Beloved Beloved Quotes

Here's a tip to reading this passage: imagine yourself in Beloved's place, recalling what it feels like to bask in the warmth of a mother's love. Time seems to not matter because everything is in the moment (could that be why there are no periods?). Oh, and one other thing: "now we can join a hot thing" might be a reference to breastfeeding, especially since the ability to nurse one's own child is such a huge deal in Beloved.

Here are all three of our girls—Sethe, Denver, and Beloved—speaking all at once and in turns. It seems like, to them, loving all about possessing the other person and claiming the other person. Question: Is there a difference between a possessive love and a claiming love?

We have to admit, we feel bad for Beloved. All this sympathy and pity we feel? Morrison's setting us up for the final moment, the last line of the book: "Beloved." In other words, Morrison wants us—the readers—to remember Beloved. Someone should, right?

Here's our take on this somewhat baffling passage. Beloved is thinking about how she's lost her mother three times. But wait. The three times she lists couldn't have all occurred in hers or Sethe's lifetime (if we consider these "memories" as actual events and not something dreamed up by Beloved).

How do we know this? Well, that part about the sea is a reference to the Middle Passage, which most likely occurred at least a good 50 years before the time of Sethe and Beloved.

So how about this? What if Beloved's mother isn't just Sethe, but other mothers "Beloved" has had? We're not talking about reincarnation here; we're thinking that Morrison wants us to think about why history seems to repeat itself over and over again.

It seems kind of weird that Beloved knows to ask about diamonds. But just to play devil's advocate: Morrison does leave some room for error on Beloved's part—after all, Beloved mentions diamonds, but Sethe only had crystal earrings. So it's possible that Beloved isn't who you think she is (i.e., the baby ghost). Denver may be remembering things in a way that seems pretty (over)dramatic, but it kind of works. Because time and memory are so jumbled together in Sethe's and Denver's world, maybe Beloved did know all these things before Sethe told the girls about them. You've got to wonder though…

Despite what it may seem, this isn't a scene out of the (slave) past; it's a sign of what's coming: an exorcism of the past, Beloved, and the memory of slavery. But because Beloved is of the past, she can only view things from that perspective.