the people of the community, and then by the people
of 124. For a time, strange events continue, but memories of the ghost begin to
fade. There is not even a name to attach to her: "Everyone knew what she was
called but no one anywhere knew her name." They cannot remember what she
said or if she said anything; they do not pass on her story. Several times, the
narrator tells us that "It was not a story to pass on."
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