Professional Documents
Culture Documents
How do writers
How does the past live
capture the human
on in the present and
experience?
affect the future?
Throughout our reading of Beloved, you are expected to actively annotate the text in addition to synthesizing your
thoughts on the novel in the Reader Response Journal. For this novel, we will work in groups to create the Major Works
Data Sheet after reading the novel.
So, what should you annotate? The possibilities are limitless. Keep in mind the reasons we annotate. Your annotations
must include comments. I want to see evidence of thinking.
The most common complaint about annotating is that it slows down your reading. Yes, it does. That’s the point. If
annotating as you read annoys you, read a chapter, then go back and annotate. Reading a text a second time is
preferable anyway.
Approach the work with an open mind. Let the novel inspire you and stretch your imagination.
If you do this and do it well, you will save yourself the agony of boring literary discussions and the pain of low
literature quiz grades.
CHARACTERS
As you read, make sure to note characteristics of each of the people you encounter in the novel. What defines them? Do
you relate to them? How do they interact?
THEMES
This list is not an exhaustive list of the themes discussed in Beloved, but will serve as a good starting point.
Race and the effects of The nature of love Role of the supernatural
slavery Role of family Faith and religion
Facing and dealing with Masculine/feminine Slavery’s destruction of
past identity identity
The everyday nature of The meaning of freedom The nature of humanity
evil Role of community The power and limits of
Moral ambiguity language
SETTING
Beloved is set during an appalling period in America’s history:
the years before, during, and immediately after the Civil War.
After the Civil War ended, life was still dreadful for black
people, whether slaves or freed. While the action of the novel
covers only a brief time, Morrison covers approximately 50
years through the use of flashbacks. Although other places are
mentioned, the two major settings are Sweet Home in
Kentucky and 124 Bluestone Road outside Cincinnati, Ohio.
The novel encompasses an era where slavery was still in existence in many forms. Although by 1873 the Civil War was
over and the Reconstruction era was underway, racism and sharecropping were still common, especially amongst the
southern states. There were hundreds of laws that restricted African-Americans' rights, and the novel graphically
displays the hurt that many ex-slaves experienced.
The following is a list of symbols throughout the novel. This is not a complete list – you will find many more in your
reading. Jot down your thoughts about the meanings of the following symbols as you read on post-it notes or in your
notes (make sure to keep track of page numbers!) Don’t forget to add what you learn through class discussion and
lectures.
1. Read the first episode of Beloved carefully, and notes your reactions to it. What expectations does the opening scene
raise for the work to follow? After you finish the first session's reading assignment, and then again after you complete
the whole novel, return to this episode and read it again. How does it function in relation to book as a whole?
2. As you read the novel, think about its complex structure. Why does Morrison choose this particular way of telling
Sethe's story? What does the way the story is told suggest about Morrison's view of the human mind and its workings?
3. What judgments does Toni Morrison make on Sethe's killing of her daughter? How does Sethe's community judge
her? How does Paul D. judge her? How does she judge herself? How do you judge her?
4. Slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass's autobiography, are the starting point of the African-American literary
tradition. One of the biggest themes in Frederick Douglass's story is the question of his name, or his identity. How does
this issue relate to Beloved? If you are familiar with slave narratives, can you find ways that Morrison refers to, uses, or
reworks the slave narrative tradition in Beloved?
5. Morrison makes a point of including traditional, folkloric, non-literary African-American culture in Beloved, some of
which is derived from ancient African roots. What is the effect of this inclusion?
6. Among other things, Beloved is a ghost story. What are the special problems for writer and reader in having a ghost
featured as a main character?
7. Give some thought to the presence of (and commentary on) white people in the novel. Why does the author make
the choices she does in her presentations of whites?
8. Reflect on the detailed attention that Morrison gives to experiences that will certainly claim your attention (and will
probably shock and disturb you): Paul D. on the chain gang, locked in the box; Paul's experience of the bit; the milking of
Sethe; School Teacher's recording of the slaves' animal characteristics; Sixo's death. What is the effect of those
experiences, on those who live them and on us as readers?
9. When you finish the book, note your reaction to the last passage. How do you feel about the ending? Why do you
suppose the book concludes (or doesn't conclude) in this way?
According to the Bedford St. Martin’s Glossary of Literary Terms, an allusion is:
A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. Allusions conjure up biblical
authority, scenes from Shakespeare's plays, historic figures, wars, great love stories, and anything else that
might enrich an author's work. Allusions imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and reader,
functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the work supplies an emotional or
intellectual context, such as a poem about current racial struggles calling up the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
Throughout Beloved, Toni Morison uses allusions to develop her characters, ideas, and themes. The following list of
allusions is not in chronological order, nor is it a comprehensive list, but it should help give you an idea of the impact of
allusions on the meaning of a text.
As you read:
1. Mark these allusions in your annotations and consider how they add to the meaning of the text.
2. Find at least two more Biblical allusions and discuss them in your Reader Response Journal. Write down the
specific allusion and page number from Beloved that corresponds to these references. Consider the following
questions: How does the use of the Bible as literature impact the meaning of the text? What do you gain as a
reader by knowing the reference?
3. Don’t be afraid to use Google. If you don’t “get” a reference, look it up! It won’t make sense until you do.
See also Revelations 7, in which the four angels appear. Specifically, 7:17.
4. Lot’s Wife
When Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Lot’s wife was warned not to look back. When morning dawned, the
angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the
punishment of the city.’ But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife, and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord
being merciful to him, and they brought him forth and set him outside the city. And when they had brought them forth,
they said, ’Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley; flee to the hills lest you be consumed.”
Genesis 19:15-17. Lot’s wife behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Genesis 19:26.
5. Pride
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18
A Final Thought:
Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to
see that they do not remain the way they are. –St. Augustine
How can this quote relate to the novel? To Morrison’s purpose in writing the novel?
How to use this document: You do not have to answer each question, nor should you necessarily try to. However, these
questions can serve as an excellent guide for your reading and can help jump start your personal annotations. We will
also use these questions in class discussion, and they can help guide small group Socratic Seminars.
I recommend that you read over the questions before you begin reading that section and refer back to them after you
read. You are welcome to highlight or mark questions you want to discuss in class.
Page 248
3. Who is taking flowers away from leaves?
4. What pictures is Beloved thinking of?
5. Why does Beloved say, “[H]er face is my own”?
6. What is the “hot thing” Beloved refers to?
7. Why are they crouching?
8. Why is the man on her face dead?
9. What does it mean when the “men without skin bring [them] their morning water to drink”? What does Beloved
mean by “[W]e are all trying to leave our bodies behind”?
Page 249
10. Why is the man’s body “a small bird”?
11. Why is the bread “seacolored”?
12. What “little hill of dead people” is she referring to?
13. Why are the dead people being pushed through with poles?
14. What is the circle around the woman’s neck?
15. Why is the woman with Beloved’s face in the sea?
16. What is the shining in the woman’s ears?
17. Why are the clouds in the way?
Page 250
18. Why does she like his “pretty little teeth”?
19. Why does the woman go in? Where is she going?
20. Why is it Beloved’s “dark face that is going to smile at [her]”?
21. Why is Beloved not taken?
22. Where is the bridge that Beloved describes?
Page 251
23. Why does Beloved go in the water?
24. Why is the woman chewing and swallowing?
25. Why does Beloved say, “Sethe’s is the face that left me.”
How to use this packet: This packet is a guide and resource to help clarify your understanding of the novel. It is NOT a
replacement for reading the novel, and will not be enough to pass assessments over your reading.
I recommend reading the summaries after you have read the original text, then re-reading the target passages and
annotating them thoroughly. Remember to go back to the annotation questions in your guide if you have trouble.
Chapter 1: The novel opens with an introduction to a house: "124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom." The house
belongs to Sethe, an ex-slave who had run away from the place of her enslavement, "Sweet Home," 18 years ago. The
house is spiteful because it is haunted by the spirit of Sethe's one-year-old baby, who died 18 years ago (buried under a
tombstone reading the single word "BELOVED"). Besides Sethe and the ghost, there is only Sethe's youngest daughter,
Denver, living in 124. We learn, however, that there were two sons, Howard and Buglar, both of whom fled at from the
house when they were thirteen. Sethe's mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, also lived with them until eight years ago, when she
died. Sethe's husband, Halle, is presumably dead, having not been seen since Sethe left Sweet Home.
The main action of the first chapter revolves around the visit of Paul D Garner, the "last of the Sweet Home men." From
him, we learn a bit of Sethe's past. The Garners, owners of Sweet Home, treated their slaves decently, but at Mr.
Garner's death, an evil man referred to as "schoolteacher" arrived. At the time of Sethe's flight from Sweet Home, she
had already sent the two boys and a just-born, unnamed baby to live with Baby Suggs in Cincinnati. However, before she
could run away herself, two white men cornered her and took her milk (which she was saving for Beloved). When she
told Mrs. Garner about the abuse, the schoolteacher had her whipped. In the present time, Sethe has a "chokecherry
tree" of scars upon her back as a result of that beating. In her kitchen, Paul D. touches her scars and her breasts and
makes her feel beautiful again, but before they continue their romantic encounter the ghost causes the house to go
crazy, shaking it and sending a table flying at Paul D. He screams back at the angry ghost and basically beats it away,
telling it to leave Sethe alone because she already had “enough” without it.
Denver finds herself left out by the "twosome" of Sethe and Paul D, who share the same past. "I can't live here," she
pronounces, crying. "I don't know where to go or what to do, but I can't live here. Nobody speaks to us. Nobody comes
by. Boys don't like me. Girls don't either." Denver's only solace, it seems, is the company of the ghost. At the end of the
chapter, however, the ghost is scared off by Paul D.
Important Concepts:
Sethe is the main character; she used to be a slave.
She had four children: Howard and Buglar, an unnamed baby who died, and Denver.
The dead baby’s ghost haunts their house, 124 Bluestone Road. The baby died violently, having her throat cut.
Baby Suggs is Sethe’s mother-in-law and Denver’s grandmother – she is NOT a ghost. She died eight years
before Paul D. arrives, but Sethe and Denver remember her throughout the chapter.
Chapter 2-4: Chapter 2 begins with Paul D and Sethe rushing upstairs to have sex, but "it was over before they could get
their clothes off" and they both seem to regret it; the things that seemed beautiful about Sethe (like her scars) now
seem ugly to Paul D. Instead of enjoying their romance, the past rushes over them and both are caught in flashbacks of
Sweet Home. Sethe recalls how Baby Suggs lost all her children to slavery and how Halle sold himself for his mother’s
freedom "when it didn't mean a thing” because by then she was too old to have much of a life left outside of slavery.
She also remembers her “wedding” – she wanted to actually marry Halle, but because they were slaves they weren’t
expected or allowed to have a real ceremony. She remembers how she stole scraps of fabric to sew herself a “bedding
dress” and then remembers her wedding night; she and Halle went out to the cornfield thinking it would be private, but
all the men on the plantation can see the stalks waving.
Chapter 3 opens with a description of the place Denver goes to be alone; as she’s returning to the house, she sees Sethe
kneeling in prayer and sees the ghostly figure of a white dress wrapped around her mother in an embrace. This sets off a
series of flashbacks regarding Denver's birth – Denver has heard Sethe tell the story of her birth so many times she
knows it by heart, and she tells the tale of how a "whitegirl" named Amy discovered Sethe, six-months pregnant and
running from Sweet Home. An unlikely savior, Amy managed to coax a fallen Sethe back onto her hands and feet and to
a nearby lean-to, where she gives birth to Denver prematurely.
Sethe continues thinking about "schoolteacher," and we learn that he had two nephews with "pretty manners" whom
he also brought with him to Sweet Home. She mentions how he went around asking the slaves questions and writing
down what they said and how this questioning seemed to “tear up” one of the Sweet Home men, Sixo. Denver tells
Sethe about the white dress and claims that the baby “has plans, ” which prompts Sethe to think about her own plans.
She says that “The one set of plans she had made – getting away from Sweet Home – went awry so completely she
never dared life by making more.” However, as she and Paul D. continue to share their pasts, she begins to think that
maybe, finally, it might be ok for her to think of the future.
Paul D promises to be there for Sethe, and she reluctantly agrees to let him take hold of her life. Under Paul D's urging,
Sethe and Denver go with him to a carnival on Colored Thursday, where excitement and cheerfulness abounds. Many
Negroes smile at the two women for the first time, and Denver is delighted. Her feelings about Paul D begin to change,
and Sethe sees their shadows holding hands, which in her mind serves as a positive sign for the future.
Important Concepts/Passages:
Page 43: Sethe speaks about the concept of time and place, and how places where evil things happen always
retain that evil – she and Denver agree that “nothing ever dies.”
Page 54: Theme of ‘dangerous love’
Page 57: Shadows holding hands
Chapter 5-7: Chapter 5 opens with the disturbing image of a woman, 19 or 20 years old, coming out of the marsh water
fully dressed. She is tired and thirsty, but her shoes and clothes are new and her skin is flawless except for three
scratches on her forehead. It takes her more than two days to drag herself to 124, where she arrives just as Sethe,
Denver, and Paul D come back from the carnival. When they see her, Sethe is struck by a powerful urge to urinate and
her lack of control reminds her of how “there was no stopping water breaking from a breaking womb.” With a harsh
voice, the mysterious woman pronounces that her name is "Beloved." Paul D. assumes that she is “drifting from ruin”
like so many freed slaves with nowhere left to go, but wonders about her odd appearance. Sethe feels “especially kindly
towards her” because of her name, and Denver immediately becomes obsessed with her.
It takes weeks for Beloved to build up strength, and in the mean time Denver cares for her. Paul D. becomes suspicious
of her when he sees her lift heavy rocking chair effortlessly, as if she’s curious about ordinary objects, despite the fact
that she seems to be barely able to walk. Even though it’s Denver that is taking care of her, Beloved begins to show a
devotion towards Sethe. She begins inquiring about Sethe's past, asking questions that trigger old memories. "Where
your diamonds?" Beloved asks, and Sethe reveals that at one point in her life she had been given crystal earrings by Mrs.
Garner as a wedding gift. At another point, Beloved asks about Sethe's mother. Sethe remembers how her mother
showed her a brand on her body so that she could identify who her mother was, and then she remembers seeing her
mother’s dead body hanging in a mass murdering of slaves. Sethe remembers being told by an elder woman – possibly
her grandmother – that she was the only baby whom her mother had kept from the slave ship, because she was born
out of love and not rape. Denver hates when they talk about the past that doesn’t include her, and wonders how
Beloved could have possibly known about her mother’s earrings.
Despite Sethe's and Denver's affections for the girl, Paul D begins to grow suspicious of Beloved. He begins to question
her about her past, but Beloved evades his questions and grows angry with him for asking. He notes that before her
arrival Sethe, Denver, and him were just beginning to build a future, but that their progress has been interrupted by
Beloved’s presence. In an argument over Beloved, Paul D tells Sethe that Halle never followed her to freedom because
he had seen schoolteacher's two nephews drink up her milk and the sight of his wife being brutally abused “broke him
like a twig.” Sethe is hurt and furious at this news; she can’t understand how Halle could have seen and let the boys
“keep breathing air,” but Paul D. defends Halle, saying that the sight drove him insane. In his last memory of Halle, Paul
D. saw him raving like a lunatic, smearing half-churned butter on his face because he was unable to forget what
happened to Sethe and her milk. He reveals that he wanted to help Halle but couldn’t even say anything to him because
he had a “bit in his mouth” and was being led away from Sweet Home as part of a chain gang. This sets off a storm of
memory and emotions for Sethe and Paul D. as they struggle to come to terms with the past. As chapter 7 ends, Paul D.
tells Sethe that he remembers seeing an ugly, scraggly rooster named Mister as he was being led off, and thinking that
that rooster was allowed to have more freedom and dignity than he was allowed to have. They stop talking because
“Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn’t get back from.”
Important Concepts/Passages:
Page 60-62: Beloved’s description
Page 72-74: Sethe’s mother’s fate
Page 83: Pain of Sethe’s memories
Page 85: Dehumanizing effect of Paul D.’s experience
Chapters 8-9: Up in Denver's room, Denver reveals to Beloved that she knows Beloved was the ghost of 124, and asks
why she came back alive. Beloved replies that she came for Sethe, that Sethe "is the one I need." Hungry for stories
about Sethe, she asks about Denver's birth, and Denver continues the tale. At the edge of the Ohio River, the "water
broke loose" in Sethe and the baby began to come. With Amy's help, the baby was born and Sethe had named it after
the whitegirl, Miss Amy Denver. Amy then leaves Sethe, and hours later Sethe stumbles across Stamp Paid and his sons
fishing by the river. Stamp Paid, a former slave himself, ferries her across, where she is taken to Baby Suggs and 124.
124 eighteen years ago was nothing like it is now. Then, it was a waystation for colored folks, run by Baby Suggs who
"had nothing left to make a living with but her heart." In those days, Baby Suggs would lead all the Negroes to a clearing
in the forest and Call to them about love. In need of advice, a present-day Sethe walks down to "the Clearing" to think
things through. There, she feels fingers upon her neck, first caressing her and then strangling her. She is saved by the
arrival of Denver and Beloved, the latter of which strokes the newfound bruises and comforts Sethe.
Walking back home, Sethe realizes something that Denver secretly knows: that those hands were not Baby Suggs's, but
the ghost's. However, this thought does not bother her; she has decided to start a life with Paul D, opening back up the
past they share. Back at the house, she makes love to them, secretly watched by an angered Beloved.
Meanwhile, Denver reminisces about her own past. Apparently she was not always alone, and used to go to school with
other colored children. However, one day a boy asked her a question: "Didn't your mother get locked away for murder?
Wasn't you in there with her when she went?" After that Denver never went back.
Important Concepts/Passages:
Pg. 88: “In the dark my name is Beloved…she is the one that I have to have.”
Pg. 103: “She did not tell them to clean up their lives…twenty-eight days after her daughter-in-law arrived.”
Chapters 10-15: Chapter 10 begins the tale of how Paul D came to 124. We learn that schoolteacher sold him to another
master, and that Paul D attempted to murder that master. We learn that he and roughly fifty other Negroes were
imprisoned in cages in the ground, tied to each other by "a thousand feet of chain." As a part of the chain gang, Paul D.
experiences and witnesses extreme cruelty and has trouble holding himself together. He describes feeling a “trembling”
that he can’t control. After years of mining, there is a flood and all the Negroes escape, led by the “Hi man” They come
across a Cherokee concentration camp, and the Cherokee free them from the chains. Paul D heads North.
Chapter 11: In the present day, Paul D is on his feet again; he is being moved out of the house. First he can no longer fall
asleep in the bed with Sethe, and then he is moved out of the rocker, then Baby Suggs's bed, then the storeroom, and
finally he must go outside to the cold house to rest. He believes it's Beloved's doing, and one night she visits him in the
cold house and seduces him with the cryptic "I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name." He does
not want anything to do with her, but she has a mysterious control over him. She goes to him nightly.
Chapter 12: Denver continues to be obsessed with Beloved and asks her more about her past, which Beloved does not
seem to remember. Taking care of Beloved has changed Denver’s character; whereas before she was kind of lazy, now
she is industrious and is always thinking up chores and ways to keep Beloved occupied so that she can spend more time
with her. Sethe believes that Beloved had been held as a sex slave, “locked up by some whiteman for his own purposes
and never let out the door,” because Beloved’s story reminds her of her friend Ella, who had experienced something
similar. At the end of the chapter, Denver and Beloved are playing in the cold house, and Beloved disappears in the
complete darkness. Denver panics because she thinks Beloved went back to the magical place she came from, “eaten
alive by the dark,” but after a few moments Beloved reappears, “standing where before there was nobody when Denver
looked.” Beloved emphasizes again that “this is the place” she wants to be, and implies that she has to focus on Sethe to
remain there.
Chapter 13: Paul D, concerned about Beloved's control over him, is determined to enlist Sethe's aid against her and tries
to tell her what Beloved is doing to him. However, all he manages to say to her is "I want you pregnant, Sethe." In a way,
this does save him from Beloved's spell because Sethe requests that he stop moving around and sleep with her.
However, Sethe has decided that she does not want any more children.
Meanwhile, (Chapter 14) Beloved is upset at Sethe's choice to sleep with Paul D. Her uneasiness manifests itself in the
kitchen, where she manages to pull out one of her wisdom teeth, noting that "it is difficult keeping her head on her
neck, her legs attached to her hips when she is by herself."
Chapter 15 is a narrative of past events, beginning with Baby Sugg's introduction as a slave to Sweet Home. After ten
years there, Halle bought her freedom and she moved to 124, where she set up the waystation and began preaching
about love to whoever would listen. Years later, Howard, Buglar, and their sister (Beloved) showed up, then finally Sethe
with Denver. Twenty days after Sethe's arrival, Baby Suggs hosted a party like had never before been seen, and amidst
the laughter of 90 Negroes was the scent of disapproval, because "she had given too much, offended them by excess."
Important Concepts/Passages:
Pg. 128: Work songs of the chain gang
Pg. 161: Baby Suggs’ party – allusion to biblical “loaves and fishes”
Chapters 16-18: Chapter 16 continues the narration of chapter 15. The morning after the party, schoolteacher and a
nephew arrive at 124 with a slave catcher and sheriff. They search for Sethe and her children in order to take them back
to Sweet Home, and discover her in the darkness of the shed. She is found attempting to smash Denver against the walls
of the shed, but Stamp Paid grabs the girl from her. Upon the floor are Howard and Buglar, covered in blood. Against
Sethe's breasts is the unnamed child (Beloved), dead.
Schoolteacher pronounces Sethe unfit to be a slave anymore. He, his nephew, and the slave catcher leave, and the
sheriff takes Sethe, now nursing Denver, to jail.
In the present day, Stamp Paid calls Paul D aside at work to show him an old newspaper clipping. It has a sketch of Sethe
on it, and describes the murder of her baby girl. Paul D, however, refuses to believe Stamp Paid, claiming that the article
can't possibly be about Sethe because "that ain't her mouth" in the picture. Despite this, Paul D takes the newspaper
clipping back home with him, presumably to get confirmation of the error from Sethe. Instead, Sethe retells the story of
chapter 16 to him, arguing that "I took and put my babies where they'd be safe." Protesting that "there could have
been . . . some other way" and that telling Sethe she has "two feet…not four," Paul D leaves the house.
Important Concepts/Passages:
Pg. 175: “Inside, two boys bled…the cannibal life they preferred.”
Pg. 184: “Stamp Paid looked at him…a pretty little slavegirl had recognized a hat, and split to the woodshed to
kill her children.”
Pg. 192: “No. No. Nono. Nononono….I took and put my babies where they’d be safe.”
Pg. 193: “This here Sethe was new….You got two feet, Sethe, not four.”
Book Two
Chapter 19 opens with the words "124 was loud." It is this loudness, but also a coldness that chases Stamp Paid away
when tries to visit. We learn of Stamp Paid's history-that he changed his name the day he was forced to give his wife up
to his master's son to have sex with him. On that day he'd decided that all his obligations, whatever they were, were
paid, and began to help runaway slaves to freedom. In the present day, Stamp Paid's spirit is broken because he has
found a piece of ribbon attached to a piece of scalp from a young black girl. Finally understanding what made Baby Suggs
give up Calling in the woods, Stamp decides to visit 124 to talk to Sethe, but nobody answers the door. However, when
he looks through the windows, he catches sight of Beloved.
Stamp visits John and Ella, two other Negroes who help runaway slaves in an effort to find out who the girl is he had
seen in the window. They have no answer for him, but Stamp does learn that Paul D is sleeping in the cellars at a church.
He is angered that Ella knew about this but didn't do anything. Ella admits she didn't want to help Paul D because he'd
associated with Sethe.
Meanwhile, Sethe finally discovers who Beloved is when, one night by the fire, Beloved begins to hum a song that Sethe
had made up long ago: "nobody knows that song but me and my children," she says. Sethe takes Beloved's return as a
signal that she has been forgiven and freed from the past. With the words "I don't have to remember nothing," she
decides not to worry anymore about the outside world, but to turn her focus towards her family. Consequently, she
begins to show up late to work and daydreams while there.
Chapters 20-23: Chapters 20 to 22 are a series of stream of consciousness pieces from the points of view of Sethe,
Denver, and finally Beloved.
Sethe's stream of consciousness reveals her possessiveness over Beloved, which manifests in the refrain "Beloved, she
my daughter. She mine." In her mind, she assures Beloved that she will be a good mother. She attempts to justify the
murder as an act of love. Threaded through the writing are also hints of the past: we learn that Sethe's back was opened
because schoolteacher wanted to study her. We learn that Sethe doesn't understand why she was separated from her
mother. Finally, there is a thread of hate for Paul D in the stream, for he attempted to make Beloved leave.
Denver's stream of consciousness reveals a fear of Sethe-that she might kill her too. Denver believes that her father is
alive and is convinced that Beloved came back to wait with her for their father. Like Sethe, she is possessive of Beloved,
and like Sethe, she also harbors a hate for Paul D, because she feels he violates her father. We also get a hint of a
warning with regards to Beloved, from a time when Baby Suggs told Denver that the ghost "was after Ma'am."
Beloved's stream is crafted in disjunct phrases and images, as fit for a one-year-old child who has known death and
rebirth. She describes a place where "there will never be a time when I am not crouching and watching others who are
crouching too." In that place there is no water, but only rats and death. Beloved describes her own birth, her existence
at Sweet Home, her murder, and her rebirth with images of clouds and water. "Sethe's is the face that left me . . . her
smiling face is the place for me it is the face I lost she is my face smiling at me."
Chapter 23, also called the "Chorus," is a sort of joining of the three voices, as they interact in a sort of surreal dialogue.
At the center of this chorus are the words "You are mine / You are mine / You are mine.”
Chapters 24-25: In Chapter 24, Paul D is found brooding upon the steps of the church, thinking both about how life
could have been with Sethe, and also about the loss of his manhood through Beloved. The thoughts make him question
what constitutes a man, and his mind floods with images of Sweet Home.
In his mind, Paul D recounts the day Sixo returned from a neighboring farm with news that two men would be coming
down to take slaves North. However, while trying to flee, he and Sixo had been caught. Sixo had been burned alive,
singing and laughing, and Paul D had been collared. On his way to find Sethe, Halle had been caught by schoolteacher,
and somehow that day Sethe ended up locked in the barn and her milk taken from her while Halle watched, helplessly.
Only her children managed to escape unharmed.
In Chapter 25, Stamp Paid comes to try to convince Paul D to move out of the preacher’s cellar, claiming that the people
in the community will support him, even if “Pride…bothers em a bit.” Stamp Paid talks about his wife, and the pain he
felt from being forced to give her up to his owner’s son. Stamp Paid defends Sethe to Paul D, saying that she loved her
children and was just trying to “out-hurt the hurter,” but Paul D refuses to relent, saying that he is scared of Sethe and
disturbed by Beloved. Stamp Paid notices that besides him and Paul D, no one outside of 124 has ever seen Beloved. He
wonders if she was the same girl who was “locked up in the house with a white man” in a neighboring town. Apparently,
that girl had been locked up with him “since she was a pup,” but had disappeared last summer after the white man died.
Talking about Beloved triggers more painful memories for Paul D, and he wonders “How much is a n----r supposed to
take?” to which Stamp Paid replies, “All he can.”
Important Concepts/Passages:
• Page 203: "While Stamp paid...that's the way it was."
• Page 206-208: "When the click came...the peace of winter stars seemed permanent."
• Page 209-212: Baby Suggs' sadness
• Page 216-217: "I don't have to remember nothing...how bad is the scar?"
• Discuss: what was schoolteacher's role at Sweet home? (224-231)
• Page 234-235: "The day Stamp Paid...unspoken."
• Chapters 20-23: look at the similarities in the openings
• Page 260: “For years Paul D believed schoolteacher broke into children what Garner had raised to men…
just to stay alive in a place where a moon he had no right to was nevertheless there.”
• Page 277: “A shudder ran through Paul D…Why?”
Part Three
"124 was quiet," begins the third section of the novel. It is quiet because its inhabitants are tired and hungry. Sethe has
been fired from work, and has put all her energies and life savings into making Beloved happy. However, Beloved is
never satisfied: "Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw; Beloved was making her pay for it." As food
and money become scarce, Sethe attempts to reason with Beloved; she tries to explain what she has suffered and why
she had to kill her. Beloved, however, retorts that Sethe was never there for her, and becomes violent as she becomes
fat off of the sweets: "Beloved ate up [Sethe's] life, took it, swelled up with it, grew taller on it. And the older woman
yielded it up without a murmur."
Fearing for her mother's life, Denver decides for the first time in eighteen years to leave the house to ask for food. She
goes to Lady Jones, her old schoolteacher, who is delighted to help. Word spreads throughout the town, all of whose
inhabitants remember Baby Suggs and the days 124 was a waystation. The townspeople leave baskets of food in the
yard, and Denver returns the baskets, slowly becoming acquainted with the people there.
One day, Denver decides to get a job, and finds one at the Bodwins'. There, she tells the servant, Janey, about Beloved.
Rumors quickly spread around the town, and Ella decides to lead a rescue to 124. On the day of the rescue, thirty
women walk to 124, singing and praying. Simultaneously, Mr. Bodwin sets out for 124 to pick Denver up to work. With
Denver on the porch waiting for him and the women in the front yard, Sethe and a seemingly pregnant Beloved emerge.
Through the rumors of the townspeople we get bits and pieces of what happened that day at 124. Sethe had spied Mr.
Bodwin and had run out to kill him with the ice pick. Denver had wrestled her down. Mr. Bodwin had been so intent on
staring at the naked Beloved on the porch he hadn't noticed a thing. The thirty women had rushed to pin Sethe down,
and when they looked back up Beloved had vanished.
Meanwhile, Denver has gotten a second job at a shirt factory, and on her way to work she meets Paul D on the road and
smiles to him, inviting him back to 124. A few days later, Paul D walks in and finds Sethe on Baby Suggs's bed. Paul D
promises to take care of her, whispering that "You your best thing, Sethe."
The novel’s end is ambiguous, leaving readers to construct meaning out of Beloved’s presence in the novel.
Important Concepts/Passages:
Pg. 285-6: “She was not like them…go ask somebody for help.”
VOCABULARY
Directions for Vocabulary Work: You will be responsible for maintaining your vocabulary journal (10 words per week).
25 words from this list will be on your final assessment.
or:
or:
or:
harmful