Denver's Journey out of Solitude

Follows Denver from a lonely, deaf girl in a haunted house to the young woman who steps off the porch, seeks help, and finds her own life.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Charmed Birth

A Charmed Birth Born in a Boat Denver is born in a stolen rowboat on the Ohio River, helped into the world by Amy Denver. Sethe believes she is charmed, protected, saved all the time, because she pulled a white girl out of the hill when her mother was dying. The Baby Who Crawled Already The crawling-already? girl grows up in 124 under the shadow of Baby Suggs's love and the ghost of the sister she never knew. Her birth story is the one thing that makes her feel real. The Nickname of the World Denver's name itself is a gift from a stranger, and it carries the story of deliverance everywhere she goes.

The Silent Years

The Silent Years A Terrible Question At Lady Jones's house-school, a boy named Nelson Lord asks Denver if her mother was locked up for murder. The question strikes a buried terror, and Denver goes deaf for two years, hearing nothing but the sound of her own breathing. The World of the Deaf She sees everything with terrible clarity—the sparrow's nostrils, the movement of lips—but words are sealed off. She does not ask Sethe about it, afraid of what the answer will do to her. The Ghost Becomes Company In her silence, the baby ghost becomes her companion. It is the only presence that does not demand words, and Denver begins to love it with the love she cannot give to any living person.

The Emerald Closet

The Emerald Closet A Room of Leaves Denver discovers a ring of five boxwood bushes that forms a green room seven feet high. She crawls inside, drenched in cologne stolen from her mother, and makes it her secret house. There she imagines a world where she is not lonely. The Place of Self Inside the emerald closet, Denver's imagination produces its own hunger and its own food. It is the only place where she feels ripe and clear, where salvation is as easy as a wish. The World Outside The closet is her refuge from her brothers' flight, her grandmother's death, and her mother's haunted grief. It is a womb she does not want to leave.

Stepping Off the Porch

Stepping Off the Porch The Decision to Leave With Sethe and Beloved locked in a violent embrace, Denver realizes she is the only one who can save them. She leaves the yard, wrapped in a loud carnival dress, and walks into the world she has always feared. The Road and the People The streets are smaller than she remembered, the people kinder than she expected. She reaches Lady Jones's house and asks for work; what she receives is food, tea, and the first help. The Birth of a Self Lady Jones says, "Oh, baby," and Denver does not know it, but that moment inaugurates her life as a woman. She begins to have a self to look out for and preserve.

The Paid Work and the Open Door

The Paid Work and the Open Door Working at the Bodwins Through Janey Wagon, Denver secures night work at the Bodwins' house. Miss Bodwin begins to teach her reading and book stuff, and tells her she might go to Oberlin. The experiment begins. A New Respect The community sees Denver in a different light. Stamp Paid calls her his heart, and Nelson Lord tells her to take care of herself. She meets the world with steady eyes and a smile that no longer sneers. She Turns Out Fine Paul D sees Denver on the street, thinner and steady in the eyes, looking more like Halle than ever. She has become the bridge between her mother's haunted past and a possible future.

before the novel opens, at the Ohio River

after Nelson Lord's question, age seven to nine

her early teens, before Paul D arrives

the spring when Sethe and Beloved are starving

late summer, after the exorcism