Beloved LitChart

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Beloved
Related Literary Works: While it does not engage with any
BA
BACK
CKGR
GROUND
OUND INFO other literary works directly, Beloved may be understood in
relation to other famous American narratives of slavery, such as
AUTHOR BIO Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
Beloved is unique among such works in that it was written so
Full Name: Toni Morrison
recently and explores not only the horrors of slavery, but also
Date of Birth: February 18, 1931 its painful and enduring legacy.
Place of Birth: Lorain, Ohio Related Historical Events: Beloved is related to events
Date of Death: Still living surrounding the Civil War, especially the Fugitive Slave Act,
which allowed southern slave owners to travel north and
Brief Life Story: Toni Morrison is an African-American writer
reclaim any slaves that had escaped from their ownership.
and professor. Growing up in Ohio, she developed a love for
Moreover, the entire novel is inspired by the true story of
literature and storytelling. She studied English at Howard
Margaret Garner, a slave who escaped with her family across
University and Cornell University, before teaching English at
the Ohio River in 1856. Slave catchers found her and she killed
various universities and working as an editor. Her first novel,
her two-year-old daughter, rather than seeing her daughter
The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. She continued to write
become a slave. Garner was then taken back into slavery.
and gradually garnered national attention before publishing
Beloved in 1987. Beloved was hugely successful, winning the
Pulitzer Prize for fiction and is regularly included in the EXTRA CREDIT
discussion of the best novel written after World War II. In The Good Book. Beloved is full of allusions to the Bible. From
1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her the four horsemen who come to take Sethe back to slavery
writings often focus on the experiences of black women in the (reminiscent of the four horsemen of the apocalypse), to Baby
United States. She is currently a professor at Princeton Suggs’ miraculous feast (which recalls Jesus’ miracle of feeding
University. thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish), many
episodes in the novel gain significance and seriousness through
KEY FACTS allusions to Biblical stories.
Full Title: Beloved Memorial. Toni Morrison once remarked that there was no
memorial, such as simply a bench by a road, to honor the
Genre: Historical novel
memory of all of those brought to the United States as slaves.
Setting: The outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio in the years just For her, Beloved functioned as this kind of commemoration. In
before (1855) and directly following (1873) the Civil War; response, the Toni Morrison Society has installed benches in
flashbacks to the Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky sites around the U.S. (and the world) as just such memorials.
Climax: The revelation of Sethe’s attempt to kill her children
(and successful murder of her baby) to keep them out of
slavery; the women of the neighborhood surrounding 124 and PL
PLO
OT O
OVERVIEW
VERVIEW
sing outside the house, driving Beloved away.
On the edge of Cincinnati, in 1873 just after the end of the Civil
Antagonist: There is no clear antagonist, but at various War, there is a house numbered 124 that is haunted by the
moments the novel’s characters struggle against slavery and presence of a dead child. A former slave named Sethe has lived
racism, Schoolteacher, Beloved, and the past. in the house, with its ghost, for 18 years. Sethe lives at 124 with
Point of View: Third person omniscient, with first-person her daughter Denver. Her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, died
passages from various points of view eight years previously after languishing for years with
exhaustion and seeming overwhelming sadness. And her two
HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CONTEXT sons, Howard and Buglar, ran away from the haunted home
just before Baby Suggs’ death.
When Written: Early 1980s
Paul D, a former slave who used to work on the same
Where Written: Albany, NY plantation, called Sweet Home, as Sethe, arrives at 124 and
When Published: 1987 moves in, making a kind of family with Denver and Sethe. Paul
Literary Period: Postmodernism D awakens painful memories for Sethe and Denver is jealous of
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the attention and affection that Sethe gives to him. But just as and a sheriff. They have come to take Sethe and her children
Denver is getting used to the new familial arrangement, a back to Sweet Home to work as slaves. The offended
strange woman appears at the house. She calls herself Beloved community does not warn Sethe or Baby Suggs, and when
and says that she doesn’t know who she is or where she is from. Sethe sees Schoolteacher coming, she gathers her children and
Beloved asks Sethe many questions about her past and runs to a shed. When the four horsemen find her, she has killed
somehow seems to know about things only Sethe knew, such as one child with a saw and is ready to kill her other children.
about a pair of earrings Sethe received as a gift from the wife of Schoolteacher decides that she is crazy and not worth bringing
her former master. Denver loves having Beloved around the back to work. The sheriff takes Sethe off to jail.
house and eagerly tells her about the miracle of her own birth: Back in the present, a former slave named Stamp Paid (who
Sethe escaped from Sweet Home while pregnant with Denver helped Sethe escape to 124 eighteen years ago) tells Paul D
and almost died of hunger and exhaustion while trying to make about Sethe’s killing her own child. Paul D confronts Sethe
it to Ohio. But a white woman named Amy Denver found about it, and then leaves 124. Feeling guilty for causing Paul D
Sethe, cared for her, and helped her get to the Ohio River, to leave Sethe, Stamp Paid goes to 124 to talk to Sethe. But she
where she gave birth to Denver. Sethe named Denver after the does not come to the door. Stamp Paid hears strange voices
kind white woman. from the house and sees Beloved through a window.
Paul D recalls his experience working on a chain gang. He and Within the house, Beloved causes Sethe to remember more
the other slaves eventually escaped together and had their and more of her painful past. The novel follows Sethe’s stream
chains cut by a group of Cherokee. Paul D wandered north and of consciousness as Sethe maintains that her killing her child
stayed with a kind woman in Delaware for some time, but he was an act of love. Sethe believes that Beloved is the returned
was unable to settle. He felt an urge to wander and did so for spirit of her dead child. The novel then follows the thoughts of
years before coming to 124. Denver and Beloved. In a series of vivid but fragmented
Missing Baby Suggs, Sethe takes Beloved and Denver to the recollections, Beloved remembers being taken on a ship from
clearing in the woods where Baby Suggs used to have spiritual Africa to the United States, the so-called middle passage of the
gatherings before she fell into her exhausted state. Sethe Atlantic slave trade.
wishes that Baby Suggs were there to rub her neck and Sethe begins to get weaker and weaker, falling under the sway
suddenly she feels other-worldly fingers massaging her neck. of Beloved, who’s every whim Sethe obeys. Denver ventures
But then the fingers begin to choke her until they finally let go. out of the house in search of work, to try to get food and
Denver thinks that Beloved is somehow behind the choking, provide for the household. She goes to the house of the
but Beloved denies it. Bodwins, who once helped Baby Suggs settle at 124, and tells
Beloved gradually and mysterious forces Paul D out of the their maid Janey about Beloved and the situation at 124. The
house by making him restless, so that he ends up sleeping community rallies together to supply food to 124.
outside in the cold house. When he is sleeping outside in the As news spreads of Beloved’s strange presence at 124, a group
cold house one night, she persuades him to sleep with her and of women join together to rescue Sethe and Denver from her.
stirs up his painful memories. Beloved tells Denver that she They gather around 124 and break into song, in a kind of
wants Paul D out of 124. exorcism. Mr. Bodwin approaches the house and Sethe
The novel moves back in time to follow Baby Suggs as she waits mistakes him for Schoolteacher. Crazed, she tries to attack him
for Sethe and her son Halle (Sethe’s husband). Sethe has snuck but is restrained by Denver and other women. Beloved
her children out of Sweet Home and sent them ahead to 124, disappears.
and she and Halle are supposed to escape together and come After Beloved’s departure, 124 seems to become a normal
to the house. Halle never arrives, but Sethe does, and Baby household. Sethe has mostly lost her mind, but Denver is
Suggs is happy to have at least Sethe and her children reunited. working and learning, hoping one day to attend college. Paul D
She hosts a grand celebration for the neighboring community returns to 124 and promises to always care for Sethe. The
and her meager stores of food miraculously furnish a huge inhabitants of 124 and the surrounding community gradually
feast for ninety people. After the celebration, she feels uneasy, forget about Beloved entirely, even those who saw and talked
and realizes that she has offended the community with an to her.
excessive display of joy and pride. She senses that something
bad is coming as a consequence.
Soon after the celebration, four horsemen come to 124:
CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS
Schoolteacher (who became the owner of Sweet Home after Sethe – The main character of the novel, Sethe is an enslaved
the kinder original master died), his nephew, a slave catcher, woman who first smuggles her two older boys to freedom and

then escapes with her own baby girl children to Cincinnati, other women who come to rescue Sethe perceive her as a
Ohio in 1855. A determined and strong character, she flees “devil child” and drive her away from 124 with song.
Sweet Home while pregnant with Denver and, once in Stamp PPaid
aid – Stamp Paid is a former slave who works on the
Cincinnati, works to run the household of 124. Prior to the Underground Railroad and helps bring Sethe to 124 by
beginning of the novel, Sethe killed her own child when her ferrying her across the Ohio River. Late in the novel, he tells
former master, Schoolteacher, came to take her and her Paul D about Sethe’s murdering her child, which causes Paul D
children back to work as slaves. In 1873, Sethe tries to make a to leave 124. Stamp Paid feels guilty for his part in Paul D’s
new life with Paul D and then with Beloved, but is eventually abandonment of Sethe, and works to make amends.
overcome by Beloved and her painful past. By the end of the
Am
Amyy Den
Denvver – Amy Denver is a white woman, who flees from
novel, she seems to have lost her mind, but also seems to have
her indentured servitude in an attempt to get to Boston and
escaped Beloved’s haunting of her.
purchase some velvet. She encounters Sethe when Sethe is
Den
Denvver – Denver is Sethe’s youngest child. She is quiet and almost dying of exhaustion, pregnant, and running from Sweet
independent, but also craves attention and love from Sethe and Home. Amy cares for Sethe and helps get her to the Ohio River
Beloved. She loves to hear Sethe tell her about her miraculous and freedom. She also helps Sethe give birth to Denver, who
birth. Toward the end of the novel, she gathers enough courage Sethe names after her.
to venture outside of 124 by herself and get help for Sethe. As
Schoolteacher – Schoolteacher comes with his nephews to
the novel ends, she seems to have a potentially promising
manage Sweet Home after the death of Mr. Garner. He is
future and to have been saved from the past that controlled
extremely cruel. Not only does he beat and abuse his slaves, but
Sethe’s life.
he also takes notes on them and measures and studies them
Bab
Babyy Suggs – Baby Suggs is Halle’s mother, Sethe’s mother-in- like animals. He seems, literally, to see them as animals.
law, and Denver’s grandmother. Halle buys her freedom before
Mr
Mr.. and Mrs. Garner – The original owners of Sweet Home, the
the events of the novel and, after establishing a life at 124 in
Garners are relatively kind slave owners compared to
Cincinnati, she becomes something of a preacher or holy
Schoolteacher (and indeed most slave owners). They allow
person in the surrounding community, holding gatherings in the
Clearing in the forest. But after Sethe kills her child, Baby Halle to buy Baby Suggs’ freedom, for example, and boast of
Suggs becomes exhausted and withdrawn, caring only about their male slaves as Sweet Home men. Nonetheless, they are
seeing bits of color, and slowly dies. still slave owners and treat their slaves as inferiors.
Paul D – Paul D was a slave at Sweet Home along with Halle, Ella – Ella is a black woman who was locked up by a white father
Sixo, and two other Pauls (Paul A and Paul F). He suffered and son, who abused her. She is a friend of Sethe, but abandons
Sethe after she kills her child. At the end of the novel, though,
greatly under Schoolteacher and also as a prisoner on a chain
she organizes the group of women who come to rescue Sethe
gang in Georgia. After the Civil War, Paul D spent years
wandering around, unable to feel at home anywhere. This from Beloved.
changes when he arrives at 124 and tries to settle down with Mr
Mr.. and Miss Bodwin – Mr. Bodwin and his sister are two white
Sethe, but he is forced out of the household by Beloved. He abolitionists, who help Baby Suggs, Sethe, and Denver, as well
tries to repress his painful memories by keeping them in what as other freed and escaped slaves.
he calls the tobacco tin where his heart once was, but Sethe Lady Jones – Lady Jones is a mixed-race woman who is a
and Beloved force him to confront his troubled past. Ultimately, schoolteacher in the local community. She teaches a young
he returns to care for Sethe, even after she seems to have lost Denver and then, late in the novel, helps Denver by getting the
her mind. community to donate food to 124.
Belo
Belovved – It is never clear exactly who or what Beloved is. One Jane
Janeyy – Janey is the Bodwins’ maid. She helps Denver find
day, she climbs out of the Ohio River with no memory of where work at the end of the novel, and spreads the word around
she is from or who she is. She says she comes from “the other town about Beloved, eventually leading to the women coming
side” and has been looking for Sethe. She is, in some sense, the to exorcise Beloved from 124.
spirit of Sethe’s murdered child. But, as Denver recognizes at
Halle – A male slave at Sweet Home, Halle is Sethe’s husband
the end of the novel, she is also more. She can perhaps be
and the father of her children. After seeing Schoolteacher’s
understood as an embodiment of the seduction and danger of
nephews hold down Sethe and take her breast milk, he goes
the past, as she causes Paul D and Sethe to remember and
mad. The last anyone sees of him is Paul D seeing him at a
narrate their own personal stories and eventually become
butter churn, smearing butter all over his face in insanity.
overwhelmed by them. She also seems to give voice to the pain
and suffering of all slaves, as she is able to recall, somehow, the Howard and Buglar – Howard and Buglar are Sethe’s sons.
middle passage from Africa to the United States. Ella and the When Schoolteacher comes to recapture Sethe and her

children, she tries to kill them along with her baby daughter, but save them from being dragged back into it. Through the
is able only to kill the daughter. By the beginning of the novel, haunting figure of Beloved, and the memories that so many of
they have run away from 124 and are absent for the entire the characters try and fail to hide from, Beloved shows how the
story. institutionalized practice of slavery has lasting
Six
Sixo
o – Sixo is one of the slaves at Sweet Home. He is consequences—physical, psychological, and societal—even
remembered for walking more than thirty miles to see a after it ends.
woman. He steals a pig and eats it, and then tells Schoolteacher
that since he was eating it in order to do more work, it wasn’t 2 MOTHERHOOD
really stealing. Schoolteacher punishes him for defiance. After At its core, Beloved is a novel about a mother and her children,
his failed escape attempt from Sweet Home, he is deemed centered around the relationship between Sethe and the
crazy and burned alive. He laughs as he dies, since he knows unnamed daughter she kills, as well as the strange re-birth of
that the Thirty-Mile Woman escaped even if he did not, and that daughter in the form of Beloved. When Sethe miraculously
that she is bearing his child. escapes Sweet Home, it is only because of the determination
The Thirty-Mile WWoman
oman – The Thirty-Mile Woman is the she has to reach her children, nurse her baby, and deliver
woman who Sixo walks thirty miles just to see. She is with Sixo Denver safely. Similarly, Halle works extra time in order to buy
when he tries to escape from Sweet Home and, while he is the freedom of his own mother, Baby Suggs, before seeking his
captured, she gets away. She is pregnant with Sixo’s child. own freedom. The strength of mother-child bonds are further
illustrated by the close relationship between Denver and Sethe,
upon which Paul D intrudes.
THEMES But, within the novel, the strength of motherhood is constantly
In LitCharts each theme gets its own color and number. Our pitted against the horrors of slavery. In a number of ways,
color-coded theme boxes make it easy to track where the slavery simply does not allow for motherhood. On a basic level,
themes occur throughout the work. If you don't have a color the practice of slavery separates children from their mothers,
printer, use the numbers instead. as exemplified by Sethe’s faint recollections of her own mother.
Since it is so likely for a slave-woman to be separated from her
children, the institution of slavery discourages and prevents
1 SLAVERY
mothers from forming strong emotional attachments to their
Through the memories and experiences of a wide variety of children. As Paul D observes of Sethe and Denver, “to love
characters, Beloved presents unflinchingly the unthinkable anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her
cruelty of slavery. In particular, the novel explores how slavery children she had settled on to love.” The scene in which Sethe is
dehumanizes slaves, treating them alternately as property and held down and robbed of her own breast milk shows, on a
as animals. To a slave-owner like Schoolteacher, African- cruelly literal level, Sethe being robbed of her very bodily
American slaves are less than human: he thinks of them only in capability to be a nurturing mother. The conflict between
terms of how much money they are worth, and talks of “mating” motherhood and slavery is perhaps clearest in the central act of
them as if they are animals. Paul D’s experience of having an the novel: Sethe’s killing her own daughter. The act can be read
iron bit in his mouth quite literally reduces him to the status of two ways: on the one hand, it represents an act of the deepest
an animal. And Schoolteacher’s nephews at one point hold motherly love: Sethe saving her children from having to endure
Sethe down and steal her breast milk, treating her like a cow. slavery, believing that death is better. But on the other hand, it
Even seemingly “kind” slave-owners like Mr. and Mrs. Garner can also be interpreted as Sethe refusing to be a mother under
abuse their slaves and treat them as lesser beings. Slavery also slavery. Slavery would not allow her to be a real mother to her
breaks up family units: Sethe can hardly remember her own children, so she would rather not be a mother at all.
mother and, for slaves, this is the norm rather than an
exception, as children are routinely sold off to work far away 3 STORYTELLING, MEMORY, AND THE PAST
from their families. Another important aspect of slavery in the The past does not simply go away in Beloved, but continues to
novel is the fact that its effects are felt even after individuals exert influence in the present in a number of ways. The most
find freedom. After Sethe and her family flee Sweet Home, obvious example of this is the ghost of Sethe’s dead daughter.
slavery haunts them in numerous ways, whether through Though literally buried, the baby continues to be present in
painful memories, literal scars, or their former owner himself, 124 as a kind of ghost or poltergeist. But beyond this instance
who finds Sethe and attempts to bring her and her children
of the supernatural, Sethe teaches Denver that “Some things
back to Sweet Home. Slavery is an institution so awful that
just stay,” and that nothing ever really dies. Sweet Home, for
Sethe kills her own baby, and attempts to kill all her children, to
example, although firmly in Sethe’s past, continues to haunt her

through painful memories and the reappearance of And it is only through the communal network of the
Schoolteacher and even Paul D. As the novel continually moves Underground Railroad that Sethe and many other slaves are
between present narration and past memory, its very form also able to find their way to freedom and establish new lives in the
denies any simple separation between past and present. Sethe’s north. At the same time, the novel’s most tragic act—Sethe’s
term for this kind of powerful memory is “rememory”, a word killing of her baby—is partially caused by a failure of community.
that she uses to describe memories that affect not only the The community’s resentment about the joyousness and
person who remembers the past, but others as well. opulence of the feast that Baby Suggs puts together—which the
One of the ways in which memories live on is through community interprets as being prideful—leads to the
storytelling. The novel explores the value but also the danger of community’s failure to warn Baby Suggs or Sethe of
storytelling. Storytelling keeps memories alive and Sethe’s Schoolteacher’s approach, and thus Sethe is unable to hide and
telling Denver about her family and her miraculous birth gives instead is forced to act quickly and radically.
Denver some sense of personal history and heritage. As stories
spread between Sethe, Baby Suggs, Paul D, and Denver, 5 HOME
personal memories give rise to a kind of collective oral tradition Beloved is split into three major sections, and each of these
about the past, and offer former slaves the ability to tell their sections begins not with any description of a character, but with
own story and define themselves, as opposed to constantly a short sentence describing Sethe’s house: “124 was spiteful.”
being defined by slave-owners, such as Schoolteacher (who Then, “124 was loud.” And finally, “124 was quiet.” As 124 is
takes notes for his own writings about his slaves). But haunted, it seems to have a mind of its own and is almost a
storytelling also awakens painful memories, especially for Sethe character of the novel in its own right. The house is extremely
and Paul D. Bringing up past pain can prevent characters from important to Baby Suggs and Sethe as a matter of pride. After
moving on. The end of the novel suggests that, after Beloved’s escaping slavery, they are proud to finally have a home of their
disappearance, people had to forget about her in order to go on own (the ironically named Sweet Home was neither sweet nor
living, as it repeats, “It was not a story to pass on.” But a home for its slave inhabitants).
nonetheless, Toni Morrison’s novel does pass on the story of
But the idea of a home is important in Beloved beyond the
Beloved, suggesting that there still is some value in our learning
walls of 124. As a child, Denver finds a kind of home in a growth
about this painful story of the past, that as a nation we should
of boxwood shrubs, a place that feels her own. Paul D spends
not (and cannot) forget about the history of slavery.
practically the whole novel searching for a home. He is unable
One of the ways that communities find expression in Beloved is to settle down anywhere and, after much wandering, finally
through song. Baby Suggs’ sermons are centered around song arrives at 124 but gradually moves out of the home into the
and dance, while the group of women that forces Beloved from outdoor cold house before leaving to sleep in the church
the house does so by singing. Paul D and his fellow chain gang basement. Slavery has robbed Paul D, like many others, of a
prisoners get through their labor by singing. A chorus of singing home so that, even after he finds freedom, he can never find a
people provides the perfect example of the strength of place where he feels he truly belongs. These characters’
operating as a community. The combined effect of a singing attempts to find a home can be seen as a consequence of the
group is greater than that of all its individuals singing alone. original dislocation of African-American slaves from their
Similarly, in order to endure slavery and its lasting effects, African home, the horrible voyage known as the middle passage
characters in Beloved rely on each other for strength. that is vividly recalled by Beloved.
4 COMMUNITY
As the practice of slavery breaks up family units, Beloved
SYMBOLS
provides numerous examples of slaves and ex-slaves creating Symbols appear in red text throughout the Summary & Analysis
and relying upon strong communities beyond the immediate sections of this LitChart.
family. Baby Suggs’ congregation that gathers in the woods
illustrates this, as neighboring African-Americans come
together as a community. They come together again toward the THE OHIO RIVER
end of the novel, as different families provide food for Sethe As the border that demarcates the free territory of Ohio from
and Denver when they are in need and a large group of women the nearby southern slave states, the Ohio River is of great
come to 124 to exorcize, in a manner of speaking, Beloved from significance. For slaves such as Sethe, the river represents the
the house. promise of freedom. Given the wealth of Biblical allusions in the
Even in the depths of slavery, when Paul D is on the chain gang, novel, the river may also be understood as a version of the
he and the other prisoners escape by cooperating as a team. Jordan River from the Bible, which the Israelites cross to enter

the Promised Land. As Beloved comes out of the river and •Theme T
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describes herself as coming from “the other side”, the Ohio
River also comes to symbolize the border between this world 5
and the next (indeed, for free ex-slaves, crossing back into slave
territory would be a kind of death). Stamp Paid’s occupation as
Not a house in the country ain’t packed to its rafters with some
a ferryman on the river for the Underground Railroad furthers
dead Negro’s grief.
this association, as he resembles Charon from Greek
mythology (who ferried souls across the river Styx into the •Speak
•Speaker
er: Baby Suggs
underworld). •Related themes
themes: Slavery
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SETHE’S SCAR
Sethe’s scar on her back is an emblem and reminder of the 1
physical cruelty of slavery. But the scar eerily resembles a
beautiful tree. This can be seen as symbolizing the deceitfully
“How come everybody run off from Sweet Home can’t stop
pleasant and beautiful appearances of picturesque plantations
talking about it? Look like if it was so sweet you would have
like Sweet Home, which were rooted in ugly violence. But, also,
stayed.”
it can serve as an example of a strange beauty coming from a
[...]
horrible experience. In this way, the scar can even become an
Paul D laughed. “True, true. [Denver’s] right, Sethe. It wasn’t
analogue for Morrison’s novel itself, an artistic creation arising
sweet and it sure wasn’t home.” He shook his head.
out of the tragedy of slavery, whose beautiful writing asks the
“But it’s where we were,” said Sethe. “All together. Comes back
reader to confront the relationship between beauty and human
whether we want it to or not.”
suffering.
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Sethe, Denver, Paul D
PAUL D’S TOBACCO TIN •Related themes
themes: Slavery, Storytelling, Memory, and the Past,
Paul D says that instead of a heart, he has a tobacco tin in his Community
chest, where he keeps all of his painful memories and emotions. •Theme T
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This image symbolizes his need to repress memories and hold
back emotions, just as Sethe and other slaves have had to do in 1 3 4
order to survive. Otherwise, attempting to confront the
horrible realities of slavery can completely overwhelm a PART 1, CHAPTER 2
person, as happens to Halle and other slaves who go mad. This
[...] in all of Baby’s life, as well as Sethe’s own, men and women
kind of repression is thus necessary for Paul D’s basic, physical
were moved around like checkers. Anybody Baby Suggs knew,
survival as a slave and a prisoner on the chain gang. But it
let alone loved, who hadn’t run off or been hanged, got rented
cannot last forever: as the novel progresses, Paul D’s tobacco
out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged,
tin is pried open, and his past memories catch up with him.
won, stolen or seized. So Baby’s eight children had six fathers.
What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received
upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just
QUO
QUOTES
TES because the pieces included her children.
The color-coded boxes under each quote below make it easy to
•Mentioned or related char
characters
acters: Sethe, Baby Suggs
track the themes related to each quote. Each color corresponds
to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this •Related themes
themes: Slavery, Motherhood
LitChart. •Theme T
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1 2
PART 1, CHAPTER 1
124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.
PART 1, CHAPTER 3
•Related themes
themes: Home In these woods... five boxwood bushes, planted in a ring, had
started stretching toward each other four feet off the ground
to form a round, empty room seven feet high, its walls fifty

inches of murmuring leaves. Bent low, Denver could crawl into •Theme T
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this room, and once there she could stand all the way up in
emerald light. 1 2

characters
acters: Denver
PART 1, CHAPTER 5
•Related themes
themes: Home
Odd clusters and strays of Negroes wandered the back roads
•Theme T
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5 were running from family that could not support them, some to
family; some were running from dead crops, dead kin, life
threats, and took-over land. Boys younger than Buglar and
Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it Howard; configurations and blends of families of women and
was my rememory.... Places, places are still there. children, while elsewhere, solitary, hunted and hunting for,
were men, men, men.
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Sethe
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Home
•Related themes
themes: Storytelling, Memory, and the Past
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1 5
3
PART 1, CHAPTER 6
Denver picked at her fingernails. “If it’s still there, waiting, that
Sethe learned the profound satisfaction Beloved got from
must mean that nothing ever dies.”
storytelling. It amazed Sethe... because every mention of her
Sethe looked right in Denver’s face. “Nothing ever does,” she
past life hurt.... But, as she began telling about the earrings, she
said.
found herself wanting to, liking it. Perhaps it was Beloved’s
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Sethe, Denver distance from the events itself, or her thirst for hearing it—in
•Related themes
themes: Storytelling, Memory, and the Past any case it was an unexpected pleasure.
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As for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping her from the past 3
that was still waiting for her was all that mattered.
characters
acters: Sethe, Denver My woman? You mean my mother? ... I didn’t see her but a few
•Related themes
themes: Storytelling, Memory, and the Past times out in the fields and once when she was working indigo.
By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line. ...She
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3 •Speak
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Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman
to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was 1 2
her children she had settled on to love.
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Paul D She threw them all away but you. The one from the crew she
characters
acters: Sethe threw away on the island. The others from more whites she
also threw away. Without names, she threw them. You she gave
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Motherhood the name of the black man... Telling you. I am telling you, small
girl Sethe.

characters
acters: Sethe be cooking a rooster named Mister. But wasn’t no way I’d ever
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Motherhood, Storytelling, Memory, be Paul D again, living or dead.
and the Past •Speak
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acters: Paul D
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PART 1, CHAPTER 7 1
During, before, and after the War [Paul D] had seen Negroes so
stunned, or hungry, or tired or bereft it was a wonder they
recalled or said anything. Who, like him, had hidden in caves
PART 1, CHAPTER 8
and fought owls for food; who, like him, stole from pigs; who, She’s never gonna know who I am. You gonna tell her? Who
like him, slept in trees in the day and walked by night; who, like brought her into this here world? ...You better tell her. You hear?
him, had buried themselves in slop and jumped in wells to avoid Say Miss Amy Denver. Of Boston.
regulators, raiders, patrollers, veterans, hill men, posses and
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Amy Denver
merrymakers.
characters
acters: Sethe, Denver
characters
acters: Paul D
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PART 1, CHAPTER 9
[Sethe] shook her head from side to side, resigned to her Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t
rebellious brain. Why was there nothing it refused? No misery, love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they
no regret, no hateful picture too rotten to accept? Like a greedy love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people
child it snatched up everything. Just once, could it say, No thank they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop
you? off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them
up and kiss them.... No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to
characters
acters: Sethe
love it. ...The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Storytelling, Memory, and the Past beating heart, love that too.
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But [Sethe’s] brain was not interested in the future. Loaded 1
with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to
imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.
PART 1, CHAPTER 10
characters
acters: Sethe
They chain-danced over the fields... They sang it out and beat it
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themes: Storytelling, Memory, and the Past up, garbling the words so they could not be understood;
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acters: Paul D
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themes: Community
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Mister, he looked so...free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher.
...Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn’t 4
allowed to be and stay what I was. Even if you cooked him you’d

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out,” meaning this might be the day I eat my own mess or run, and
it was this last that had to be guarded against, for if one pitched 1
and ran—all, all forty-six, would be yanked by the chain that
bound them and no telling who or how many would be killed. A
[Sethe] was frightened by the thought of having a baby once
man could risk his own life, but not his brother’s. So the eyes
more. Needing to be good enough, alert enough, strong
said, “Steady now,” and “Hang by me.”
enough, that caring—again. Having to stay alive just that much
characters
acters: Paul D longer. O Lord, she thought, deliver me. Unless carefree,
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Community motherlove was a killer.
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acters: Sethe
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The chain that held them would save all or none, and Hi Man 2
was the Delivery. They talked through that chain like Sam
Morse and, Great God, they all came up. Like the unshriven PART 1, CHAPTER 15
dead, zombies on the loose, holding the chains in their hands,
The last of [Baby Suggs’] children, whom she barely glanced at
they trusted the rain and the dark, yes, but mostly Hi Man and
when he was born because it wasn’t worth the trouble to try to
each other.
learn features you would never see change into adulthood
characters
acters: Paul D anyway. Seven times she had done that: held a little foot;
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themes: Home examined the fat fingertips with her own—fingers she never
saw become the male or female hands a mother would
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5 permanent teeth looked like; or how they held their heads
when they walked.
characters
acters: Baby Suggs, Halle
It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo,
schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, Sethe, Mister, the taste of •Related themes
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one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest. By the time
he got to 124 nothing in this world could pry it open. 1 2

characters
acters: Sethe, Paul D, Sixo
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Storytelling, Memory, and the Past Next she felt a knocking in her chest and discovered something
else new: her own heartbeat. Had it been there all along? This
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1 3 •Mentioned or related char
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acters: Baby Suggs
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themes: Slavery
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[Paul D’s] strength had lain in knowing that schoolteacher was
wrong. Now he wondered. There was Alfred, Georgia, there 1
was Delaware, there was Sixo and still he wondered. If
schoolteacher was right it explained how he had come to be a PART 1, CHAPTER 18
rag doll—picked up and put back down anywhere anytime by a
And if [Sethe] thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono.
girl young enough to be his daughter.
Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made,
characters
acters: Paul D, Schoolteacher, Sixo all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful,
•Related themes
themes: Slavery and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away,

over there where no one else could hurt them. Over there. Drain [Sethe’s] mother’s milk, they had already done. Divided
Outside this place, where they would be safe. her back into plant life—that too. Driven her fat-bellied into the
woods—they had done that. All news of them was rot. They
characters
acters: Sethe, Denver, Beloved
buttered Halle’s face; gave Paul D iron to eat; crisped Sixo;
•Related themes
themes: Motherhood hanged her own mother. She didn’t want any more news about
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acters: Sethe, Paul D, Halle, Sixo
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“I stopped him,” [Sethe] said, staring at the place where the
fence used to be. “I took and put my babies where they’d be 1
safe.”
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er: Sethe
Clever, but schoolteacher beat [Sixo] anyway to show him that
characters
acters: Sethe, Denver, Beloved, definitions belonged to the definers—not the defined.
Schoolteacher
characters
acters: Schoolteacher, Sixo
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themes: Motherhood
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themes: Slavery, Storytelling, Memory, and the Past
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PART 2, CHAPTER 19
It was then, when Beloved finished humming, that Sethe I was about to turn around and keep on my way to where the
recalled the click... muslin was, when I heard [Schoolteacher] say, “No, no. That’s
“I made that song up,” said Sethe. “I made it up and sang it to my not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the
children. Nobody knows that song but me and my children.” left; her animal ones on the right. And don’t forget to line them
Beloved turned to look at Sethe. “I know it,” she said. up.”

characters
acters: Sethe, Beloved •Speak
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acters: Sethe, Schoolteacher
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I can forget it all now because as soon as I got the gravestone in But I got you out, baby. And the boys too.... I couldn’t find Halle
place you made your presence known in the house and worried or nobody.... So I sent you all to the wagon with the woman who
us all to distraction. I didn’t understand it then. I thought you waited in the corn. Ha ha. no notebook for my babies and no
were mad with me. And now I know that if you was, you ain’t measuring string neither. What I had to get through later I got
now because you came back here to me... I only need to know through because of you.
one thing. How bad is the scar?
characters
acters: Sethe, Denver, Halle
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acters: Beloved •Theme T
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2
Whitepeople belived that whatever the manners, under every
dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging

screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their •Mentioned or related char
characters
acters: Paul D, Schoolteacher
sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right.... But it •Related themes
themes: Slavery
wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from
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the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in
them. 1
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schoolteacher was able to get for him, [Paul D] wondered what
1
Sethe’s would have been. What had Baby Suggs’ been? How
much did Halle owe, still, besides his labor? What did Mrs.
PART 2, CHAPTER 20 Garner get for Paul F? More than nine hundred dollars? How
Beloved, she my daughter. She mine.... She had to be safe and I much more? Ten dollars? Twenty?
put her where she would be. But my love was tough and she •Mentioned or related char
characters
acters: Sethe, Paul D, Halle
back now. I knew she would be.... I won’t never let her go.
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acters: Beloved
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PART 2, CHAPTER 25
2 [Sethe] ain’t crazy. She love those children. She was trying to
out-hurt the hurter.
I wouldn’t draw breath without my children. •Speak
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er: Sethe •Mentioned or related char
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acters: Sethe
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2 1 2
PART 2, CHAPTER 22 “Tell me something, Stamp.” Paul D’s eyes were rheumy. “Tell me
All of it is now it is always now there will never be a time when I this one thing. How much is a nigger supposed to take? Tell me.
am not crouching and watching others who are crouching too I How much?”
am always crouching “All he can,” said Stamp Paid. “All he can.”
“Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?”
•Speak
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er: Beloved
•Speak
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er: Paul D, Stamp Paid
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PART 2, CHAPTER 24
PART 3, CHAPTER 26
For years Paul D believed schoolteacher broke into children
what Garner had raised into men. And it was that that made Lady Jones told [Denver] that no one...could pay anybody
them run off. Now, plagued by the contents of his tobacco tin, anything for work they did themselves. “But if you all need to
he wondered how much difference there really was between eat until your mother is well, all you have to do is say so.” She
before schoolteacher and after. mentioned her church’s committee invented so nobody had to
go hungry.

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acters: Denver •Theme T
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4 This is not a story to pass on.

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might leave.... Leave before Sethe could make her realize that
far worse than [death]...was what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella 3
knew, what Stamp saw and what made Paul D tremble. That
anybody white could take your whole self for anything that
came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. SUMMARY & ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS
Dirty you so bad you couldn’t like yourself anymore. Dirty you
so bad you forgot who you were and couldn’t think it up. The color-coded boxes under "Analysis & Themes" below make
it easy to track the themes throughout the work. Each color
characters
acters: Sethe, Denver, Baby Suggs, corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes
Paul D, Beloved, Stamp Paid, Ella section of this LitChart.
•Related themes
themes: Slavery, Motherhood PART 1, CHAPTER 1
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The novel begins in 1873,
1 2 eight years after the end of the with a description of the house,
Civil War, by describing a rather than any character,
house on the edge of emphasizes the importance of
PART 3, CHAPTER 27 Cincinnati: “124 was spiteful. the home to Sethe and her
“Sethe,” [Paul D] says, “me and you, we got more yesterday than Full of a baby’s venom.” The family. However, the haunting
anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.” house is haunted by the ghost presence of Sethe’s dead baby
of the baby of Sethe, a former has disrupted any kind of ideal
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Paul D slave who lives at 124 with her home, causing Howard and
characters
acters: Sethe daughter, Denver. They have Buglar to flee their own family.
•Related themes
themes: Storytelling, Memory, and the Past lived in the house for 18 years. Baby Suggs seeming depression
Sethe’s sons, Howard and and obsession with pondering
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Buglar, ran away from the color raises a mystery about just
3 house a little over eight years what could have pushed her into
earlier, scared by hauntings such a state.
such as a baby’s handprints
PART 3, CHAPTER 28 appearing in a cake. Sethe’s 3 5
They forgot her like a bad dream. After they made up their mother-in-law, Baby Suggs,
tales, shaped and decorated them, those that saw her that day used to live at the house, but
on the porch quickly and deliberately forgot her. It took longer became withdrawn not long
for those who had spoken to her, lived with her, fallen in love after Howard and Buglar left
with her, to forget... In the end, they forgot her too. and did nothing but “ponder
color.” She died soon after.
characters
acters: Beloved
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It was not a story to pass on.

Shortly after Baby Suggs’ Sethe and Denver’s attempt to Upon entering the house, Paul Seeing Sethe also prompts Paul
death, Sethe and Denver speak with the ghost sets the D feels some kind of presence D to remember things from
attempt to call forth the ghost tone for the prevalence of and asks, “What kind of evil Sweet Home. All of the former
to talk to it, but it does not supernatural episodes in the you got in here?” He reflects slaves are haunted by the past,
appear. Denver suggests that novel. The ghost is one way in on Sethe’s beauty and recalls just like Sethe. Even he, who is
the deceased Baby Suggs is which Sethe’s past continues to how her children had been not aware of Sethe’s dead child,
preventing it, but Sethe literally haunt her. As we will sneaked out of Sweet Home can feel its persistent presence in
counters that the baby-ghost later learn, Sethe herself killed and sent to Halle’s mother, 124.
is simply too young to the baby, but the word “Beloved” Baby Suggs, and how Sethe
understand them. Sethe recalls on the baby’s tombstone insists had run away after, to meet up 3
burying the baby, and the that Sethe still somehow cared with them. Paul D remembers
engraver of its tombstone only for the child and was acting as a how the owner of Sweet Home
having time to engrave loving mother. died and Schoolteacher came
“Beloved”, rather than the full to manage the plantation.
phrase “Dearly Beloved” that 2 3
Sethe tells Paul D that the sad Paul D’s recollections begin to
Sethe wanted. But she still
presence he feels in the house show what life was like as a slave
believes that this one word
is from her daughter. She tells on Sweet Home. Although Mr.
was enough of a response to
him that she works at a Garner was kinder than other
the townspeople that were
restaurant and sews to make slave-owners, the slaves were still
disgusted with her.
money in order to feed herself looked down upon and Baby
Sethe remembers once Baby Suggs’ comment reminds and Denver. Paul D Suggs’ freedom as a human being
suggesting to Baby Suggs that the reader that the suffering of remembers more of his past had to be bought. Nonetheless,
they could move out of the Sethe and her relatives is only a from Sweet Home: Sethe came the slaves on Sweet Home form a
house to escape the ghost, but microcosm of the suffering of all to Sweet Home at age 13, the kind of community as “Sweet
Baby Suggs told her there was the former slaves throughout the only female slave there. All the Home men.”
no point, since there’s “not a country. Sethe cannot help but male slaves there desired her
house in the country ain’t remember her past life on the but let her choose her own 1 3 4
packed to its rafters with some ironically named farm Sweet man, since they were “Sweet
dead Negro’s grief.” Baby Home, which was anything but a Home men.” The owner of
Suggs’ comment prompts sweet home to her and other Sweet Home, Mr. Garner, took
Sethe to think of her own past, slaves. The past, like the ghost, pride in his slaves being real
which she tries not to haunts her. men, though other slave-
remember. But she cannot owners told him that no slaves
help thinking of Sweet Home, 1 3 5 could be men. Sethe eventually
the plantation on which she chose Halle, a Sweet Home
was once a slave. man who had worked extra
Paul D is another element of time to buy freedom for his
Sethe goes outside and is
Sethe’s past life at Sweet Home, mother, Baby Suggs.
surprised to find Paul D, an ex-
slave who also worked on and his arrival immediately
Sweet Home, sitting on her dredges up the past, particularly
porch. He asks about Baby Sethe’s lost husband Halle.
Suggs and Sethe tells him that
her death was easy and that 3
“being alive was the hard part.”
Sethe asks about her husband
Halle, who she hasn’t seen
since fleeing Sweet Home and
thinks may be dead, but Paul D
doesn’t have any news about
him. Sethe invites Paul D inside
to stay the night.

Denver meets Paul D and is Denver’s relationship with her Alone in the kitchen with Paul The spirit of Sethe’s baby,
shy around him, since she is mother is so close that she gets D, Sethe puts biscuits into the representing the persistence of
not used to friendly jealous whenever she feels oven. Paul D comes up behind the past, does not allow Sethe
acquaintances or guests. She is excluded from her in some way. her and embraces her. As she even one moment of relaxation
upset by the attention that her Sethe’s comment about the past weeps, he begins to kiss her or pleasure. However, Paul D
mother gives to Paul D and is emphasizes that memory is often and undoes her dress. Sethe fights the house and can
jealous of their shared involuntary. savors the brief moment of potentially help create a new
knowledge and memories of respite and pleasure but order at 124, making it a
Sweet Home. She wishes for 2 3 suddenly the house begins to different kind of home.
the baby to do something shake, throwing her to the
disruptive. She tells Paul D floor. Paul D yells at and fights 3 5
about the ghost in an attempt the house, throwing the
to break up his conversation kitchen table around.
with Sethe. She asks why they
After the house settles down, Even the young Denver is
talk about Sweet Home if it
Denver takes the biscuits onto burdened by her past, as she
was so bad. Sethe replies that
the porch and eats, while misses the members of her family
such memory “comes back
Sethe and Paul D go upstairs. who have died or run away.
whether we want it to or not.”
Alone, she thinks of her
As Sethe and Denver start to Denver does not see Paul D as brothers and remembers her 3
prepare dinner, Denver makes fitting into the home that she young childhood with Baby
a rude remark to Paul D and and Sethe have made. Sethe’s Suggs and them. Now she feels
then begins to cry. She says refusal to move shows her lonely and miserable.
that she can’t live any longer in attachment to 124, even with its
the house, since people avoid it haunting, or perhaps because of PART 1, CHAPTER 2
and don’t speak to Denver or its haunting. Sethe and Paul go upstairs and Despite their physical intimacy,
Sethe. Paul D is sympathetic to enter her bedroom. After brief there is still a lot of past—things
Denver and suggests that they 5 sex, they are too shy to talk to they do know and things they
move, but Sethe rejects the each other. Sethe’s scar makes don't—that stand between them
idea. Paul think of the trees of and make them shy. Sex is the
Sweet Home. He remembers easy part of the connection.
Sethe makes reference to Sethe’s memory is one of the
another slave named Sixo, who Sethe’s scar, a physical emblem
having a tree on her back. Paul novel’s most horrifying episodes
once walked 17 hours to see a of the painful past, causes Paul D
D asks her what she means of life as a slave. The two white
woman, but had to turn back to think of his own past.
and she explains: on Sweet boys not only physically violate
Sethe, but also take from her one immediately upon reaching her
Home, when she was pregnant 3
of the most basic, physical ways in order to get back to Sweet
with Denver and still lactating
of being a mother, robbing her Home in time to return to
to nurse her infant (the baby
children of their mother’s breast work.
that is now the ghost), two
white boys held her down in a milk. The boys essentially treat Sethe thinks of Sweet Home Sethe’s thoughts emphasize how
barn and took her breastmilk. her like an animal—taking her and working in the kitchen slavery breaks up families and
She told Mrs. Garner and milk as if from a cow. The there. She thinks of how homes, separating children from
when the boys found out that memory stays with Sethe just as slavery treats men and women their mothers.
she had told on them, they the physical scar remains on her like checkers, moving them
whipped her, leaving a tree- back. around, selling them off, and 1 2 3 5
shaped scar on her back. When breaking up families. Baby
Sethe was escaping to 1 2 3 Suggs, for example, was
Cincinnati, a white woman separated from all of her eight
who helped her saw the scar children except for Halle.
and told her that she had a
chokecherry tree on her back.

Paul D thinks of how he had As the two characters separately The dress embracing Sethe Denver is so steeped in her
fantasized about Sethe on reconstruct their pasts, Sethe’s reminds Denver of the story of mother’s storytelling that she can
Sweet Home and how the unofficial marriage to Halle her own birth. As Sethe has recall the story of her own birth
actual consummation of that shows that the Garners did not told her, she was running away as if she herself remembers it.
desire has failed to live up to consider their slaves worthy of from Sweet Home while Thus, Sethe’s past lives on not
his fantasy. Sethe remembers actual marriage. They may have pregnant with Denver. She was only with her, but with Denver as
deciding to marry Halle and been "kind" slave-owners, but in great pain and her legs and well. In extreme pain, Sethe
asking Mrs. Garner if there they were still slave-owners who feet were swollen, but she was persevered out of a motherly
would be a wedding for them. considered it acceptable to determined to get to her determination to reach her
Mrs. Garner simply laughed in children (who had been sent children.
reply. 1 3 ahead to Baby Suggs). As
Sethe lay exhausted on the 2 3
Sethe and Paul D each Amid all of Sethe’s painful
ground, she remembered bits
separately remember when memories, the consummation of
of her childhood. She could
Sethe and Halle had sex out in her marriage to Halle stands out
barely recall her mother, but
the cornfield on Sweet Home, as a small moment of pleasure,
remembered dancing and
where they thought no one though they were forced to meet
singing. She thought she was
would notice. Paul recalls secretly out in the cornfields, as
going to die.
seeing cornstalks shaking and they lacked any privacy or room
moving. Sethe remembers of their own. Then, she heard someone The appearance of Amy saves
grabbing and clutching passing by. She feared that it Sethe’s life. While Amy is white,
cornstalks and feeling the soft 1 3 would be a white man, but it her status as an indentured
cornsilk hair, concentrating on turned out to be a friendly servant links her somewhat to
the feeling of the cornsilk, white woman named Amy. Sethe as a slave. Their
“how fine and loose and free” it Amy was an indentured cooperation is a small example of
was. servant who was trying to get how those oppressed and
to Boston, where she could marginalized by society can
PART 1, CHAPTER 3 buy some velvet. Amy walked come together as a community
Since she was a small child, Denver’s boxwood room is her Sethe to a nearby abandoned united by their difficulties.
Denver has enjoyed going to a own private place, a kind of house and massaged her
growth of boxwood in the refuge or home that she seeks swollen feet. 4
woods behind 124. The away from the dysfunctional
Thinking about the story of Sethe’s idea of “rememory”
boxwood bushes grew home of 124. The white dress
Amy, Denver enters 124 and encapsulates how the past
together to form a kind of with its arm around Sethe
tells Sethe about the dress she continues to affect the
room, where Denver felt continues the idea of the
saw. She asks Sethe what she characters in the novel. It is not
protected and often sought haunting, and the way that the
was praying for and Sethe just something from the past—it
refuge. Once, when she was ghost seems both to depend on
responds that she was just is something that continues to
returning to 124 from the but also support Sethe.
thinking about time. Sethe tells recur. One person’s “rememory”
boxwood room, Denver saw can affect not only that person,
5 Denver that some things stay
Sethe through a bedroom but other people as well, as
with you and describes her
window, praying. A white dress exemplified by the ghost of
ideas about “rememory.”
was kneeling next to Sethe, Sethe’s baby.
According to Sethe, you can
with its sleeve around her
walk into someone else’s
waist. 3
“rememory.” Denver asks if
nothing ever really dies, and
Sethe says that nothing does.

Denver asks Sethe about Through his book, Schoolteacher Paul D sings as he mends Paul D's experience at Sweet
Sweet Home. Sethe tells her attempts to define slaves on his things around the house, but Home and after have hardened
about Schoolteacher, who own terms, without allowing none of the songs he knows him, or forced him to harden
came to the plantation after them to speak for themselves. seem to fit the place. He thinks himself so as not to be
Mr. Garner died. This is one of the reasons for the to himself that he cannot stay overwhelmed. But Sethe, whom
Schoolteacher would ask the importance of storytelling among with any woman for more than he loved and desired even though
slaves questions and write in slaves and ex-slaves, as a way of two months at a time, but he she chose Halle (and he
his notebook, preparing for a telling their own stories and feels that 124 is different. In respected her choice of), reaches
book he was writing about keeping their own histories alive. order to survive his difficult the parts of him that have been
them. Denver says that she life, Paul D has “shut down a closed off, perhaps because he
thinks the incident with the 1 3 generous portion of his head,” knew and loved her before he
dress means that the spirit of but now those parts of himself became closed off..
the baby has plans. that he has shut off—emotions,
feelings, hopes—are being 3 5
Paul D has moved into 124, Paul D’s arrival changes the
opened again by Sethe and
disturbing the house’s familial arrangement of 124 as a
124.
arrangement that Denver had household. The way Denver
grown used to. Denver had takes pride in the haunting Paul D tells Sethe that he can Sethe is protective of her only
learned to take pride in the shows how those who are look for work around 124 and child left at 124, though she also
haunting of their house, but different, and made to feel she tells him that he can stay at wants to accommodate Paul D
now Paul D has scared the separate because of it, can come the house. Paul D is hesitant, into her life. Sethe sees the past
baby’s ghost away. Sethe to cling to the source of that since Denver evidently does here as a kind of monster that
thinks about Denver’s idea difference and refuse help or not want him to stay, but Sethe can spring up and overwhelm
that the baby has plans. She compassion. Sethe, though, assures him that it’s okay and someone, and she seems to see
reflects that she does not trust senses that Paul D may offer a tells him not to worry about the past in a collective way—that
the future enough to make way out of the cycle of Denver. She says that Denver the past of slavery and Sethe
plans, but now, with Paul D, "rememory" and haunting in is “a charmed child” and credits herself could overwhelm Denver
wonders if she might be able to 124. Denver with the miraculous and make her unable to face the
plan a future. appearance of the white girl present or future because of the
5 who helped her when she was horror of the past. And Denver is
Looking around one of the It is only when Sethe becomes fleeing Sweet Home and about obsessed with the past—with her
rooms of the house, Sethe able to tentatively think about to die. Sethe begins to think own birth.
notices that it is completely the present and the future (as about a possible future with
Paul D, but she is still 2 3
devoid of color except for two opposed to the past), she begins
orange squares on one quilt. to recognize the lack of color in preoccupied with protecting
Sethe realizes that this was 124. Color can be seen as Denver and “keeping her from
why Baby Suggs was “starved symbolizing the vivacity in life, the past that was still waiting
for color” shortly before her the enjoyment of the senses and for her.”
death, always asking for bits of the world around you—but Sethe
colored cloth. The last color and the house have been solely
Sethe remembers is the pink focused on and lost in the past.
from part of her dead child’s
tombstone. But now that Paul 5
D has moved in, Sethe is
suddenly aware of how
colorless the house is.

PART 1, CHAPTER 4 PART 1, CHAPTER 5
At dinner one night, Denver Paul D continues to disrupt the Near 124, an unidentified The events surrounding the
asks Paul D how long he’s home environment of 124. His young woman in a nice-looking appearance of this woman
going to “hang around”, which thought that it is dangerous for dress climbs out of the river. suggest a symbolic rebirth: she
upsets Sethe. Paul asks if he Sethe to love Denver as much as She is described as having comes up out of the water of the
should leave, but Sethe tells she does alludes to the way in “new skin”. She sits down on a river and Sethe has a kind of
him not to. Denver leaves the which slavery destroys mother- stump outside of 124, where birth-giving experience upon
dinner table and Sethe and child relationships by separating Sethe, Denver, and Paul D find seeing her. This symbolism helps
Paul D get into an argument. families. her upon returning from the suggest that the mysterious
Sethe says that Denver was carnival. Immediately upon woman is linked to Sethe’s dead
rude, but still defends her 1 2 5 seeing the woman, Sethe feels child.
when Paul D criticizes her. Paul as though she has to urinate
D thinks to himself that it is and runs around to the 2
dangerous for an ex-slave to outhouse. But before she gets
love anything as much as Sethe there, she voids a copious
loves Denver. amount of water behind the
house, as if her water had just
Paul D tells Sethe that he will Sethe and Denver must make
broken while pregnant.
stay at 124 and help her, but room for Paul D at 124 both
she has to talk to Denver literally and figuratively, fitting Inside the house, the strange Beloved’s name again connects
about making room in their life him into their lives. The woman eats nothing but drinks her to Sethe’s dead child. Her
for him. He plans to take segregation at the carnival is a lots of water. She says her mysterious appearance and
Denver and Sethe to a carnival small example of the widespread name is Beloved. Paul D wandering hardly astonishes
that is open for one day to discrimination that ex-slaves like decides not to ask her who she Paul D, or makes him think of
“coloreds.” Sethe faced even after finding is or where she’s from, thinking anything supernatural, because
freedom. of all the ex-slaves wandering of how many people slavery has
and traveling after the Civil separated from their families,
1 5 War, trying to find family or a which is itself a horrifying
The three go to the carnival. As the three start to get along, better life. Sethe tries to talk commentary on slavery.
Sethe dresses up as much as Sethe begins to think that they to Beloved, but Beloved falls
asleep, exhausted. 1 2
she can for the occasion, but might be able to piece together a
Denver is sullen. As they walk home and a family even after Sethe and Paul D think Just as Sethe, Paul, and Denver
to the carnival, Sethe notices their traumatic pasts. Even the Beloved is sick with cholera, were beginning to feel
that their three shadows are sort-of-supernatural image of the but Denver defiantly says that comfortable as a group in 124,
holding hands and interprets it shadows holding hands seems to she isn’t. For four days, Denver Beloved has again changed the
as a good omen. The carnival is suggest good things to come. tends to Beloved, changing her dynamic of the home, attracting
mediocre, but still delights sheets and giving her water. Denver’s interest and attention.
those who attend. Denver 5
Sethe tries to help her, but
buys candy and lemonade and Denver rejects the assistance, 5
begins to warm to the idea of preferring to take care of
Paul D living with her and Beloved by herself.
Sethe. As they walk home from
the carnival, their shadows are
again holding hands.

Beloved begins to eat, but only Beloved’s strange behavior Sethe tells Beloved that she Sethe’s earrings are evidence of
sweet things, such as honey, contributes to the mystery got the earrings from Mrs. the relative kindness of the
sugarcane, candy, and surrounding this supernatural Garner when she married Garners. Nonetheless, the
lemonade. She doesn’t seem to character and suggests that she Halle. She had heard about Garners still owned and
know where she came from. may not be simply a fugitive ex- Mrs. Garner’s wedding and exploited slaves. As a
Sethe guesses that her fever slave as Paul D thought, but is wanted some kind of counterpoint to Schoolteacher,
robbed her of her memory. perhaps related to Sethe’s dead celebration or meal to the Garners show that even
Paul D is suspicious of the child. Denver lies because she is acknowledge her marrying seemingly kind slave-owners
mysterious woman and asks desperate to keep Beloved Halle. But the Garners didn’t participated in a horrible,
Sethe if she plans to continue around to have a playmate, or allow Sethe to have any kind of dehumanizing system of slavery.
to house and feed her. Paul D perhaps Denver senses that wedding. Sethe at least wanted
says that Beloved is not as Beloved is something more. a dress, so she began stealing 1
weak and sickly as she seems: bits of fabric in order to
he and Denver saw her pick up 2 eventually put together a
a large rocking chair with one dress. Mrs. Garner discovered
hand. Denver lies and says that what Sethe was doing, and
she saw no such thing. gave her a pair of earrings and
told her that she wanted her
PART 1, CHAPTER 6 and Halle to be happy
Beloved is devoted to paying Beloved's devoted attention is together. Denver asks where
Sethe attention. She waits for not normal. Her dependence on the earrings are now and
her in the kitchen in the Sethe seems to be almost total, Sethe says that they are gone.
morning and goes to meet her like the way a baby is dependent
One day, as Sethe is Beloved continues to spur
on her way back from work at on its parent.
unbraiding Denver’s hair, recollections of Sethe’s past.
night. Time passes with Sethe,
2 5 Beloved asks if Sethe’s mother Sethe’s memories of her mother
Denver, Paul D, and Beloved
ever did her hair. Sethe says show how slavery separates
all living at 124.
she can’t remember and tells children from their mothers, not
One night, Beloved asks Sethe Beloved’s love of storytelling her a bit about her mother. allowing for close maternal
where her diamonds are. Sethe associates her generally with When she was a young girl, her relationships.
is confused, but then realizes memory and the past, as she mother was always already
that Beloved is asking about a encourages Sethe to revisit old working by the time she woke 1 2 3
pair of crystal earrings she memories. Her knowledge of up in the morning. Often, she
once got from Mrs. Garner. Sethe's own past, though, didn’t sleep in the same cabin
Sethe tells Beloved about the continues to indicate that she is as Sethe, since it was too far
earrings. Beloved derives a associated with Sethe's dead from where she worked in the
“profound satisfaction” from baby. field.
storytelling and Sethe finds
that she too enjoys telling 3
Beloved about her past.

One time, Sethe’s mother took The indiscriminant killing of PART 1, CHAPTER 7
her behind the smokehouse Sethe’s mother along with other
Paul D feels uneasy around Beloved’s origins remain
and showed her a mark burnt slaves shows how little slaves’
Beloved and is still suspicious mysterious. Her answer that she
into her skin above her ribs. lives were valued by their owners.
of her, since he still does not was looking for a “place [she]
She told Sethe that this was The fact that Sethe could not
know anything about her or could be in” suggests that she,
how she could identify her even find her mother’s body, nor
where she comes from. At like many others in the novel,
mother. Sethe then says that know why her mother was killed,
dinner one night, Paul D asks if was searching for some kind of
her mother was hanged along emphasizes her lack of a
Beloved has any siblings and home. The bridge that Beloved
with many other slaves, but relationship with her own mother
asks what she was looking for speaks of can be interpreted as a
that she couldn’t identify the as well as her total lack of agency
when she came to 124. bridge between this world and
body, even though she looked in her own life. Her life was full of
Beloved answers, “I don’t have the next, as Beloved may possibly
for her mother’s mark. Denver questions because it was
nobody,” and simply says that be an embodiment of Sethe’s
asks why Sethe’s mother was controlled by others, by slave-
she was looking for “this place I daughter returned from the dead.
hanged, and Sethe says that owners.
could be in.” Paul D continues
she didn’t know. 5
1 2 to interrogate Beloved. She
says that she walked to 124
Sethe suddenly remembers Beloved continues to operate as from a faraway bridge. Paul D
something she had forgotten: a a force of memory, causing Sethe asks why her shoes look so
woman called Nan had pulled to remember something she had new if she walked the whole
her away from the dead, always forgotten or repressed. way. Upset, Beloved admits
hanged bodies, when Sethe The story of her mother’s journey that she stole the shoes and
was trying to identify her from Africa evidences the cruelty her dress.
mother. Nan told her that she of slavery that has persisted
and Sethe’s mother were across generations. Sethe's Paul D still feels suspicious of Despite the strangeness of
together on the boat voyage mother's murder of her infants Beloved, even though he has Beloved, none of the other
from Africa and that Sethe’s who were the products of rape by known many “Negroes so characters yet fully recognize her
mother had been raped many white slave traders is reminiscent stunned, or hungry, or tired or as something supernatural, since
times by white men but always of Sethe's own decision to kill her bereft it was a wonder they the effects of slavery have driven
threw away the resulting own children to save them from recalled or said anything.” He so many people to go mad or lose
infants. She finally kept Sethe slavery. remembers coming across a their memories.
and gave her the name of the young black man who lived in
1 3 the woods and couldn’t 1
black man that was her father.
remember living anywhere
Sethe ends her story and Denver doesn't want to know else. But Beloved seems
Denver realizes that she hates about the past. She wants to different to Paul D. He is
the stories that do not have to know about her own past. Since bothered by the fact that she
do with her own birth or she can't know about the far arrived just as he, Sethe, and
childhood, which is why she past, she wants her mother's Denver seemed to be getting
only ever asks Sethe about the past to start with her own birth. along together.
white woman, Amy. Denver
notices how “greedy” Beloved 3 Just as Paul D thinks of trying Intent on forming his own idea of
is to hear Sethe tell stories. to get rid of Beloved, Beloved a home with Sethe and Denver,
She wonders how Beloved chokes on a raisin and then Paul D wants Beloved out of
could have known about gets sick. Denver takes 124. It is worth noting that while
Sethe’s earrings. Beloved to her room, excited Paul D wants to focus on the
to share the room with her. future, all Beloved cares about is
Alone, Paul D and Sethe the past.
discuss Beloved. Paul D says
he doesn’t understand why 5
Sethe continues to feed and
house her.

As Sethe and Paul D argue, the This addition to Sethe’s memory Paul D doesn’t tell Sethe Like Sethe, Paul D also struggles
conversation shifts to Halle. deepens the cruelty of the boys anything more about the with the past. His burying
Paul D tells her that Halle who abused Sethe, since they did experience of having the bit. memories and emotions in his
actually saw when the white it in front of her own husband, He keeps the rest of the story metaphorical tobacco tin shows
boys held her down and took driving him mad. in “that tobacco tin buried in the importance of forgetting the
her breastmilk. Halle was in his chest where a red heart past in order to survive, but also
the loft of the barn and the 1 used to be.” He resolves to reveals the cost of this
sight of what happened keep the pain of his past locked repression, as the hollow,
“messed him up.” up there and not let Sethe unfeeling tobacco tin has
know that he has lost his heart. replaced his heart. As Paul D and
Sethe is shaken by this What appeared at first to be a
Sethe tries to comfort Paul D. Sethe discuss their past they
revelation. She is upset that story of one person’s suffering
enact the opposite process, the
Halle saw the whole thing and (Sethe’s) expands into a memory
painful effort to come back to
didn’t try to stop it. Paul D says of the suffering of Sethe, Halle,
life, to bring their memories back
that the event “broke” Halle. and Paul D. This emphasizes that
out into the open and face them,
The last time Paul D saw him, the sufferings of all the individual
together, as they move forward.
he was sitting over a churn characters of the novel are not
with butter smeared all over isolated, but are related to (and 3
his face, unable to speak. Sethe stand in for) the suffering of all
asks if Paul D said anything to slaves, hundreds of thousands PART 1, CHAPTER 8
him, but Paul D answers that of slaves. Beloved and Denver are Beloved’s description of where
he couldn’t speak, because he dancing upstairs in 124. she came from is still ambiguous.
had a bit in his mouth. 1
Denver asks Beloved what it It can be interpreted as other-
Sethe is overwhelmed by this Sethe’s past continues to was like where she came from. worldly (as Denver interprets it,
new addition to her traumatic overwhelm her, as Paul D adds to Beloved answers that it was since she asks if Baby Suggs is
memory and wishes she could the slew of painful memories that dark and hot, with heaps of there), but the dark, cramped
refuse the new information. she tries to keep at bay in order people (some of them dead). space also recalls the Middle
She wants to think about the to think about the future. Though Denver asks if Baby Suggs is Passage of slaves being brought
future, but her mind is she wants to escape the past, she there, but Beloved says she by ship from Africa to America,
constantly “loaded with the can't. doesn’t know the people’s which Beloved will later narrate.
past and hungry for more.” She names. She says she came to Beloved is thus again associated
wonders why she hasn’t gone 1 3 124 from a large bridge, not only with Sethe’s personal
crazy from all of her suffering, searching for Sethe and past, but with historical memory
as Halle evidently did. hoping to see her face. She saw of slaves more generally.
Sethe’s earrings in the water of
Sethe offers to listen if Paul D While remembering the past can 3
the river she came out of.
should want to talk about be painful, there is potentially
having the bit in his mouth. some cathartic value in sharing Denver asks Beloved never to Beloved’s attachment to Sethe
Paul D says that it wasn’t the one’s story, so Sethe offers Paul D leave and then asks her not to suggests that she may be
extreme pain of the bit that got the chance to do so. Paul D’s tell Sethe who she is. This somehow related to her dead
to him. He recalls walking past experience with the bit makes Beloved angry; she says child. Her intense desire for
a group of roosters, including epitomizes the dehumanizing that she doesn’t want to be stories again associates her with
one named “Mister,” which aspect of slavery, which treats told what to do, but she will forces of memory and the past.
looked at him. Paul D says that people as animals, as less than stay at 124, because she
Mister looked free and better animals. belongs with Sethe. Beloved 3
than him. He says that the asks Denver to tell the story of
experience changed him and 1 3 her birth, which Denver knows
made him something less than from Sethe. Denver begins the
a rooster. tale.

The narration jumps into Denver has heard the story of her At these gatherings, Baby Baby Suggs’ gatherings show the
Denver’s story: Amy has found birth so often from Sethe that it Suggs would pray and then call community coming together to
Sethe, who tells Amy that her as if it is her own memory now. forth children and tell them to deal with the lingering pain and
name is Lu. Amy cares for her Amy transforms the welts on laugh. Then, she’d call forth consequences of slavery. Instead
and sees the scar on her back. Sethe's back from something men and tell them to laugh. of speaking down to them with a
She says it’s a chokecherry awful to something beautiful. Finally, she would call forth dogmatic religious sermon, Baby
tree with blossoms (welts) and Amy's search for carmine velvet women to cry. Then, everyone Suggs simply gathers the
continues to talk about her seems to symbolize hope, would mix together and cry, community together and
quest to find velvet in Boston, perhaps an impossible hope. laugh, and dance as they encourages them to love
specifically carmine (red) Sethe shares such a hope, though wished. Baby Suggs would not themselves, denying slavery’s
velvet. Amy sings and hers is to be free with her offer any traditional sermon, devaluation of them based on
massages Sethe’s feet children, something more but simply told people to love race.
profound than some red velvet. their own flesh and skin that
white people so despised. 1 4
3 Once things turned bad at
Sethe thinks that the baby Denver’s birth on the border that 124, though, Baby Suggs lost
she’s pregnant with (Denver) separates free from slave her faith and stopped
must be dead. She limps to the territory symbolizes her preaching. Missing Baby
river with Amy, where Sethe indeterminate place in between Suggs, Sethe decides to take
suddenly goes into labor. With Sethe’s past and Denver’s Denver and Beloved with her
Amy’s help, she gives birth in a potentially brighter future. to the Clearing.
canoe. They stay on the Denver’s name memorializes When the three arrive at the Sethe’s memories intrude on her
riverbank that night and Amy Amy’s kindness, keeping the past Clearing, Sethe feels just as involuntarily. The memory of her
leaves at twilight, asking Sethe alive in a positive way. she did when Amy left her on escape provides another example
to tell her baby that Miss Amy the bank of the river. She was of the importance of relying on
Denver of Boston helped her. 1 3
weak and tired, but managed the help of a larger community
Before falling asleep, Sethe to walk along the river until for Sethe and other people in her
thinks to herself that “Denver” she met a black fisherman who position.
is a pretty name. gave her food and water. The
man introduced himself as 4
PART 1, CHAPTER 9
Stamp Paid and ferried Sethe
Sethe can’t stop thinking about Sethe’s memories of Baby Suggs across the river, where a
Halle going mad. She misses and the Clearing provide insight woman named Ella found her
Baby Suggs and wishes that into the community of ex-slaves and took her to 124. Once
she were around to help her around 124 prior to the death of Sethe got there, Baby Suggs
deal with this new information. Sethe’s child. It also raises the took care of her, bathed her,
She decides to go to the question of what happened to and bandaged her.
Clearing. Before 124 became transform Baby Suggs from a
haunted, Baby Suggs used to communally loved religious figure Now, at the Clearing, Sethe Whether from Baby Suggs or the
be a quasi-religious figure in into a depressive who cared only goes to Baby Suggs’ old spirit of Sethe’s dead daughter,
the community and hold about little scraps of color, and preaching rock and wishes the fingers are another
gatherings at a clearing in the what made the inhabitants of Baby Suggs were there to rub supernatural embodiment of
woods. 124 now almost completely her neck. Suddenly, she feels Sethe’s past. Sethe seeks comfort
isolated from the surrounding invisible fingers massaging her in the memory of Baby Suggs,
community. neck. But then, the fingers but dwelling in memories is
begin to choke her. Denver dangerous and can be
4 runs to help her and the constraining, just as the fingers
choking stops. Sethe guesses are soothing at first, but then
that it was the spirit of Baby suffocating.
Suggs, but Denver disagrees.
3

Beloved points out bruises on As Beloved rubs Sethe’s neck As the chain gang work, they Again, the chain gang illustrates
Sethe’s neck and rubs them soothingly, she is associated both sing to make it bearable. They the importance of community in
soothingly, then starts to kiss with the ghost of Sethe’s child sing in words their masters dealing with the horrors of
Sethe’s neck. Sethe is carried and with Baby Suggs. Beloved cannot understand. Often, slavery. Through singing, the
away and feels comforted, but can be seen as embodying men want to run or simply give prisoners express themselves in a
then stops her. The three leave various female figures of Sethe’s up and go crazy, but they don’t way that their masters cannot
the clearing. Sethe briefly past. because they are all chained understand, finding a small area
thinks that Beloved’s fingers as together and rely on each of experience outside of their
she rubbed her neck felt like 3 other. masters’ control.
the presence of the ghost of
her child. 1 3 4
Upon returning to 124, Sethe Beloved’s intense attachment to One day, a huge rain storm It is only by cooperating together
finds Paul D bathing. Realizing Sethe means that she opposes begins. The chain gang has to that the prisoners are able to
how much she wants him in the new household arrangement stop working. As the rain escape their bondage, just as
her life, she embraces him. at 124 with Paul D and Sethe. continues, the ground floods slaves must rely on each other
Beloved sees this and is Meanwhile, Denver has a sense and dirt turns to mud. and the help of benevolent
immediately jealous. She runs of Beloved's selfish neediness, Someone yanks the chain and strangers (for example, Amy) in
outside to a stream where which could lead her to do Paul D falls to the ground. order to find freedom. And yet, to
Denver is. Denver accuses her something like choke Sethe. Somehow, all the prisoners escape, they also must slog
of choking Sethe. Beloved understand. They dive through through suffocating mud. This
denies it and runs off a short 5 the mud and are able to crawl escape might be seen as
distance. under the fence enclosing the metaphor for Paul D and Sethe's
area where they are kept. They attempted escape from their
Denver recalls going to a Sethe’s murdering her child escape to a nearby forest and haunting pasts—that they must
schoolhouse when she was isolated Denver from the larger hide there. In the forest, they dive through it together in order
younger and how much she community, which would have come across a camp of sick to free themselves.
liked the lessons that Lady given her some opportunity for Cherokee.
Jones taught. But one day a both personal connection and a 1 4
boy asked her whether her chance at a real future through
The Cherokee bring out axes The Cherokee are a people as
mother had been sent to jail education. It is not clear if
and cut the prisoners’ chains. abused and disenfranchised as
for murder. Denver was so Denver walks over to Beloved
The slaves gradually leave, the slaves. Once free, Paul D
upset she never returned to because she recalls how isolated
until Paul D is the last one left. does not know where to go,
the schoolhouse. Denver walks she herself is and therefore feels
He goes north and doesn’t except generally north. He is free,
over to join Beloved. sympathy for Beloved's own
stop until he gets to Delaware. but without a home. After his
isolation, or if Denver senses that
There, he finds “the weaver painful experiences, Paul D had
Beloved is connected to Sethe
lady” with whom he stays. He to put the past behind him and
being a murderer.
reflects that it took him a long repress his memories in order to
4 time to put this painful past survive.
away in the tobacco tin, so that
PART 1, CHAPTER 10 “nothing in this world could 3 5
Paul D recalls his time working Paul D’s experience on the chain pry it open.”
on a chain gang in Georgia: he gang is an example of the cruelty
is chained together to 45 other of slavery and also a symbolic
men who work all day and microcosm of the institution of
sleep in wooden boxes like slavery: like the members of a
cages. They never speak to chain gang, slaves are held
each other, but somehow can together in bondage, but this
understand each other by the shared oppression creates a
looks in their eyes. strong community out of their
shared suffering.
1 4

PART 1, CHAPTER 11 PART 1, CHAPTER 12
Beloved gradually forces Paul Beloved begins to disrupt Paul Denver loves it when Beloved Beloved’s “bridge” can be
D out of 124. He feels restless D’s attempt to finally have a looks at her and prizes her interpreted as a bridge between
and uncomfortable stable home at 124. Beloved attention. Sethe asks Beloved the living and the dead. Ella's
everywhere, and doesn’t know wants Sethe completely for about her past, but all Beloved experience provides another
how to stop it and feels as if he herself. can remember is crossing a example of the cruelty of slavery
is uncontrollably moving bridge. Sethe thinks Beloved and racism.
himself, or being moved. The 5 was locked up by a white man
process begins one night when and never let outside. She 1
he sleeps in a rocking chair knows a black woman, named
rather than upstairs with Ella, who was similarly locked
Sethe. He begins to sleep away and abused by a father
downstairs in the chair every and son.
night.
By contrast, Denver thinks As Denver begins to see Beloved
One evening, Paul D switches Paul D has felt a similar that Beloved is the white dress as her deceased sister, she
to Baby Suggs’ old room. Then, restlessness before, but this time that knelt next to Sethe, some becomes more and more
he moves to the storeroom. He is different, prompted by presence of the dead baby. attached to her. Beloved prompts
recognizes that he has felt the Beloved. He clearly wants to stay Denver tells Beloved about Denver to recall her past, just as
urge to leave a home before, at 124 and create a home with Baby Suggs, Howard, and she spurred Sethe to tell stories
but this is different, since he Sethe. Buglar. She grows to love of hers, emphasizing the
still loves Sethe and wants to doing chores with Beloved, connection between Beloved and
stay. Once tired of the 5 grateful for any excuse to the desire for storytelling and
storeroom, he begins sleeping spend time with her. One day, memory.
outside in the cold house. By Beloved and Denver go to get
this time, it is autumn and cold cider from the cold house. It is 3
at night. dark inside and Denver loses
sight of Beloved. She is afraid
Beloved enters the cold house Beloved’s seduction of Paul
that she has lost Beloved.
one night and asks Paul D to complicates her identity. She can
sleep with her. He refuses but be seen as representing a Denver finally finds Beloved, Beloved’s desire to stay at 124
she eventually seduces him. As harmful extreme of desire, as she who assures her that she is not shows that she is perhaps
she approaches him, the exploits what each character going to leave, because she searching for a home, just as Paul
tobacco tin holding his painful wants most (a sister for Denver, a wants to be at 124. Beloved D is. Beloved curling up in the
memories begins to open. daughter for Sethe, a lover for curls up on the ground and darkness recalls the dark place
Paul D). As Paul D’s tobacco tin rocks back and forth, referring she describes earlier, filled with
opens, he begins to succumb to mysteriously to someone’s so many others. Now she seems
his painful past. face in the darkness and to see herself in that place,
saying, “It’s me.” whether she is an individual or a
3 kind of agglomeration of all
suffering slaves.

PART 1, CHAPTER 13 One night, Sethe finally says Paul D’s memory of the woman
something about Paul D in Delaware shows an earlier
Paul D thinks about his time at Schoolteacher exemplifies the
sleeping in the cold house and example of his failed attempt to
Sweet Home. Mr. Garner let cruel treatment of slave-owners,
tells him to come upstairs at settle down at a home. Sethe’s
his slaves correct him, handle which causes both physical and
night, upsetting Beloved. thoughts on motherhood
guns, choose a wife, learn to psychological pain to the extent
Sethe’s kindness reminds Paul emphasize the intense
read, and was otherwise that Paul D has internalized
D of the woman he stayed with responsibility, hard work, love,
relatively lenient toward them. Schoolteacher’s racist thinking,
in Delaware, who gave him a vulnerability, and duty of being a
When Schoolteacher came questioning his own worth as a
bed with clean sheets and fed mother.
and took control of the farm, man.
him. He was unspeakably
though, things were radically 2 5
1 grateful to her. Sethe thinks
different and much harsher.
about Paul wanting to have a
Paul D’s recent behavior—not
child and resolves that she
being able to stay put in 124
cannot handle being a mother
and sleeping with
to another child.
Beloved—makes him question
whether Schoolteacher was PART 1, CHAPTER 14
right about him being less than
That night, after Paul D and Whereas Denver is willing to
a man.
Sethe leave the dinner table have a home arrangement with
Paul D resolves to tell Sethe Paul D is unable to voice his and go upstairs, Denver and Sethe and Paul D, Beloved is
about what’s been happening concerns to Sethe, perhaps Beloved talk. Denver says that focused upon having Sethe all to
and goes to meet her at the because he does not want to risk Sethe likes having Paul D at herself, furthering her association
restaurant where she works. losing the possibility of having a the house, but Beloved tells both with overly extreme,
He finds her and prepares to home with her, even if it is a Denver to make him leave. harmful desire as well as with the
tell her but changes his mind at troubled one. Beloved pulls a tooth out of selfish all-powerful need of a
the last second and tells her her mouth without any baby. Her strange behavior with
that he wants to have a child 5 appearance of pain. She is her tooth again suggests that she
with her. Sethe thinks the idea convinced that this means her is somehow supernatural or
is ridiculous. body will start to fall apart into inhuman.
pieces, and she explains how
Sethe and Paul D walk back to Once again, Beloved comes 5
she finds it hard to feel
124. It begins to snow and between Paul D and Sethe,
complete when Sethe is not
they start to run, Paul D obstructing their attempts to
around. Denver asks why
hoisting Sethe on his back. have a life together at 124.
Beloved doesn’t cry from the
They encounter Beloved
5 pain of losing the tooth and
waiting for Sethe near 124,
Beloved begins to weep.
who breaks up the intimacy
Denver holds her.
between Sethe and Paul D.
PART 1, CHAPTER 15
The novel flashes back to Baby Baby Suggs’ worries exemplify
Suggs waiting for Sethe and the awful conditions of slavery,
Halle to make it to 124 from as she is too anxious to celebrate
Sweet Home. She is delighted any good fortune, since she is
to see Sethe arrive but is still accustomed to loss. Baby Suggs
anxious for Halle to come. She wants her own baby—Halle—to
doesn’t want to tempt fate by return to her.
celebrating the good fortune
of Sethe and Denver’s arrival 1
too soon.

Stamp Paid visits soon after The miraculous profusion of food Once Halle buys Baby Suggs’ Baby Suggs’ keeping her own
Sethe’s arrival and, seeing her recalls the biblical story of Jesus freedom, Mr. Garner delivers name—the name that she was
healthy baby, goes to a nearby feeding 5000 men with just five Baby Suggs to the Bodwins, called by the man who loved
stream and gathers loaves of bread and two fish. Yet who will help her get set up in her—rather than taking the one
blackberries, bringing them the other townspeople, who have her new life. Mr. Garner calls that slave-owners assigned to
back to 124. Baby Suggs also suffered or had family or Baby Suggs Jenny. She asks her, signifies that she is now free
decides to make pies and invite friends who have suffered, come why and he says that was what and her own person. Further, as a
others to 124 to have some to see the feast as an excessive was on her sales ticket. She slave she would have had to
kind of celebration. The celebration or flaunting of her says that her husband’s name listen to Mr. Garner. As a free
gathering turns into a huge own good luck. was Suggs and he called her woman she can do what she
feast for ninety people, with Baby, so her name is Baby wants.
plentiful food and drink. Baby 4 Suggs. Mr. Garner thinks it
Suggs’ modest provisions isn’t a very good name, but 1
somehow turn into enough Baby Suggs keeps it.
food for all the people, and
Baby Suggs meets the While Baby Suggs cannot locate
more. Those who attend the
Bodwins and they suggest her family, she finds a kind of
feast begin to feel some
some jobs she can do for family in the community of
jealousy toward Baby Suggs
money. They tell her about a people who help establish her
and her lavish feast with so
house where she can stay in new life, such as the Bodwins.
much of her family reunited.
return for doing some work. The celebration, which seemed
The next day, Baby Suggs can Baby Suggs has offended her Baby Suggs attempts to locate to place her own joy above the
feel the disapproval of her neighbors by celebrating herself lost members of her family, but considerations of the community,
neighbors and she realizes that and her own individual family, in doesn’t know where to write break the trust that was built.
she has offended people with the face of the community. to and eventually gives up. But
her excess. She senses things work out decently well, 4
something bad coming, though 4 as Sethe and her children
she does not know what it make it to 124, up until her
could be. celebration “that put
Christmas to shame.” Now she
Baby Suggs remembers when The Garners were kinder owners
senses something bad coming.
Halle and she were bought for than Schoolteacher, but they still
Sweet Home. She had injured treated their slaves as slaves.
her hip and could not work While they allowed Halle to buy
very well, but Mrs. Garner was Baby Suggs’ freedom, they still
not cruel to her as other slave treated her freedom as
owners were. Her hip was in something that had to be bought.
pain every day. Halle saw this
and worked extra time to buy 1
her freedom.
At Sweet Home, Baby Suggs The Garners had “a special kind
realized that she and Halle had of slavery” but it is still nothing
arrived at a better place, but compared to actual freedom.
were still slaves. The Garners Upon being freed, Baby Suggs is
ran “a special kind of slavery.” suddenly aware of herself as a
Upon becoming free, Baby person, as exemplified by her
Suggs immediately felt sudden awareness of her own
different, and suddenly heartbeat.
became aware of her own
heartbeat. 1

PART 1, CHAPTER 16 Baby Suggs takes Sethe’s sons Despite her attempt to kill her
away from her and tries to get children, Sethe maintains a fierce
Soon after the celebration, The appearance of the four
the dead baby from her, but sense of motherly duty, as she is
four horsemen come to horsemen, reminiscent of the
Sethe will not let it go. Baby reluctant to let her baby go and
124—Schoolteacher, his four horsemen of the apocalypse,
Suggs exchanges Denver for breastfeeds Denver immediately.
nephew, a slave catcher, and a is one literal way in which Sethe’s
the baby and Sethe Her actions show that her
sheriff. They have come to take past of slavery comes back to
breastfeeds Denver, with the attempt to kill her own children
Sethe and her children back to haunt her and her family. It is
blood of her dead baby all over was out of a kind of love,
Sweet Home. also an example of how
her and mixing with her breast however perverse it may appear.
permanent and pervasive the
milk. Sethe and Denver are
effects of slavery were. Even after 2
taken to jail.
slaves escaped to freedom, they
were not really free, since they PART 1, CHAPTER 17
could potentially be recaptured
Back in the present, at the Sethe’s past begins to catch up
by their former owners. There is
slaughterhouse where Stamp with her, even as Paul D refuses
also the sense that if the
Paid and Paul D both work, to believe that the article is
community had not been
Stamp Paid shows Paul D a about her.
offended by the celebration they
news clipping about Sethe
might have warned Baby Suggs 3
killing her child. Paul D doesn’t
and Sethe of what was
believe it’s her. Stamp Paid
approaching. But they did not.
tells him about the celebration
1 3 Baby Suggs had, with the
blackberries he gathered.
The four go around to the shed Sethe’s killing her own child is the
and find Sethe and her strongest statement against Stamp Paid plans to tell Paul D Attempting to plan a future with
children standing by a hand slavery. Her act essentially claims about the day Sethe killed her Sethe, Paul D does not want to
saw. Sethe is holding a dead, that death is preferable to a life child, how the four horseman hear about her troubled past.
bloody child to her chest in one of slavery. Moreover, she arrived and she recognized
Schoolteacher and gathered 3
hand and an infant (Denver) by implicitly asserts that it is better
its heel in the other. A nearby to be the mother of a dead child her children and ran to the
black man comes and takes than the mother of an enslaved shed. But he doesn’t tell him,
Denver from Sethe. child. This is the central event to as Paul D doesn’t believe that
Schoolteacher thinks that the novel’s exploration of the news clipping is about
Sethe has “gone wild” because motherhood and slavery. Sethe.
she was mistreated by his Schoolteacher cannot
PART 1, CHAPTER 18
nephews and realizes that understand such thoughts (he
there is nothing here for him can't even understand that When he gets back to 124, Being a mother on Sweet Home
to bring back to Sweet Home. slaves are anything more than Paul D confronts Sethe about was even more difficult for Sethe,
Schoolteacher, his nephew, animals) and so he thinks she has the news clipping. Sethe avoids since she was the only slave
and the slave catcher leave. gone wild. He can't see the the subject, telling him about woman there and had to figure
The sheriff prepares to take rationality and love in her her children and how she had out how to raise her children
Sethe off to jail. actions. At the same time, Sethe no idea how to raise them on alone. This implies that she may
has murdered a baby, here baby, Sweet Home, since she was have had an even more intense
even if to protect it. She has the only slave woman there. love for her children—she had to
saved and murdered the baby, figure out how to do everything
and the irreconcilable fact of for them herself.
doing both of those things in the
2
same action shows just how
pernicious and awful slavery was.
1 2

Sethe tells Paul D about her Sethe’s thoughts stress that her Meanwhile, Sethe is trying to While the townspeople feel
escape from Sweet Home, and killing her baby was an act of move on without Paul D, who offended and horrified by Sethe's
how she did it by herself, love, an attempt to protect her she feels has abandoned her actions, Sethe feels abandoned
without Halle’s help. She talks children from slavery. She had like all the other townspeople. by them. Sethe attempts to make
about how she felt when she saved herself and had no one to Beloved finds a pair of ice 124 work as a home with only
arrived and felt freedom. She rely on but herself, and killing skates and asks what they are. Beloved, Denver, and her.
realizes that she is circling them was the only way she had Sethe decides to take Beloved Beloved’s knowledge of Sethe’s
around the subject of her to save them. and Denver skating. They go song further associates her with
child’s death and thinks that skating, laughing and enjoying Sethe’s dead child.
she can never explain it to 2 themselves. They return to
anyone, but that she was 124 and drink hot milk in front 2 5
trying to carry her children of a warm fire. Beloved begins
away to “where no one could to hum a song. Shocked, Sethe
hurt them.” says that it is the song she
Again, Sethe insists that she once sang to her children and
Finally, Sethe tells Paul D that
acted out of love. Paul D’s that no one else knows that
she stopped Schoolteacher
comment implies that Sethe song.
from taking her children,
saying, “I took and put my played into slave-owners’ Stamp Paid approaches 124 Baby Suggs stopping her
babies where they’d be safe.” dehumanizing ideas of slaves by again, remembering how Baby gatherings is indicative of the
Paul D is shocked and thinks acting like an animal. He believes Suggs became exhausted and gradual withdrawal from the
that Sethe is different from that no love should be intense stopped her gatherings at the community of the inhabitants of
when he knew her on Sweet enough to make someone kill the clearing after Sethe killed her 124 following the death of
Home. He tells her that her object of their love. Sethe and baby. He had tried to persuade Sethe’s child. Stamp Paid’s
love is “too thick.” Sethe asks Paul D had been rediscovering her not to give up her thought suggests that Beloved
what else she could have done, their past, rediscovering their gatherings but all she wanted represents not only Sethe’s past
and Paul D responds, “You got memories together in order to to do was stay in bed and think sufferings, but perhaps the pains
two feet, Sethe, not four.” He move into the future. But Paul is about colors. As Stamp Paid of slaves more generally.
leaves 124. unable to work through this approaches 124, he hears a
revelation of the past, and so he roaring of voices that seem to 3 4
leaves. vocalize the collective
suffering of all slaves and
1 2 decides not to knock on the
PART 2, CHAPTER 19 door.
Stamp Paid approaches 124, At Baby Suggs’ funeral, Sethe The morning after the skating Sethe’s reinterpretation of the
feeling bad that he has caused offended the community by trip, Sethe thinks that the shadows shows that she now
Paul D to leave the house. He acting like an individual apart hand-holding shadows she saw hopes to make a home with only
realizes that the last time he from them. After the death of her on the day of the carnival were Denver and Beloved. In doing so,
went to 124 was to take Baby child, she (and Denver) became not Paul D, Denver, and her, she begins to withdraw even
Suggs away to be buried. At increasingly isolated from the but rather Beloved, Denver, more from the surrounding
Baby Suggs’ funeral, Sethe was local community, such that and her. She thinks that Paul D community, becoming more
silent and did not join in the Stamp Paid feels the need to tried to convince her to be isolated within 124, within her
hymns, offending the other knock on their door, rather than concerned with the outside own past and ghosts.
mourners. As he gets closer to simply enter as he is accustomed world, when everything she
needs is within 124. 4 5
the house he hears a loud mix to do with most people’s homes.
of voices and can only make
out the word “mine.” He goes 4
to the door to knock but can’t
bring himself to. He tries to
knock on the door for the next
six days but turns back each
time before knocking.

Sethe thinks that Beloved As Sethe becomes more and Sethe remembers talking to Halle’s comment emphasizes
knows and understands more obsessed with Beloved, she Halle about Schoolteacher, that, although Mr. Garner was
everything about her past. She starts to become overwhelmed asking if he thought kinder than Schoolteacher, he
remembers burying her child, and dominated by her past and Schoolteacher was different was still a slave-owner and
specifically how she slept with memories. from Mr. Garner. Halle said it therefore not essentially different
an engraver so that he would didn’t matter: he was white from Schoolteacher. The idea of a
engrave something on the 3 and a slave-owner. After kind slave-owner (as Mr. Garner
baby’s tombstone. She wanted enduring some of the cruelty would understand himself to be)
“dearly beloved” but only got of Schoolteacher, the slaves of is oxymoronic, since to own
one word: “beloved.” Sethe is Sweet Home decided to run slaves is, by definition, to be cruel
now convinced that Beloved is away. The planned escape and unkind.
the returned spirit of her dead didn’t work, but Sethe was able
child. to sneak her children out. 1
Stamp Paid finally works up Even though the inhabitants of Stamp Paid believes that the Stamp Paid’s thoughts again
the nerve to knock on Sethe’s 124 have abandoned the noises of 124 are the voices of suggest that Beloved embodies
door, but no one answers. He community, Stamp Paid still feels angry, dead slaves and ex- the painful past of slavery
sees Beloved through a a responsibility toward Sethe and slaves. He reflects that white generally. His analysis of slavery
window. He tells Ella that Denver and begins to seek help people think that “under every is that slave-owners see slaves as
there is a strange woman at for them. dark skin was a jungle” but he uncivilized, when in reality they
124 and decides to ask Paul D thinks that “it was the jungle make slaves uncivilized by
about it. He learns that Paul D 4 whitefolks planted in them.” enslaving them.
is sleeping in the cellar of the Since no one has come to the
church. door even after he knocked, he 1 3
gives up on trying to see Sethe
Sethe is late to work. She takes Schoolteacher denied his slaves
at her home.
food back home from the the ability to think and reason for
restaurant, which reminds her themselves, as he does explicitly PART 2, CHAPTER 20
of Sixo stealing a pig on Sweet with Sixo in this memory of
This chapter follows Sethe’s Sethe’s thoughts show her
Home. Schoolteacher Sethe's. One of the reasons for
stream of consciousness, intense devotion to her children
questioned him about it and he the importance of storytelling is
which repeats the name and increasing obsession with
said he was only feeding that it allows for slaves to be the
“Beloved” and insists that “she Beloved. Her sparse memories of
himself so that he would do definers of their own experiences,
is mine.” Sethe’s internal her mother highlight how
more work for Schoolteacher, rather than being defined by
monologue of thoughts difficult it is to be a mother under
so it was not stealing. someone else’s story.
continually claims that killing the institution of slavery. Sethe
Schoolteacher beat him to
1 3 her child was an act of love and has sacrificed her life for her
show him that “definitions
that the child has now come children, refused to give them up,
belonged to the definers—not
back to her. Sethe remembers even killing them to stop anyone
the defined.”
her own mother, who was from taking them from her, and
Sethe remembers more about Schoolteacher epitomizes the hanged, and says that she that obsessive love is
Sweet Home. Schoolteacher dehumanizing quality of slavery, wanted to die after killing her overwhelming her.
measured the slaves and as he treated his slaves like daughter, but knew that she
counted their teeth, as if they scientific specimens and animals. needed to live for her other 1 2
were animals. She remembers children.
something she has never told 1
anyone: she once overheard
Schoolteacher and his nephew
writing in a book and listing
Sethe’s animal and human
characteristics in different
columns.

Sethe recalls her escape from Sethe again insists that she killed PART 2, CHAPTER 22
Sweet Home and the day when her child out of love. Her
This chapter follows Beloved’s As Beloved embodies, to some
she killed her child. She says thoughts evidence an extremely
thoughts. She insists that extent, the persistence of the
she wanted to “take us all to strong motherly attachment to
Sethe is hers. She says “it is past, her monologue eschews
the other side where my own her daughter.
always now” and her thoughts historical time in favor of one
ma’am is.” Sethe ends the
2 mix different times in one fluid fluid time, in which past
chapter by saying again that
present time. She recalls a memories and the present
Beloved is her daughter and
voyage on a slave boat from coexist. Her recollections of a
has come back to her.
Africa, the horrors of slave boat associate her with
PART 2, CHAPTER 21 crouching below deck with so Sethe’s mother, who experienced
many others, some dead, such a voyage. But these
Denver’s monologue follows Denver sees herself as more than
without enough room to move. fragmented memories may also
Sethe’s. She asserts that sisters with Beloved, as blood-
She continually refers to being suggest that Beloved gives voice
Beloved is her sister and that sisters of a sort. Her intense
separated from an unnamed to the sufferings and longings of
they have a special bond: she feelings are only made more
“she.” all slaves, beyond Sethe’s own
swallowed Beloved’s own intense by the fact that she has
family.
blood along with her mother’s always been alone. And being
milk after Sethe killed Beloved. alone and isolated from the 1 2 3
Denver thinks of her brothers, world has made her afraid of that
who have left, and says she is world, making her even more Beloved recalls coming out of Beloved’s emerging from the
scared to leave 124 alone. alone. water and finding a house, water can be seen as a symbolic
then seeing Sethe’s face and rebirth and her obsession with
5 recognizing that Sethe is the Sethe suggests again that she is
face from which she was at least partially Sethe’s
When she was younger, This is the first time we see how
separated. Now, she thinks, daughter.
Denver was afraid Sethe Sethe’s actions affected the
they can be together again at
would kill her, too. She would young Denver. She was 2
last.
dream that her dad, Halle, was constantly afraid of her mother,
coming. She idealized Halle as who she knew had the capacity PART 2, CHAPTER 23
“an angel man.” Denver’s to kill her, even if out of love, and
Beloved’s stream of Through Beloved’s thoughts, her
monologue ends like Sethe’s, therefore she dreamed to be
consciousness continues. She separation from her mother
insisting that Beloved is hers. saved by her father who would
speaks of a woman she was Sethe comes to stand in for the
never come for her. This may be
separated from in Africa and a countless separations from
why she sought a home in her
face she saw before emerging mothers caused by slavery, and
boxwood room, safe not just from
from the river. She believes even for the ultimate separation
the ghost of 124 but also from
that Sethe is both this face and of Africans from their
her mother.
this woman from whom she motherland.
5 has been separated.
1 2 3

Beloved’s thoughts are Sethe’s thoughts show her Paul D is brought back to Devoted to her children, Sethe
followed by a dialogue of devotion to her daughter, who Sweet Home in chains, where sent them ahead before trying to
thoughts between Beloved, she now believes has returned. he sees Sethe. Sethe got her escape, herself. Paul D’s thoughts
Sethe, and Denver. Beloved The obsessive dialogue of two older children out but has about the monetary value of
says she comes from “the thoughts shows the degradation not escaped. She plans to run various characters shows him
other side” and remembers of life at 124: Sethe increasingly away by herself. Paul realizes grappling with the way in which
Sethe. Sethe says Beloved is withdraws into her home, her that it must have been right slavery treats human beings as
safe now. Denver says that past, and her own thoughts. after this conversation, after commodities. While
Beloved came when she he left, that Schoolteacher’s Schoolteacher (and,
needed her and that she loves 2 3 5 boys took her to the barn and uncomfortably, the reader) saw
Beloved. Denver says “daddy is took advantage of her. Paul D Sixo’s laughter as simply crazy
coming for us.” A series of thinks of his price and wonders behavior, it was in fact a final act
unattributed thoughts follow, what the monetary values of of defiance against his cruel
addressing Beloved and Baby Suggs, Halle, and others master, as Sixo knew that while
repeating “you are mine.” is. He thinks of Sixo laughing as he was being killed his child
he died because the Thirty- would be born in freedom.
PART 2, CHAPTER 24 Mile Woman had gotten away,
As Stamp Paid is on his way to Much like Sethe, Paul D is pregnant with Sixo’s child. 1 2
see Paul D, the narrative consumed by his past and
resumes by following Paul D’s memories. His questioning of the PART 2, CHAPTER 25
thoughts. He remembers the differences between Mr. Garner Stamp Paid arrives at the Stamp Paid’s offer of help (and
differences between Mr. and Schoolteacher emphasize Church and meets with Paul D, confidence that someone will
Garner and Schoolteacher but the essential cruelty of slavery, who is attempting to drink offer a home to Paul D) shows
now questions how different regardless of the slave-owner. away his sorrows. He the beneficence of the local
the two really were. apologizes for Paul D having to community. However, Paul D
1 3 sleep at the church and offers does not want to be in a house.
Paul D remembers fleeing The slaves’ planned attempt to to set him up at a house. Paul D He needs a church, perhaps
Sweet Home with the other escape relies upon their says he has chosen to sleep at because he feels that he either
slaves. They wait and observe cooperation as a group, though it the church, rather than a does not want to be with other
Schoolteacher, plotting the is made more difficult by Sethe’s house. people or because he needs a
best way to escape. But Sethe pregnancy and by Schoolteacher. certain closeness to something
becomes pregnant, and the holy to combat his terrible past,
changes Schoolteacher makes 4 or perhaps both. Earlier, with
about how the farm is run Sethe, Paul was starting to
complicate their plans. unearth and confront that past.
Now he is trying to escape it
Paul D, Sixo, and Sixo’s Thirty- Again exemplifying the cruelty of through alcohol.
Mile Woman try to escape slavery, Schoolteacher kills Sixo
Sweet Home, but are caught. because he only values his life in 3 5
The Thirty-Mile Woman terms of how much work Sixo
escapes. Schoolteacher is can perform. Similarly, he thinks
convinced that Sixo has gone of Paul D in terms of how much
crazy and is no longer suitable money he is worth. Sixo's
for work, so he has Sixo burned laughter suggests at the moment
alive. Sixo laughs as he dies. that Sixo has gone crazy (though
Paul D hears Schoolteacher the fact that his laughing
discuss his own monetary suggests that to readers means
value as a slave. that readers are underestimating
Sixo).

Stamp Paid says he wants to Stamp Paid’s story shows Beloved begins to dominate in Beloved’s control over Sethe is
make up for showing Paul D another example of the abuse of her relationship with Sethe, symbolic of Sethe’s more general
the news clipping about Sethe. slaves by slave-owners. His name not obeying her and throwing surrender to her own past and
He then tells Paul D about how change can be seen as an angry fits whenever Sethe memories. Denver's decision to
he changed his name. He was attempt to separate himself from tries to assert herself. Denver get help is heroic—she is facing a
named Joshua when he was a his painful past. Just as Paul D worries about Sethe. She great fear in going out alone, in
slave. One night, his master repressed his memories, Stamp realizes that it is up to her to breaking her isolation.
slept with his wife. When his Paid had to become a different leave 124 and get help. It is
wife returned to him after a person in order to put his past very hard for her to leave the 3
night with his master, he was behind him. Also note how house, but she eventually goes
angry and wanted to break his Stamp Paid's anger at the abuse to Lady Jones.
wife’s neck. Instead, he from his master was directed
Lady Jones recognizes Denver In a role reversal, Denver must
changed his name. toward his wife—how the abuses
and welcomes her into her now protect and care for her own
of slavery could turn slaves
house. Denver asks for work, mother. The church committee is
against each other.
so that she can bring food an example of the helpful
1 3 home. Lady Jones says that community that Sethe felt herself
Denver only has to ask for help cut off from and then turned her
Stamp Paid tells Paul D that he Stamp Paid reinforces Sethe’s and the church committee will back on.
was at 124 on the day Sethe assertion that she loved her give her food, but Denver
killed her child. He tells him it child, that she was taking the doesn’t want to ask for help 2 4
was out of love and “she was only path she could to escape from strangers.
trying to out-hurt the hurter.” from those who had hurt her.
He asks Paul D about Beloved Paul D’s painful question Two days later, Denver finds As Denver has re-entered the
and Paul D says that no one emphasizes the unceasing, food left on a stump by 124. All surrounding community, the
knows where she came from. unfathomable, abuses and through the spring, various community now begins to
Before Stamp Paid leaves, Paul indignities suffered by him and packages of food are left at support her and Sethe again.
D asks him, “how much is a other slaves. Stamp Paid asserts 124, sometimes with names Within 124, things continue to
nigger supposed to take?” that they must continue on written, so that Denver can go get worse as Sethe’s being
Stamp Paid answers, “All he living, to face whatever comes to people’s houses and thank mentally overwhelmed by her
can,” and Paul D responds by until it kills them. But Paul D, in them. Denver begins going to past—her love, her guilt—is
repeating, “Why?” his despair, cannot see why. Lady Jones’ house more often, matched by her physical
as life at 124 deteriorates. deterioration.
1 2 Beloved seems to be going
crazy and Sethe has regressed 3 4 5
PART 3, CHAPTER 26 and is childlike and weak.
124 is now quiet. Sethe is Home life at 124 has degraded Denver thinks that Beloved is
getting progressively weaker, significantly, as Sethe’s motherly making Sethe pay for killing
quieter, and hungrier. She has love turns into a harmful her with the saw.
discovered a scar under obsession. Even Denver is Denver goes to the Bodwins The local community begins to
Beloved’s chin (where she cut outside of the all-consuming to look for work. She tells their come together to support Denver
her own daughter with the bonds of neediness between and Sethe. Under the direction of
maid Janey about Beloved and
saw) and is entirely convinced Sethe and Beloved. Ella, they decide to help Sethe
how Sethe seems to have lost
that Beloved is her daughter. her mind. Janey tells her to even without being asked to do
Denver feels excluded by the 2 5
come back in a few days for so. The slave figurine at the
strong bond between the work. Denver notices a slave Bodwins’ house is evidence that
other two. figurine for holding coins at even abolitionists like the
the house with “At Yo Service” Bodwins are not necessarily free
written on it. After Denver from the prejudices that are at
leaves, the news of Beloved the root of slavery.
spreads around town. Ella
convinces the townswomen 1 4
that they need to help Sethe.

One afternoon, as Denver is The group of women singing PART 3, CHAPTER 27
waiting on her porch for Mr. together emphasizes the
Paul D and Stamp Paid discuss With Beloved driven away, 124
Bodwin to pick her up from importance of community as
the day when the singing is finally free from the burden of
124 to begin work, a crowd of they attempt to drive Beloved
women came to the house and its past and can potentially
women approach the house. away. It is also significant that
drove away Beloved, who fled become a home like any other.
They begin praying and then the group is made up of all
form the women and However, Sethe has not been
start to sing. women. They alone know Sethe’s
disappeared. According to able to escape from her past, as
pain as a mother under slavery.
Stamp Paid, 124 seems no she seems to have gone mad.
They know the horror of what
longer to be haunted. It is “just
Sethe did, and yet now they are 3 5
another weathered house.”
helping her, expressing
understanding and fellowship. Paul D thinks Sethe has gone
crazy.
2 4 Paul D’s thoughts are Now that her family past has in
As Mr. Bodwin approaches, he The association of the singing confirmed when Denver runs some sense been exorcized in the
hears the women singing. women with Baby Suggs further into him and Stamp Paid and form of Beloved, Denver can
Inside 124, the singing links them with the general tells them that she has lost her finally look forward to a
reminds Sethe of Baby Suggs’ power of motherhood. Beloved’s mother. But she says that she potentially brighter future. She
gatherings at the Clearing. She bizarre transformation shows is working for the Bodwins has escaped the dangerous,
goes out to the porch to watch that she is something more than and learning from Miss overwhelming side of memory
them sing, along with Beloved. merely Sethe’s daughter returned Bodwin, who hopes to try to that overwhelmed Sethe.
The singing women see to life. Her pregnant appearance send her to Oberlin College.
3
Beloved as a “devil-child.” associates her more generally
Beloved has assumed the with motherhood. She could be Paul D asks Denver if Beloved As Denver says, Beloved seems
appearance of a pregnant understood as the embodiment was her sister. Denver says to have been both her sister and
woman of the pains and desires of being that she thinks so, but that something more. She embodied
a mother under the Beloved was also more. A little the pain and suffering of slaves,
circumstances of slavery. boy has claimed that he saw a the appeal and danger of the
naked woman “with fish for past, and the extreme love
1 2 hair” fleeing through the between a mother and child.
Sethe mistakes Mr. Bodwin for The fact that Sethe thinks Mr. woods after the women sang
outside 124. 2 3
Schoolteacher and runs after Bodwin is Schoolteacher shows
him with an ice pick, but she is the degree to which she is Paul D thinks about his past, Paul D’s wanderings represent
restrained by the women. literally living in the past, but also and the various unsuccessful him as continually in search of
Denver runs after Sethe into suggests (given the racist figurine escapes he has attempted some kind of home, which he has
the crowd of women, and in the Bodwin's foyer) the degree throughout his life. After the temporarily thought that he had
Beloved thinks that both to which all white people have end of the Civil War, he found at 124 before that, too,
Denver and Sethe have certain similar racist similarities. thought his life would become went sour. He had thought that
deserted her. Denver runs after her mother to easy, but it did not. He after the war freedom would be
protect and help her, an remembers traveling north all he or other slaves needed. But
expression of love. Meanwhile, from Alabama and of course it is not that simple, the
Beloved's power is broken by encountering black families burdens of the past—both in
being abandoned—as a baby, as and children murdered. He memory and in racist oppression
a memory, as guilt, she needs recalls his astonishment at first and violence—remain.
attention to survive. being paid for work. For seven
years after the war, he 5
3
wandered around and didn’t
stop anywhere until he came
to 124.

Paul D goes to 124. He senses Paul D’s comment to Sethe
that Beloved is truly gone. He reinforces the novel’s turn from HOW T
TO
O CITE
enters the house looking for the past to the future. Just as It's easy to cite LitCharts for use in academic papers
Sethe and finally finds her Denver is finally able to plan for a and reports.
humming in the keeping room. future, Paul D tries to get Sethe
He tries to talk to her but she to let go of “yesterday” in favor of
seems crazy. He pledges to “some kind of tomorrow.” And MLA CIT
CITA
ATION
take care of her from now on. Paul D's own return to 124 Ben Florman and Justin Kestler, LitCharts Editors.
Sethe says that her daughter signals a willingness to accept his "LitChart on Beloved." LitCharts.com. 16 Nov 2015.
has left her, referring to past, to make a home in which to
Beloved. He tells her, “We got stay and live.
more yesterday than anybody.
CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL CIT
CITA
ATION
We need some kind of 3 Ben Florman and Justin Kestler, LitCharts Editors.
tomorrow.” "LitChart on Beloved." LitCharts.com. 2015.
PART 3, CHAPTER 28 http://www.litcharts.com/lit/beloved.
The novel describes a The novel’s ending suggests that
loneliness at 124 now that forgetting about the past is the AP
APA
A CIT
CITA
ATION
Beloved is gone and has only way to move on after Ben Florman and Justin Kestler, LitCharts Editors
“erupt[ed] into her separate extreme tragedy. The novel even 2015. LitChart on Beloved. Retrieved November 16,
parts.” The town gradually refers to itself as a story that 2015 from http://www.litcharts.com/lit/beloved.
forgets about her “like a bad should not be passed on.
dream.” The townspeople need However, the very fact that
to forget about Beloved in Morrison wrote and published
order to move on, since “it was the novel implies that there is
not a story to pass on.” some value in remembering the
Gradually, even those who painful tragedies in our personal
spoke with Beloved, including and national histories. While
Paul D, Sethe, and Denver, being subsumed in the past can
forget about her. Traces of prevent people from living in the
Beloved around 124 begin to present, the novel ultimately
disappear. The narration says, claims that we owe it to the past
“This is not a story to pass on.” to remember and honor those
who have suffered. You must
somehow do both things, both
pass it on and not pass it on, and
through the novel that is what
Morrison does.
1 3

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The best way to study, teach, and learn about books.

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4 This is not a story to pass on.

It was not a story to pass on.

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