Beloved Family Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

Mother. Father. Didn't remember the one. Never saw the other. He was the youngest of three half-brothers (same mother—different fathers) sold to Garner and kept there, forbidden to leave the farm, for twenty years. Once, in Maryland, he met four families of slaves who had all been together for a hundred years: great-grands, grands, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, children. Half white, part white, all black, mixed with Indian. He watched them with awe and envy, and each time he discovered large families of black people he made them identify over and over who each was, what relation, who, in fact, belonged to who.

"That there's my auntie. This here's her boy. Yonder is my pap's cousin. My ma'am was married twice—this my half-sister and these her two children. Now my wife…" (24.2-3)

Think of this passage—of Paul D recollecting his "family" life—in relation to Sethe's take on family. The two characters seem so different to us when it comes to the whole family thing, don't you think?