u/thebowedbookshelf

Welcome to the first discussion of this Pulitzer Prize winning book by a Nobel Prize winning author. We have much to go over, so let's get started. Here is the schedule and marginalia if you need them.

TW: >!horrible history and violence of slavery and the trauma that resulted!<

Summary

The spirit of a baby haunts the house where Sethe and Denver live in Ohio in 1873. Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-in-law and Denver's grandmother, died. Sethe's two sons ran away. They try to talk to the spirit, but only the sideboard moves.

Sethe had to barter her body to get the word “Beloved” of “Dearly Beloved” engraved on the headstone on her child's grave.

Paul D visits Sethe for the first time in eighteen years. He feels a red energy from the doorway. He reminded Sethe of their shared past when Sethe ran away while pregnant in 1855. Three of her children were sent ahead. Her husband Halle died, but they can't be certain when. At Sweet Home, the plantation in Kentucky, Mr Garner bragged that his slaves were men and didn't assault women. Halle had bought his mother's freedom, and Sethe chose him as her husband.

Denver never knew her dad and soon tires of Sethe and Paul D always talking of Sweet Home. Sethe tells Denver they're not going to be chased out of their house.

Sethe's milk was stolen, and she was whipped for taking her children away. Paul D kisses the scars on her back, and the floorboards shake. Paul D yells for the ghost to quit it. Sethe and Paul D go upstairs and have sex before they're fully undressed. Both remember when Sethe first met Halle and when Paul D fantasized about her. Sixo walked for thirty miles to see a woman then thirty miles back.

Denver has a hiding place in a circle of boxwoods behind the house. She saw through the window her mom kneeling to pray, and a white dress was kneeling beside her, too.

Denver thinks of her birth story. Sethe was running in the woods of Ohio when she thought she was in labor then collapsed and wanted to die. The voice of a white girl startled her. Amy was the daughter of an indentured servant mother and indentured herself and was running away to Boston to get a velvet dress. Amy said there was a lean-to nearby. Sethe dragged her body and swollen legs over to it, and Amy helped massage her calves and feet.

Denver told her mother what she saw: the white dress and the arm around her waist. Sethe says the past isn't done with them.

The schoolteacher was an in-law of Mrs Garner who took over management of the estate when Mr Garner passed away. He interviewed the people she owned and took notes. Sethe mixed the ink he used.

Paul D survived a prison farm and the Civil War. Sethe was found and caught by schoolteacher but went to jail with baby Denver instead of back to Sweet Home.

At breakfast, Denver asks how long Paul D will be staying. Sethe dismisses her from the table for rudeness. Has Sethe had any other gentlemen callers? No. Isn't Denver too old to be babied? No. If Sethe had to choose between a man and her daughter, she'd pick Denver every time. Well, Paul D will stay for now.

Paul D pays for them to visit a carnival. He had the most fun and made Sethe and Denver feel included amongst the other revelers.

A fully clothed woman emerges from the stream behind the house. She rested all day and night. While they walk home, the woman is waiting on their doorstep. Upon seeing her, Sethe has the overwhelming urge to urinate and doesn't make it to the outhouse. The woman asks for water and drinks four cups full. Her name is Beloved. Paul D knows not to ask where she’s from. So many were displaced by the war, and men were hunted and harmed.

Denver shakes for no reason. Beloved slept in Baby Suggs's bed. They think she's ill with cholera. Denver nurses her for four days and washed the soiled sheets and underwear in secret. The first thing she ate was sugary. She loves sugar in all forms. Paul D doesn't think she's sick. He and Denver saw her lift a rocking chair with one hand. Denver denies seeing it.

Beloved follows Sethe like a lovesick puppy. Sethe is flattered. Beloved gets her to tell stories of the past even though every memory was always painful before. Mrs Garner gave her crystal earrings for a wedding gift. She didn't get her ears pierced or wear them until Denver was a baby. She doesn't have them anymore.

Sethe barely remembers her mother. She had a brand of a circle with a cross inside it on the skin under her breast. Sethe wants one to match. Her mom slaps her at the suggestion. The last Sethe saw of her, she had been hanged. Sethe was closer to Nan, and she told her they were on the same ship to North America. Sethe was the first baby she kept because her father was a black man.

Denver is suspicious of Beloved. She knows details about Sethe that she shouldn't know. What's up with that?

Extras

Cliff's Notes glossary. Beware of spoilers. I typed in “chamomile sap beloved” and the search engine showed me this plus other answers individually.

Please return next week, May 23, for Part 1 Chapters 7 >!Beloved was shining!< to 14 >!rose and fell under her hand!< with u/midasgoldentouch