Quote 1
They were a twosome, saying "Your daddy" and "Sweet Home" in a way that made it clear both belonged to them and not to her. That her own father's absence was not hers. Once the absence had belonged to Grandma Baby—a son, deeply mourned because he was the one who had bought her out of there. Then it was her mother's husband. Now it was this hazelnut stranger's absent friend. Only those who knew him ("knew him well") could claim his absence for themselves. (1.102)
Denver feels left out of Sethe and Paul D's conversation about Halle. Sad, isn't it? Denver was fatherless and lonely before—now it's even worse. Which is why it's so promising that she and Paul D get along at the carnival a few chapters later.
"For a baby she throws a powerful spell," said Denver.
"No more powerful than the way I loved her," Sethe answered and there it was again. The welcoming cool of unchiseled headstones; the one she selected to lean against on tiptoe, her knees wide open as any grave. Pink as a fingernail it was, and sprinkled with glittering chips. Ten minutes, he said. You got ten minutes I'll do it for free. (1.13-14)
Sethe is super easily sucked into the past: all the baby ghost has to do is throw something, and Sethe's thinking about the headstone she got for the baby. Clearly, Sethe's not thinking about the state of the furniture or the house. So which is more powerful: the spell or the love?
Quote 3
To go back to the original hunger was impossible. Luckily for Denver, looking was food enough to last. But to be looked at in turn was beyond appetite; it was breaking through her own skin to a place where hunger hadn't been discovered […]
It was lovely. Not to be stared at, not seen, but being pulled into view by the interested, uncritical eyes of the other […] Denver's skin dissolved under that gaze and became soft and bright like the lisle dress that had its arm around her mother's waist. She floated near but outside her own body, feeling vague and intense at the same time. Needing nothing. Being what there was. (12.1-2)
Denver's pretty obsessed with Beloved. It kind of reminds us of Beloved's obsession with Seth, actually. Is Denver so starved for maternal love that she tries to get it from Beloved instead? Or is it something specific about Beloved that makes her feel that way?
You are my face; I am you. Why did you leave me who am you?
I will never leave you again
Don't ever leave me again
You will never leave me again
You went in the water
I drank your blood
I brought your milk
You forgot to smile
I loved you
You hurt me
You came back to me
You left meI waited for you
You are mine
You are mine
You are mine (23.7-9)
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?
Quote 5
Beloved is my sister. I swallowed her blood right along with my mother's milk. The first thing I heard after not hearing anything was the sound of her crawling up the stairs. She was my secret company until Paul D came. He threw her out. Ever since I was little she was my company and she helped me wait for my daddy. Me and her waited for him. I love my mother but I know she killed one of her own daughters, and tender as she is with me, I'm scared of her because of it. She missed killing my brothers and they knew it. They told me die-witch! stories to show me the way to do it, if ever I needed to. (21.1)
Halle who? Oh, right. You know, we don't get the missing-father angle often in a book that's all about missed mothering opportunities. This is just a reminder of how the father is an even more absent figure in the book.
Quote 6
"Anything dead coming back to life hurts." (3.65)
Leave it to Amy Denver to encapsulate Beloved in seven words. This quotation should leave you with the word foreshadowing flashing in your brain in Broadway-style lights.
"We have a ghost in here," she said, and it worked. They were not a twosome anymore. Her mother left off swinging her feet and being girlish. Memory of Sweet Home dropped away from the eyes of the man she was being girlish for. He looked quickly up the lightning-white stairs behind her.
"So I hear," he said. "But sad, your mama said. Not evil."
"No sir," said Denver, "not evil. But not sad either."
"What then?"
"Rebuked. Lonely and rebuked." (1.103-107)
Denver may be small and ignored, but don't count her out. She's smart enough to manipulate the ghost story for her benefit. And, by the way, we just have to add: Denver has a heckuva vocabulary—"rebuked"? Another sign that she's definitely more than what meets the eye.