Beloved Quote Test
"It made sense for a lot of reasons because in all of Baby's life, as well as Sethe's own, men and women were moved around like checkers. Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadn't run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, 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 because the pieces included her children. Halle she was able to keep the longest. Twenty years. A lifetime. Given to her, no doubt, to make up for hearing that her two girls, neither of whom had their adult teeth, were sold and gone and she had not been able to wave goodbye. To make up for coupling with a straw boss for four months in exchange for keeping her third child, a boy, with her—only to have him traded for lumber in the spring of the next year and to find herself pregnant by the man who promised not to and did. That child she could not love and the rest she would not. "God take what He would," she said. And He did, and He did, and He did and then gave her Halle who gave her freedom when it didn't mean a thing" (27-28).
Speaker: Narrator Context: After sleeping with Paul D., Sethe is thinking about men and what Baby Suggs had to suffer through with her family. Significance: notice all of the verbs and showing details concerning her girls' youth; simile: people played her kids like checkers; choosing which children to love and not to love, those fathered through consensual sex and those who aren't, is a self-defense mechanism; theme: cost of slavery
"Occasionally a kneeling man chose gunshot in his head as the price, maybe, of taking a bit of foreskin with him to Jesus. Paul D did not know that then. He was looking at his palsied hands, smelling the guard, listening to his soft grunts so like the doves', as he stood before the man kneeling in mist on his right. Convinced he was next, Paul D retched—vomiting up nothing at all. An observing guard smashed his shoulder with the rifle and the engaged one decided to skip the new man for the time being lest his pants and shoes got soiled by ****** puke" (127).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Alfred, GA; black prisoners are forced to perform oral sex on the white guards Significance: theme- cost of slavery; dehumanization; this is Paul D.'s moment in the barn- part of what takes the wildness out of his eyes after the bit
"[_________] had only begun, what he was telling her was only the beginning when her fingers on his knee, soft and reassuring, stopped him. Just as well. Just as well. Saying more might push them both to a place they couldn't get back from. He would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut. He would not pry it loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame him. And it would hurt her to know that there was no red heart bright as Mister's comb beating in him" (86).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Paul D is talking to Sethe about schoolteacher and the bit he was forced to keep in his mouth; referring to the wildness in his eyes and his thoughts about the rooster named Mister, notices his freedom and unbrokenness Significance: the tobacco tin is a metaphor for Paul D's emotional state; sex with beloved takes the wildness out of his eyes
"...The box had done what Sweet Home had not, what working like an ass and living like a dog had not: drove him crazy so he would not lose his mind. By the time he got to Ohio, then to Cincinnati, then to Halle Suggs' mother's house, he thought he had seen and felt it all. Even now as he put back the window frame he had smashed, he could not account for the pleasure in his surprise at seeing Halle's wife alive, barefoot with uncovered hair—walking around the corner of the house with her shoe and stockings in her hands. The closed portion of his head opened like a greased lock" (49).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Paul D.'s life in Alfred, GA with a chain gang and description of how he survives Significance: Paul D.'s survival method: doesn't think of negatives, going through the motions, no emotional connections to others or his surroundings, he is always thinking of the "lowest common denominator" or bare minimum of what he needs to get buy; theme: cost of slavery
"They sang the women they knew; the children they had been; the animals they had tamed themselves or seen others tame. They sang of bosses and masters and misses; of mules and dogs and the shamelessness of life. They sang lovingly of graveyards and sisters long gone. Of pork in the woods; meal in the pan; fish on the line; cane, rain and rocking chairs. And they beat. The women for having known them and no more, no more; the children for having been them but never again. They killed a boss so often and so completely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcake among pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe" (128).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Alfred, GA; flashback to how Paul D. and the other men managed to survive Significance: note how the men on the chain gang survive this experience- they sing, they celebrate life, they beat: killing the hope that forever tricks them (hope of a better life); full of anger... at women, children, masters
"Grandma Baby said there was no defense—they could prowl at will, change from one mind to another, and even when they thought they were behaving, it was a far cry from what real humans did..." (287)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Conversation between Denver and Baby Suggs; this is current time Significance: Magical realism- Baby Suggs is not actually alive; notice the lesson baby Suggs teaches Denver: know the dangers, know everything: but walk on out of the yard anyways- a lesson on how to live life; Sethe is defending whites while Baby Suggs is surprisingly defending blacks. There is a totally unequal battle between the two.
"Denver thought she understood the connection between her mother and Beloved: Sethe was trying to make up for the handsaw; Beloved was making her pay for it. But there would never be an end to that, and seeing her mother diminished shamed and infuriated her. Yet she knew Sethe's greatest fear was the same one Denver had in the beginning—that Beloved might leave. That before Sethe could make her understand what it meant—what it took to drag the teeth of that saw under the little chin; to feel the baby blood pump like oil in her hands; to hold her face so her head would stay on; to squeeze her so she could absorb, still, the death spasms that shot through that adored body, plump and sweet with life—Beloved might leave. Leave before Sethe could make her realize that worse than that—far worse—was what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella 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. 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. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing—the part of her that was clean. No undreamable dreams about whether the headless, feetless torso hanging in the tree with a sign on it was her husband or Paul A; whether the bubbling-hot girls in the colored-school fire set by patriots included her daughter; whether a gang of whites invaded her daughter's private parts, soiled her daughter's thighs and threw her daughter out of the wagon. She might have to work the slaughterhouse yard, but not her daughter. And no one, nobody on this earth, would list her daughter's characteristics on the animal side of the paper..." (295-296)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Denver has laid down her pride to get help from the community; Denver hears her mother talking when she is sitting in her corner chair trying to persuade Beloved Significance: Connection between Beloved and Sethe: Sethe is trying to make up for killing her daughter; Beloved is trying to make her pay. Notice Sethe's bottom line at the end of this paragraph: Sethe might have to work the slaughterhouse and be a prostitute; Sethe might have someone draw her picture with animal characteristics on one side of her face: but this will NOT happen to her daughter. Mother lover desiring to protect her child from the dehumanization of slavery
"Nobody saw them falling...nobody saw them fall" (205-206)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Denver, Beloved, and Sethe are ice skating after Paul D. leaves; they only three skates Significance: literal and symbolic: they keep falling while ice skating but also refers to the fact that no one witnesses the downward spiral of destruction that these women are beginning; this is Sethe's "screw it" moment
"They were not holding hands, but their shadows were. Sethe looked to her left and all three of them were gliding over the dust holding hands. Maybe he was right. A life" (56).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Denver, Sethe, and Paul D are walking to the carnival in town after Paul D proposes the idea of settling down together Significance: magical realism, Sethe is less stubborn- considering life as a family; she will reinterpret this image later on
'She had delivered, but would not nurse, a hairy white thing, fathered by "the lowest yet." It lived five days never making a sound. The idea of that pup coming back to whip her too set her jaw working, and then Ella hollered..." (305)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Ella has gathered the women together to go help Sethe; the women kneel and pray before 124 Significance: Ella rejected her own child fathered through rape: cost of slavery; remembers losing teeth from such a terrible whipping
"The daughter, however, appeared to have some sense after all. At least she had stepped out the door, asked for the help she needed and wanted work. When Ella heard 124 was occupied by something-orother beating up on Sethe, it infuriated her and gave her another opportunity to measure what could very well be the devil himself against "the lowest yet." There was also something very personal in her fury. Whatever Sethe had done, Ella didn't like the idea of past errors taking possession of the present. Sethe's crime was staggering and her pride outstripped even that; but she could not countenance the possibility of sin moving on in the house, unleashed and sassy. Daily life took as much as she had..." (302)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Ella helps convince people to help Sethe, although she is extremely scornful of Sethe's pride Significance: She endured her own abuse by the "lowest yet"- rape; she understands Sethe's rage in the shed, just not her reaction because her reaction was prideful; There are some lines that cannot be crossed and the ghost seemed to cross these lines.
"Then she did the magic: lifted Sethe's feet and legs and massaged them until she cried salt tears. 'It's gonna hurt now," said [________], "Anything dead coming back to lie hurts.' A truth for all times, thought Denver..." (42)
Speaker: Amy Context: Amy's massaging pregnant Sethe's swollen feet in the lean-to in the woods during her escape Significance: 3 truths: literal truth- her swollen feet; symbolic truth- Beloved; symbolic truth- recovering from the trauma of slavery
"''It's a tree, Lu. A chokecherry tree. See, here's the trunk—it's red and split wide open, full of sap, and this here's the parting for the branches. You got a mighty lot of branches. Leaves, too, look like, and dern if these ain't blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as white. Your back got a whole tree on it. In bloom. What God have in mind, I wonder. I had me some whippings, but I don't remember nothing like this. Mr. Buddy had a right evil hand too. Whip you for looking at him straight. Sure would. I looked right at him one time and he hauled off and threw the poker at me. Guess he knew what I was a-thinking'" (93).
Speaker: Amy the indentured servant, white, who is taking care of Sethe while she is pregnant Context: Amy took Sethe back to the lean-to in the woods, after massaging her feet, Sethe tells her that her back hurts and Amy takes a look at it Significance: the whiteness is pus/infection like sap; Amy turns this horror into beauty by humanizing it; notice reference to nature imagery; this imagery becomes a part of Sethe
"Thwarted yet wondering, she chopped away with the hoe. What could it be? This dark and coming thing. What was left to hurt her now? News of Halle's death? No. She had been prepared for that better than she had for his life. The last of her children, whom she barely glanced at when he was born because it wasn't worth the trouble to try to learn features you would never see change into adulthood anyway. Seven times she had done that: held a little foot; examined the fat fingertips with her own—fingers she never saw become the male or female hands a mother would recognize anywhere...All seven were gone or dead. What would be the point of looking too hard at that youngest one? But for some reason they let her keep him. He was with her—everywhere" (163-164)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Everyone is having the party and nobody knows that schoolteacher is on his way ("the dark and coming thing" Significance: cost of slavery and impact on a mother- Baby Suggs doesn't ever get the chance to know her children
"'...Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your lifegiving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize..." (103-104)
Speaker: Baby Suggs Context: Flashback to Baby Sugg's preaching in the Clearing; this is one of her sermons to the black people with her Significance: notice the verbs; Baby Sugg-s is telling them that they must love themselves because others won't; she is re-humanizing them by giving them value; refers to the epigram at the beginning, Romans 9:25- "I will call them my people,/ which were not my people;/ and her beloved,/ which was not beloved."
"They came in my yard" (211) x3
Speaker: Baby Suggs Context: Flashback to Stamp Paid's conversation with Baby Suggs and why she stops preaching Significance: no matter how hard Baby Suggs tried to live her life well and within the confines prescribed by whites, they still destroyed her life and her family; literal and symbolic meaning; schoolteacher literally destroys her life; symbolic- she can't get away even in freedom- she doesn't have total autonomy and whites still have the ability to wreck her life
""Telling you. I am telling you, small girl [_________]," and she did that. She told [_________] that her mother and Nan were together from the sea. Both were taken up many times by the crew. "She threw them all away but you. The one from the crew she threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without names, she threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him. The others she did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I am telling you, small girl [_________]."
Speaker: Nan, black woman who practically raised Sethe (and narrator) Context: Denver and Beloved are asking questions about Sethe's past and Sethe remembers what Nan told her about herself Significance: Sethe's mother rejects children fathered through rape; similar to Baby Sugg's retelling of her past and her children; Sethe's mother and Nan endured the middle passage together; Sethe is loved by her mother meaning that Sethe's father and her mother had a consensual relationship
"So Stamp Paid did not tell him how she flew, snatching up her children like a hawk on the wing; how her face beaked, how her hands worked like claws, how she collected them every which way: one on her shoulder, one under her arm, one by the hand, the other shouted forward into the woodshed filled with just sunlight and shavings now because there wasn't any wood. The party had used it all, which is why he was chopping some. Nothing was in that shed, he knew, having been there early that morning. Nothing but sunlight. Sunlight, shavings, a shovel. The ax he himself took out. Nothing else was in there except the shovel—and of course the saw" (185)
Speaker: Narrator Context: After Stamp Paid told Paul D. about what Sethe had done. Significance: This is Stamp Paid's judgement of Sethe. Notice the animal imagery; it's interesting that he, a black man, would choose to describe her like this- not racist, just his judgement.
"Even in that tiny shack, leaning so close to the fire you could smell the heat in her dress, her eyes did not pick up a flicker of light. They were like two wells into which he had trouble gazing. Even punched out they needed to be covered, lidded, marked with some sign to warn folks of what that emptiness held...But what he did broke three more Sweet Home men and punched the glittering iron out of Sethe's eyes, leaving two open wells that did not reflect light" (10-11).
Speaker: Narrator Context: First glimpse of Sethe's character and refers to the scene in the barn (flashback) Significance: Refers to her "iron eyes"- she is guarded and closed off, but also strong; refers to the change in her character after the nursing in the barn
"But. Sethe was pregnant in the spring and by August is so heavy with child she may not be able to keep up with the men, who can carry the children...But...But...But...But..." (263)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Flashback to the escape from Sweet Home Significance: Repetition- everything is going wrong with their plan; unpredictable obstacles
"Nor the desire that drowned him there and forced him to struggle up, up into that girl like she was the clear air at the top of the sea. Coupling with her wasn't even fun. It was more like a brainless urge to stay alive. Each time she came, pulled up her skirts, a life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no more control over it than over his lungs. And afterward, beached and gobbling air, in the midst of repulsion and personal shame, he was thankful too for having been escorted to some ocean-deep place he once belonged to" (311)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Here Boy returns to the 124 so Paul D. knows Beloved is truly gone. He remembers how he felt in the cold house with Beloved. Significance: collective unconscious and water imagery; again, we see that Paul D. is somehow healed emotionally through sex with Beloved; his desire for her seemed uncontrollable like he had no choice; removes his need for the tin box
"She turned to him, her face looking like someone had turned up the gas jet" (315)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Nelson Lord wants to talk with Denver about all the stories he had heard about her family. This is right after Denver sees Paul D. in town Significance: Denver is shining for Nelson Lord: her hope for the future and happy ending. Think about the transformation in Denver's character from the stunted, isolated young woman in Part One to thee courage woman in Part Three who saves her mother and finds a life for herself.
"Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend? Could she have been a loving mother? A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If my mother knew me would she like me?" (165)
Speaker: Narrator- Baby Suggs' thoughts Context: Everyone is having the party and nobody knows that schoolteacher is on his way ("the dark and coming thing" Significance: Baby Suggs doesn't even know herself- cost of slavery
"Sethe had had twenty-eight days—the travel of one whole moon—of unslaved life. From the pure clear stream of spit that the little girl dribbled into her face to her oily blood was twenty-eight days. Days of healing, ease and real-talk. Days of company: knowing the names of forty, fifty other Negroes, their views, habits; where they had been and what done; of feeling their fun and sorrow along with her own, which made it better. One taught her the alphabet; another a stitch. All taught her how it felt to wake up at dawn and decide what to do with the day. That's how she got through the waiting for Halle. Bit by bit, at 124 and in the Clearing, along with the others, she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another" (111-112)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Sethe is revisiting the Clearing; remembers Baby Sugg's preaching Significance: Just like Paul D., Sethe has a method of survival as well; freedom to Sethe involves learning and developing a sense of individuality but also community-this clearly becomes hard for her to develop after her 28 days of freedom when the city figures out what she has done and that she doesn't seem to have remorse
"Outside a throng, now, of black faces stopped murmuring. Holding the living child, Sethe walked past them in their silence and hers. She climbed into the cart, her profile knife-clean against a cheery blue sky. A profile that shocked them with its clarity. Was her head a bit too high? Her back a little too straight? Probably. Otherwise the singing would have begun at once, the moment she appeared in the doorway of the house on Bluestone Road. Some cape of sound would have quickly been wrapped around her, like arms to hold and steady her on the way. As it was, they waited till the cart turned about, headed west to town. And then no words. Humming. No words at all" (179).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Sethe just attempted to murder all her children and commit suicide. The sheriff is escorting her out of 124. Significance: notice her posture: she is straight, proud, and tall. If she had been broken, the community would have immediately supported her. the isolation of 124 and its inhabitants doesn't begin with the murder of Beloved. It begins with Sethe's unrepentant pride afterwards; immediate judgement
"Then something. The plash of water, the sight of her shoes and stockings awry on the path where she had flung them; or Here Boy lapping in the puddle near her feet, and suddenly there was Sweet Home rolling, rolling, rolling out before her eyes, and although there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty. It never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too. Fire and brimstone all right, but hidden in lacy groves. Boys hanging from the most beautiful sycamores in the world. It shamed her—remembering the wonderful soughing trees rather than the boys. Try as she might to make it otherwise, the sycamores beat out the children every time and she could not forgive her memory for that" (7).
Speaker: Narrator Context: Sethe speaking to Baby Suggs about memories of her children- reflecting on her own memories Significance: Sethe can't control her own memories; she can't control what she visualizes; and she can't control what she remembers from the past and how it may haunt her
"Sethe knew that the circle she was making around the room, him, the subject, would remain one. That she could never close in, pin it down for anybody who had to ask. If they didn't get it right off—she could never explain. Because the truth was simple, not a long-drawn-out record of flowered shifts, tree cages, selfishness, ankle ropes and wells. Simple: she was squatting in the garden and when she saw them coming and recognized schoolteacher's hat, she heard wings. Little hummingbirds stuck their needle beaks right through her headcloth into her hair and beat their wings. And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew. Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe. And the hummingbird wings beat on" (192)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Sethe's justification to Paul for murdering/attempting to murder her children Significance: To her, the murders were an act of protection; there was no premeditation...she saw the threat and reacted- like a hummingbird (simile); example of fight vs. flight; notice the animal imagery again though here, it isn't dehumanizing; this animal imagery shows Sethe's instinctive reaction: just get the children and put them where they would be safe
"And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose. Whole towns wiped clean of Negroes; eighty-seven lynchings in one year alone in Kentucky; four colored schools burned to the ground; grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults; black women raped by the crew; property taken, necks broken. He smelled skin, skin and hot blood. The skin was one thing, but human blood cooked in a lynch fire was a whole other thing. The stench stank. Stank up off the pages of the North Star, out of the mouths of witnesses, etched in crooked handwriting in letters delivered by hand. Detailed in documents and petitions full of whereas and presented to any legal body who'd read it, it stank. But none of that had worn out his marrow. None of that. It was the ribbon. Tying his flatbed up on the bank of the Licking River, securing it the best he could, he caught sight of something red on its bottom. Reaching for it, he thought it was a cardinal feather stuck to his boat. He tugged and what came loose in his hand was a red ribbon knotted around a curl of wet woolly hair, clinging still to its bit of scalp. He untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket, dropped the curl in the weeds. On the way home, he stopped, short of breath and dizzy. He waited until the spell passed before continuing on his way. A moment later, his breath left him a gain. This time he sat down by a fence. Rested, he got to his feet, but before he took a step he turned to look back down the road he was traveling and said, to its frozen mud and the river beyond, 'What are these people? You tell me, Jesus. What are they?'" (212-213)
Speaker: Narrator Context: Stamp Paid is at the door of 124 thinking about entering but failing to do so Significance: This is Stamp Paid's metaphor of the savagery of slavery; age innocence and vulnerability don't matter to whites...what kind of person acts like this? Stamp Paid feels this way even after escaping slavery.
"Where does she get it all, [_____________], holy? Why is she and hers always the center of things? How come she always knows exactly what to do and when? Giving advice; passing messages; healing the sick, hiding fugitives, loving, cooking, cooking, loving, preaching, singing, dancing and loving everybody like it was her job and hers alone" (161)
Speaker: Narrator Context: during the 28 days of freedom for Sethe before the murder Significance: Christ like imagery used to describe Baby Suggs; she has the power to feed the multitude- makes others envious of her
"It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook paper, 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" (133).
Speaker: Narrator Context: reflection on the flashback of Alfred, GA Significance: Beloved is not of this world so she can possibly pry it open; metaphor: he's shut up and doesn't want to try anymore; in an awful emotional state- cost of slavery; he's putting everything into this box because he is sick of trying to deal with them
"By the light of the hominy fire [_______] straightens. He is through with his song. He laughs. A rippling sound like Sethe's sons make when they tumble in hay or splash in rainwater. His feet are cooking; the cloth of his trousers smokes. He laughs. Something is funny. Paul D guesses what it is when [______] interrupts his laughter to call out, 'Seven-O! Seven-O!'"
Speaker: Narrator and Sixo Context: Description of Sixo's death during the flashback to the escape from Sweet Home Significance: Seven-O is his child...Patsy got away so she and his child live on; though he is dying, his spirit lives on; defiant of white power to the end
"He is coming into her yard and he is coming for her best thing. She hears wings. Little humminghirds stick needle beaks right through her headcloth into her hair and beat their wings. And if she thinks anything, it is no. No no. Nonono. She flies. The ice pick is not in her hand; it is her hand..." (308-309)
Speaker: Narrator- Sethe's thoughts Context: the women are singing, surrounding Sethe's house and Mr. Bodwin approaching her house t9o pick up Denver Significance: Echoes the day when schoolteacher came; again, the metaphor of the hummingbird reflects the immediacy of her actions and reaction off of instinct; she sees Mr. Bodwin coming to pick up Denver and sees him as a threat; same words repeated before the incident in the shed
"Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own" (234)
Speaker: Narrator- Stamp Paid's thoughts Context: Stamp Paid is contemplating whether to enter 124 or not; he sees Beloved and Denver sitting in the kitchen but doesn't know who Beloved is Significance: jungle metaphor- stereotypes: how whites saw blacks; impact of racism: 1) longer living under it, the more it grows in them (blacks); 2) whites become the same way and grow a jungle within themselves as well; racism makes both groups savage and both groups are dehumanized
"'You got two feet, Sethe, not four,' he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet" (194).
Speaker: Paul D. Context: After Sethe explained everything and her justification to Paul D. Significance: this is where their relationship is severed; Paul D. deems her behavior as less than human- more like an animal; when he says this to her, it takes her back to Sweet Home and the drawing with the animal characteristics on one side of the face. He just did to her what schoolteacher did.
'Beloved.' He said it, but she did not go. She moved closer with a footfall he didn't hear and he didn't hear the whisper that the flakes of rust made either as they fell away from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn't know it. What he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying, "Red heart. Red heart," over and over again. Softly and then so loud it woke Denver, then [________] himself. "Red heart. Red heart. Red heart" (137-138)
Speaker: Paul D. Context: Paul D. is having sex with Beloved Significance: something about sex with Beloved is healing emotionally to him; Beloved is taking him away from Sethe, Denver is now aware of this; his "tin box" is no longer empty...it no longer lacks a heart
"'You are your best thing, Sethe. You are.' His holding fingers are holding hers. 'Me? Me?'"
Speaker: Paul D. then Sethe Context: Paul D. sits with Sethe in her room and thinks again about becoming a family with Sethe. She is mourning over the loss of Beloved. Significance: asserts Sethe's own value above all else. Recall epigram at beginning...called her beloved which is not beloved.
"'"No, no. That's not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And don't forget to line them up...'" (228)
Speaker: Schoolteacher Context: Sethe remembers the time she heard the nephews drawing a picture of her while the schoolteacher watched and the reminder the nephews received; this is after Sethe realizes who Beloved is Significance: Words hurt and these specific words linger with Sethe forever; schoolteacher sees her as less than human and psychologically this is just as terrible as the barn scene; Paul D's comment takes her back to this
"'I made the ink, Paul D. He couldn't have done it if I hadn't made the ink'" (320).
Speaker: Sethe Context: Paul D. comes to 124 after Beloved has left and Sethe is grieving Significance: Sethe is still haunted by slavery. She doesn't refer to the scene in the barn but rather to the drawing of herself with animal characteristics. Feels responsible because she made the ink they used to draw them with; shows the psychological cost of slavery
"'She was my best thing'" (321).
Speaker: Sethe Context: Paul D. is comforting Sethe during her time of mourning. She starts to cry Significance: She feels that Beloved was her best thing in life; example of mother love
'''I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running—from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much! Do you hear me? It cost too much. Now sit down and eat with us or leave us be'" (14).
Speaker: Sethe Context: Paul D. is trying to convince Sethe to leave the haunted house Significance: displays Sethe's stubbornness- she has been flying solo for a long time and does not want to change; shows the theme of the cost of slavery- her journey to escape slavery was too high of a price to pay; she's still healing
"'I did it. I got us all out. Without Halle too. Up till then it was the only thing I ever did on my own. Decided. And it came off right, like it was supposed to. We was here. Each and every one of my babies and me too. I birthed them and I got em out and it wasn't no accident. I did that..." (190)
Speaker: Sethe Context: Sethe is explaining everything to Paul D. She "circles" around her past and focuses on how she was never really allowed to be a mother. Significance: justifiable pride that she was able to save her children and get them out`
"...Right on her rib was a circle and a cross burnt right in the skin. She said, 'This is your ma'am. This,' and she pointed. 'I am the only one got this mark now. The rest dead. If something happens to me and you can't tell me by my face, you can know me by this mark.' Scared me so. All I could think of was how important this was and how I needed to have something important to say back, but I couldn't think of anything so I just said what I thought. 'Yes, Ma'am,' I said. 'But how will you know me? How will you know me? Mark me, too,' I said. 'Mark the mark on me too.'" [_________] chuckled. "Did she?" asked [_________]. "She slapped my face." "What for?" "I didn't understand it then. Not till I had a mark of my own" (72-73).
Speaker: Sethe and Denver Context: Beloved asks about Sethe's mother and if she ever fixed up her hair Significance: theme: cost of slavery- her mother was literally branded like livestock; her mother was not allowed to spend time with her children; Sethe longed for a connection with her mom and was slapped in return- the slap is more of a reaction from the pain of the branding than a spanking- Sethe did not understand the morbidity and dehumanization as a child
"'I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place—the picture of it—stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.' 'Can other people see it?' asked [__________]. 'Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it's you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It's when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else...'
Speaker: Sethe and Denver Context: Sethe is asking about the dress she saw next to Sethe while she was praying/talking Significance: COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS; new term- rememory: it exists at yours but others can know/see it
"'I made that song up,' said [__________]. 'I made it up and sang it to my children. Nobody knows that song but me and my children.' [__________] turned to look at [________]. 'I know it,' she said. A hobnail casket of jewels found in a tree hollow should be fondled before it is opened. Its lock may have rusted or broken away from the clasp. Still you should touch the nail heads, and test its weight. No smashing with an ax head before it is decently exhumed from the grave that has hidden it all this time. No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along..." (207-208)
Speaker: Sethe, Beloved, and narrator Context: after ice skating together after Paul D. leaves, Sethe experiences a "click" Significance: Sethe finally realizes who Beloved is, this is the click, an epiphany; she finally understands because Beloved was humming a song Sethe used to hum to her children
"'She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind" (321).
Speaker: Sixo Context: Paul D. is sitting in a rocking chair in Sethe's room trying to understand her and everything she carries with her. Sethe just told him that Beloved was her "best thing" and she is mourning. Paul D. remembers what Sixo said about Thirty-Mile Woman Significance: Complete aspect of this ideal male/female relationship: not only physical, but there is intellectual equality, and there are layers to the relationship. This reflects Paul D.'s feelings about Sethe
"You don't say? Huh. Was a girl locked up in the house with a whiteman over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her. Folks say he had her in there since she was a pup..." (277)
Speaker: Stamp Paid Context: Paul D. and Stamp Paid are discussing Sethe's decision to kill Beloved Significance: possible "non-magical" explanation for Beloved: a girl who had been held captive by a white man finally escaped and ran off
