Beloved Memory and the Past Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what it is down there. The rest is weather. Not the breath of the disremembered and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves, or spring ice thawing too quickly. Just weather. Certainly no clamor for a kiss.

Beloved. (28.9-10)

Wow. What an ending. All along, Beloved's existence in the book has fostered a bunch of questions: whether she's Sethe's dead baby girl; whether she's evil; whether she still lives on at the end. Morrison now takes all those "whethers" out and replaces it with "just weather"—something simple, factual, natural. Just like Beloved herself—whatever she is.