Beloved

Beloved continues to live in 124, following Sethe around with quiet devotion. One day after Paul D has left for work, Beloved says to Sethe, “Tell me your diamonds” (69). Sethe is confused at first but remembers that Mrs. Garner once gave her a pair of crystal earrings. When Sethe was about to marry Halle, she was not allowed to have an elaborate wedding as an enslaved woman. However, she crafted a wedding dress from scrap materials. When Mrs. Garner found out, she gave Sethe the earrings as a wedding gift. Sethe waited until she was free before she allowed Grandma Baby Suggs to pierce her ears so she could wear the earrings. When Denver asks Sethe the whereabouts of the earrings, Sethe replies vaguely that they are “long gone” (71).

On another day, the three women rush home, wet from the rain. When Sethe insists on unbraiding and combing Denver’s hair, Beloved asks Sethe, “Your woman she never fix up your hair?” (72). Sethe absentmindedly folds the laundry as she recalls her mother on the plantation where she was enslaved before her arrival at Sweet Home. Sethe’s mother never fixed Sethe’s hair, as she had to labor in the fields six days a week and slept all day out of exhaustion on Sundays. Another enslaved woman, Nan, often came to nurse Sethe. One day her mother took her to a smokehouse and showed her a circle and cross burned into a scar underneath her breast. She told Sethe, “If something happens to me and you can’t tell me by my face, you can know me by this mark” (72). At the time, Sethe did not understand that this mark was given by their master as a sign of ownership and requested a mark of her own so that her mother would recognize her, too. Her mother slapped her face in response. Not long after, Sethe’s mother was hanged. Nan told Sethe about how her mother came to the plantation by slave ship. Her mother “threw away” all her children except for Sethe—the only one of her children fathered by a Black man, and the only one conceived in an act of consensual sex..

When Sethe finishes her story, Denver is relieved that her mother’s painful recollection is over. She notices that Beloved’s questions probe at specific details of Sethe’s past. She wonders how Beloved can possibly know about these details.

Paul D notices that Beloved is “shining” (76), or becoming more attractive to him. Her womanly allure alarms him. He asks Beloved about her family and her origins, questions she dodges with vague answers. When Sethe tells Paul D not to antagonize Beloved, Beloved suddenly chokes on a raisin. Sethe and Denver rush to her care, leading her to Denver’s bedroom to rest. When Sethe later demands to know why Paul D is so suspicious of Beloved, he responds that he harbors no ill will toward Beloved, proclaiming, “I never mistreated a woman in my life” (80).

This leads Sethe to wonder about other men she has known, including Halle, who she believes abandoned her a long time ago. Paul D reveals that Halle was hiding in the barn when the schoolteacher’s nephews raped Sethe. Sethe is aghast, repeatedly uttering in disbelief, “He saw?” (81). Her disbelief is followed by anger that Halle did nothing to stop the rape. Paul D tells her, “It broke him” (82). The sight of Sethe being raped destroyed Halle mentally. Paul D tells her that the last time he saw Halle, he was smearing butter on his face, delirious from witnessing Sethe’s violation. When Sethe demands to know why Paul D did not say anything to Halle at the time, Paul D reveals that he had an iron bit in his mouth that prevented him from talking. The “bit” was a painful form of torture and humiliation used to punish enslaved people for perceived disobedience.

He tells Sethe that he tries hard to maintain his sanity, but there are times that broke him, too. For the first time in years, he is able to openly recall his traumatic past. While wearing the bit and being treated like an animal, Paul D remembers encountering Mister, the Sweet Home rooster that Paul D helped hatch, who was able to roam free in the yard. He realized that unlike this animal, “I wasn’t allowed to be and stay what I was […] wasn’t no way I’d ever be Paul D again, living or dead” (86). He also recalls the fates of himself and the other four Sweet Home men: “one crazy, one sold, one missing, one burnt and me licking iron with my hands crossed behind me” (86). When the memory becomes too much for Sethe to bear, she kneads Paul D’s knees as a way to comfort him but also to stop his story for the day.

In her bedroom, Denver watches Beloved dance. She figures out that Beloved is her dead sister returned from the afterlife. She asks Beloved why she came back to the world of the living. Beloved responds that she came back “to see her face” (88), which Denver realizes means their mother. Denver begs Beloved not to reveal her true identity to Sethe, which makes Beloved angry. Beloved stops dancing and demands, “Tell me how Sethe made you in the boat” (90).

Denver recites the story of her birth as it has been told to her. She explains that her brothers and sister were waiting for Sethe at Grandma Baby Suggs’ place. When Sethe escaped from Sweet Home, she was pregnant with Denver, and she ran into Amy, the kind white woman who rubbed her injured feet and placed cobwebs on her newly scarred back to patch the wounds. Amy also helped Sethe fashion shoes out of pieces of shawl and leaves. They walked to the river, where they came across a boat with holes and a single oar. Sethe’s labor pains began, and she crawled into the boat to give birth. As water entered the boat threatening to submerge it, Amy assisted Sethe through labor. Eventually, Sethe successfully gave birth, and the crude canoe made it to shore. Amy told Sethe she had to go, as she could not be seen with a fugitive enslaved woman. Amy said that if the baby should ever ask who helped bring her into the world, Sethe should say, “Miss Amy Denver. Of Boston” (100).