Beloved

1
Beloved

• Pages 60-86

2
The Appearance of Beloved

• A FULLY DRESSED woman walked out of the water
  (60)
• Physically, she appears as a woman.
• Is she a woman emotionally?
• Is she a woman mentally?

3
The Appearance of Beloved

• Everything hurt but her lungs most of all. (60)
• Anything dead coming back to life hurts. (42)
• Coming back to life?
• Resurrection?

4
The Appearance of Beloved

• She had new skin, lineless and smooth, including
  the knuckles of her hands. (61)
• and Here Boy nowhere in sight. (61)
• Runs away?
• Aware of who Beloved is?
• He wont be back, said Denver I just know.
  (66)

5
Sethes Reaction

• Sethes bladder filled to capacitythe water she
  voided was endlessmore like flooding the boat
  when Denver was bornBut there was no stopping
  water breaking from a breaking womb and there was
  no stopping now. (61)
• Birth Imagery

6
Sethes Reaction

• Water Imagery
• Beloved comes out of the water
• Sethes water breaks
• Beloved is constantly drinking water
• Significance?

7
Beloveds Illness

• Sethe and Paul D think Beloved is sick
• Denvers Reaction
• Shes not sick! said Denver, and the passion
  in her voice made them smile. (64)
• Denver tended her, watched her sound sleep,
  listened to her labored breathing and, out of a
  love and a breakneck possessiveness that charged
  her, hid like a personal blemish Beloveds
  incontinence. (64)

8
Beloveds Illness

• Diction
• Possessiveness
• Ownership?
• Companionship?
• Leave us alone, Maam. Im taking care of her.
  (65)

9
Beloved and Sugar

• From that moment and through everything that
  followed, sugar could always be counted on to
  please her. It was as though sweet things were
  what she was born for. (66)
• Significance of sugar?
• Childlike?
• Remember the rag soaked in sugar water.

10
The Environment

• Heavy, murmured Beloved. This place is
  heavy. (65)
• Significance of the word heavy?

11
Odd Behavior?

• Paul Ds Observations
• Something funny bout that galCant walk, but I
  seen her pick up the rocker with one hand. (67)
• Paul D and Denver observed this, but Denver
  denies it.
• Why does Denver lie?

12
Beloved and Sethe

• Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by Beloveds
  eyes. (68)
• Consumed, devoured by Beloved.
• Catching up or making up for lost time?
• The longing she saw there in Beloveds eyes
  was bottomless. (69)

13
Beloved and Sethe

• Shadows
• their two shadows clashed and crossed on the
  ceiling like black swords. (68)
• Recurring images
• This time, presented much differently than three
  shadows holding hands.

14
Beloved and Sethe

• Shadows
• Diction
• Clashed
• Crossed
• Swords
• Influence of diction on tone
• Violent tone
• A battle

15
Beloved and Sethe

• It was as though every afternoon she Beloved
  doubted anew the older womans return. (68)
• Tone
• Childish?

16
Sethes Stories

• Tell me said Beloved, smiling a wide happy
  smile. Tell me your diamonds. (69)
• It became a way to feed her. Just as Denver
  discovered and relied on the delightful effect
  sweet things had on Beloved, Sethe learned the
  profound satisfaction Beloved got from
  storytelling. (69)

17
Sethes Stories

• Sethes Earrings
• Sethes Mother
• Denvers Reaction
• Denver noticed how greedy she Beloved was to
  hear Sethe talk. Now she noticed something more.
  The questions Beloved askedHow did she know?
  (75)

18
Paul D and Beloved

• Paul D wants to know where Beloved came from and
  why she is here now.
• She told me. When I was at the bridge, she told
  me. (77)
• Who is she?
• Sethe thinks it was someone from the old days

19
Paul D and Beloved

• I walked hereA long, long, long, long way.
  Nobody bring me. Nobody help me. (77)
• Long journey explains why she was so tired
• A journey from where?
• Beloved appears when it looks like Paul D, Sethe
  and Denver are acting like a family. (79)
• Trying to stop this?

20
Sethes Fascination

• Well, feel this, why dont you? Feel how it
  feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody
  there not worrying you to death about what you
  got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how that
  feels. And if that dont get it, feel how it
  feels to be a coloredwoman roaming the roads with
  anything God made liable to jump on you. Feel
  that. (80)
• Compassion and Community

21
Halles Story

• Sethe feels as if Halle left her and their
  children
• Halle was in the loft when the boys took Sethes
  milk

22
Halles Story

• Sethes Reaction
• He saw them boys do that to me and let them keep
  on breathing air? He saw? He saw? He saw? (81)

23
Halles Story

• Halles Reaction (via Paul D)
• All I knew was that something broke him. Not a
  one of them years of Saturdays, Sundays and
  nighttime extra never touched him. But whatever
  he saw go on in that barn that day broke him like
  a twigLast time I saw him he was sitting by the
  churn. He had butter all over his face. (81-82)

24
Halles Story

• Conclusions and Consequences
• When the boys took Sethes milk, a man (Halle)
  was broken and a woman (Sethe) persevered.

25
Paul Ds Story

• Pages 82-86
• The bit and Mister
• One crazy, one sold, one missing, one burnt and
  me licking iron with my hands crossed behind me.
  The last of the Sweet Home men. (86)

26
Paul Ds Story

• Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was.
  But I wasnt allowed to be and stay what I was.
  Even if you cooked him youd be cooking a rooster
  named Mister. But wasnt no way Id ever be Paul
  D again, living or dead. Schoolteacher changed
  me. I was something else and that something was
  less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub.
  (86)

27
Sethes Reactions

• Other people went crazy, why couldnt she?(83)
• What a relief to stop it right there. Close.
  Shut. Squeeze the butter. But her three children
  were chewing sugar teat under a blanket on their
  way to Ohio and no butter play would change
  that. (84)
• A mother doesnt have the luxury to go crazy.

28
Sethes Reactions

• Working dough. Working, working dough. Nothing
  better than to start the days serious work of
  beating back the past. (83)