Beloved's Return and Vanishing

Charts the ambiguous being who calls herself Beloved from her mysterious birth from the water to her hungry possession of Sethe and her final erasure.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

The Woman out of the Water

The Woman out of the Water An Impossible Arrival A fully dressed woman walks out of the stream behind 124, exhausted and smiling, with new skin and no lines in her palms. She cannot say where she comes from, only that she has walked a long way. They take her in. The Name Beloved She spells her name slowly, as if she has memorized letters rather than learned them. The name is the same one carved on Sethe's baby's headstone, and it strikes all three hearers with a shock of recognition. The Flesh of the Ghost Beloved is at once a stray Negro woman, a returned daughter, and something older and more terrible. Her body is new, but her memory is ancient and full of water, darkness, and the smell of dead men.

Devotion and Hunger

Devotion and Hunger A Zealot's Adoration Beloved watches Sethe with an intensity that is both flattering and frightening. She rises before dawn to be near her, walks down Bluestone Road to meet her after work, and cannot take her eyes off Sethe's face. Sethe is pleased by the devotion, as a teacher is pleased by a zealous pupil. Feeding on Stories Beloved asks Sethe to tell her about the earrings, the diamond, the days at Sweet Home. For the first time, Sethe finds pleasure in telling the unspeakable, because Beloved's hunger for the past is bottomless. A Deeper Need The stories, the sugar, and the attention are never enough. Beloved is not just a returned daughter; she is a bottomless need, and Sethe begins to pour herself into her as into a well.

Recognition and Dread

Recognition and Dread The Song After an evening of ice skating and warm milk, Beloved hums a song that Sethe made up and sang only to her children. Sethe realizes that no one else could know that song. The click of certainty locks into place: Beloved is the daughter she killed. The Scars and the Smile Denver has seen the tiny scar under Beloved's chin from the beginning, a curved shadow of a smile. Once Sethe sees it, the two are locked together in a private history that excludes everyone else. The Beginning of the End Recognition does not bring peace. It brings obligation, guilt, and a love that is too thick. Sethe resolves to explain, to make Beloved understand why she cut her throat, but the explanation becomes a confession that never satisfies.

The Possession

The Possession The Growing Belly Beloved begins to swell, though whether with child or with Sethe's life no one can say. Sethe grows thinner and weaker, giving Beloved the best of everything: the first chair, the biggest piece, the prettiest plate. Her own flesh disappears. The Demands Beloved's desires become arbitrary and endless. She demands stories, apologies, and proof of love. When Sethe tries to assert any authority, Beloved breaks windows and throws salt. Sethe, desperate to atone, yields every time. A Doomsday Truce Denver watches her mother shrink and knows the only way to save them all is to leave the yard and ask for help. The possession has become a starvation, and the house is filled with the sound of two women devouring each other.

Disappearance and Forgetting

Disappearance and Forgetting The community women's singing breaks over the house. Beloved stands on the porch, naked and smiling, and then Sethe runs at Edward Bodwin with an ice pick. In the scuffle Beloved vanishes; one minute she is there, the next she is gone. The Erasure The women who saw her quickly forget her, and even those who lived with her find they cannot repeat a single thing she said. Paul D knows she is gone when he sees the dog Here Boy asleep by the pump. 124 becomes just another weathered house. Weather and Silence Beloved's footprints come and go down by the stream, and then all trace is gone. What is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too. The story becomes wind in the eaves and spring ice thawing too quickly—a memory that refuses to become a narrative.

the day after the carnival

the first months of Beloved's residence at 124

the winter evening after ice skating and the song

spring through summer, as Sethe loses her job

at the exorcism, high summer