Beloved

1
Beloved

• Pages 134-158

2
Paul Ds Move

• Progression
• Sleeps downstairs
• Baby Suggs Room
• Store Room
• Cold House
• he was moving out of 124. (134)

3
Why Does He Move Out?

• Typical Man?
• Runs?
• Beloved
• SHE MOVED HIM. (134)
• he realized the moving was involuntary. He
  wasnt being nervous he was being prevented.
  (136)

4
Paul D and Beloved

• Takes place in Autumn
• dying landscape (136)
• Significance?
• Involuntary action by Paul D
• A spell?

5
Beloved and Sethe

• She dont love me like I love her. I dont love
  nobody but her. (137)
• What differentiates their love?
• Contrast with Paul D
• Doesnt ask Sethe to choose
• Asks Sethe to make room

6
Tobacco Tin

• Nothing in this world could open it
• Beloved (not of this world) opens it
• Paul Ds Reaction
• Red heart. Red heart. Red heart. (138)
• Significance?
• Paul Ds heart is now exposed
• Vulnerable?
• Dangerous?

7
Disremember vs. Rememory

• Disremember
• To suppress
• To bury
• Tobacco Tin?
• Rememory
• To relive an event?
• An event from the past happens again?

8
Present Tense

• Pages 142-146 are written in present tense
• Significance?
• Power of the present for Beloved
• Only timeframe that concerns her
• She wants Sethe now
• Past and future are irrelevant

9
Dont go back. (145)

• In the cold house, Beloved disappears
• Paul D doesnt hear her as she approaches him
• Denver worries Beloved has gone back to the dead

10
Dont go back. (145)

• Beloveds Response
• I dont want that place. This is the place I
  am. (146)
• Rememory of Beloveds death?
• Beloved sees herself at the time of her death?

11
Paul Ds Dilemma

• How to explain to Sethe about his actions with
  Beloved
• Beloveds Spell
• she is doing it to me. Fixing me. Sethe, shes
  fixed me and I cant break it. (149)
• What? A grown man fixed by a girl? But what if
  the girl was not a girl, but something in
  disguise?(149)

12
Paul Ds Dilemma

• he was not man enough to break out, so he
  needed her, Sethe, to help him, to know about it,
  and it shamed him to have to ask the woman he
  wanted to protect to help him do it (149)
• Needs a community to save him
• Cannot do it on his own
• The threads of malice creeping toward him from
  Beloveds side of the table were held harmless in
  the warmth of Sethes smile. (154)

13
Sethes Reaction

• Sethe looked at him steadily, calmly, already to
  accept, release or excuse an in-need-or-trouble
  man. Agreeing, saying okay, all right, in
  advance, because she didnt believe any of
  themover the long haulcould measure up. And
  whatever the reason, it was all right. No fault.
  Nobodys fault. (151)
• Why this reaction?

14
Beloveds Transformation

• Childhood Imagery and Diction?
• Beloved sat sucking her forefinger. (157)
• Make him go away. (157)
• Beloved pulls out a tooth
• Baby tooth?
• Becoming an adult?

15
Beloveds Transformation

• Falling Apart
• It is difficult keeping her head on her neck,
  her legs attached to her hips when she is by
  herselfShe had two dreams exploding, and being
  swallowed. When her tooth came outan odd
  fragment, last in the rowshe thought it was
  starting. (157)

16
Beloveds Transformation

• Falling Apart
• Denver asks If it hurts, why dont you cry?
  (158)
• Beloveds ignorance?
• Beloveds innocence?

17
Beloveds Transformation

• Natures Reaction
• The couple upstairs, united, didnt hear a
  sound, but below them, outside, all around 124
  the snow went on and on and on. Piling itself,
  burying itself. Higher. Deeper. (158)
• Trapped?
• Jailed?
• What is trapping them?