Nelson Lord

Nelson Lord is a boy from Cincinnati, described as being as smart as Denver, with a birthmark like a nickel on his cheek. He appears only a few times in the novel, yet his actions have profound and lasting consequences for Denver and, through her, for the entire household at 124 Bluestone Road. He is the catalyst for Denver's traumatic withdrawal from the world and, years later, for her courageous re-entry into it.

The Question That Silenced Denver

When Denver was seven years old, she attended a small, informal school run by Lady Jones in her parlor, where she learned to spell and count alongside other colored children. She was so happy there that she did not notice her classmates avoiding her, making excuses to not walk with her. It was Nelson Lord, the boy as smart as she was, who put a stop to her schooling. He asked her a question about her mother that, as the narrative states, "put chalk, the little i and all the rest that those afternoons held, out of reach forever." The question was direct and devastating: "Didn't your mother get locked away for murder? Wasn't you in there with her when she went?" There was no meanness in his face or voice, only curiosity, but the thing that leapt up in Denver when he asked it was a thing that had been lying there all along. She never went back to Lady Jones' house. The second question, about her being in jail with her mother, made it impossible for her to ask Sethe about the first. Instead of seeking an answer, Denver went deaf, a silence so solid that for two years she heard nothing at all, though her eyes gained a strange power. This deafness was only broken when she heard the sound of her dead sister's ghost crawling up the stairs, an event that signaled another shift in the fortunes of the people of 124.

The Memory That Returned

Years later, after Beloved has arrived and the household has descended into a desperate, starving isolation, Denver is forced to act. She has been protecting Beloved from Sethe, then protecting Sethe from Beloved, and finally realizes that if she does not leave the yard, they will all die. She knows of several people from her mother's and grandmother's stories, but personally knows only two: Stamp Paid and Lady Jones. She also remembers Paul D and "that boy who told her about Sethe," but dismisses them as unsuitable. As she stands on the porch, paralyzed by fear of the world beyond, she remembers Baby Suggs' words about there being no defense against whitepeople. It is then that she hears her grandmother's voice, laughing and chiding her: "You mean I never told you nothing about Carolina? About your daddy? You don't remember nothing about how come I walk the way I do and about your mother's feet, not to speak of her back? I never told you all that? Is that why you can't walk down the steps?" This imagined rebuke, which implicitly contrasts her grandmother's stories with the single, traumatic question from Nelson Lord, gives Denver the push she needs to step off the porch and into the world.

The Word That Opened Her Mind

Denver's journey outward is a success. She finds work and support, and the community begins to leave food for her. It is during this time of newfound independence that she encounters Nelson Lord again. She is on her way to pay a thank-you visit for half a pie when she meets him leaving his grandmother's house. This time, he does not ask a terrible question. He simply smiles and says, "Take care of yourself, Denver." Denver hears it as though it were what language was made for. The last time he spoke to her, his words had blocked up her ears; now they opened her mind. This simple, kind greeting, a stark contrast to his earlier thoughtless curiosity, marks a turning point. It is after this encounter that Denver begins to plot her next steps, deciding to seek help from the Bodwins, and it solidifies her new sense of having a self to look out for and preserve. Nelson Lord's two brief appearances thus bookend Denver's long period of silence and fear, his first words causing her withdrawal and his last words helping to initiate her return to life.