Beloved

When Paul D shows Sethe the news clipping that Stamp Paid gave to him, Sethe spins in a circle and rambles about the day the schoolteacher came with his men. Paul D wants to believe that the newspaper clipping is a joke. However, when Sethe confirms that the events in the article are true, Paul D is frightened and realizes that the Sethe he sees before him is not the girl he knew back at Sweet Home. When he asks her why she killed her own child, Sethe responds assertively, “I took and put my babies where they’d be safe” (193). Her confident response scares him. He tells her that what she did was wrong, but she claims that a life of slavery for her children would be far worse. Paul D insists that there is some other way. He insults her by saying, “You’ve got two feet, Sethe, not four” (194). The cruelty of comparing her to an animal forms an emotional barrier between them. Paul D sees Beloved listening from the stairs. He leaves with a flimsy promise of returning, but Sethe knows that he does not intend to come back.

This chapter moves between Stamp Paid’s perspective narrated in third person and Sethe’s address to Beloved in first person. At the beginning of the chapter, Stamp Paid goes to 124 with the intention of making amends with Sethe after revealing her traumatic story to Paul D. He feels an obligation “to make right what he may have done wrong to Baby Suggs’ kin” (202). He suspects that the town of Black people turning on Sethe after she killed her daughter is one of the main causes of Baby Suggs’s death. When he reaches 124, he loses his will and goes away. He tries to knock on the door of 124 in the days after but leaves each time.

A series of events contribute to Stamp Paid finally gaining the courage to knock on the door of 124. One of these events occurs when he runs into Ella, one of the townspeople. Hearing her disparage Sethe’s actions, claiming that Sethe was the one who abandoned Paul D, Stamp Paid is dismayed by how the Black people of the town have neglected to care for one another in a time of need. Meanwhile, Paul D has taken residence in the cellar of a nearby church, having nowhere else to go. Stamp Paid tells Ella that he is responsible for Paul D’s departure from 124. This surprises Ella, who assumed that Paul D had known Sethe’s whole story and agreed with her actions. She passed judgment on Paul D and was reluctant to reach out to help him due to these assumptions.

Later, Stamp Paid finds a ribbon with a bit of hair attached to it stuck on the bottom of his boat. Considering its symbolic qualities, he believes the ribbon is a sign of the many people he helped escape to freedom before the Civil War. He holds on to this ribbon as a reminder of his commitment to his community.

By the end of the chapter, the growing callousness of his community and his desire to do better for its suffering members convinces Stamp Paid to finally knock on the door of 124. While he spies the backs of Denver and Beloved in the window of the house, no one answers him. The house seems to be surrounded by haunted voices obscuring the sound of his knocking.

Meanwhile, Sethe copes with Paul D’s departure by taking Denver and Beloved ice skating. Since there are more people in her home than there are skates, Sethe, Denver, and Beloved take turns with the skates on the ice. When they return home to warm themselves by the fire, Beloved hums a song that Sethe used to sing to her dead daughter. Sethe is startled and says, “Nobody knows that song but me and my children” (207). Beloved states plainly, “I know it” (207). Sethe realizes that Beloved is her dead daughter come back to life and is relieved to learn that Beloved is not mad at Sethe for killing her. The next day, Sethe is late to work for the first time in 16 years, drowsy from the previous night’s realization.

Sethe tries to indirectly express to Beloved the reasons behind her impulsive act and the tensions leading up to it. She recalls the early days when the schoolteacher had just taken over Sweet Home. The schoolteacher was a practitioner of eugenics, studying the Black people at Sweet Home as part of his research on race and biology. He also effected changes that made it even more difficult for Sethe and Halle to gain their freedom. For instance, the schoolteacher forbade Halle from working outside Sweet Home to earn money on the side. Halle’s paid labor had enabled him to buy his mother’s freedom. After the schoolteacher’s new rule on the matter, Halle realized he could not do the same with his wife or children. Halle said to Sethe one night, “If all my labor is Sweet Home, including the extra, what I got left to sell?” (232). When Sethe recalls this realization, she is devastated. The memories propel her to return home after work and lock the door behind her.