eBookDigital Original (Digital Original)
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
This short summary and analysis of Beloved by Toni Morrison includes:
- Historical context
- Chapter-by-chapter summaries
- Character analysis
- Themes and symbols
- Fascinating trivia
- Important quotes
- Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
About Beloved by Toni Morrison:
A Nobel laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison weaves a heartbreaking tale of legendary proportions. Set in post–Civil War Ohio, Beloved is the story of an escaped slave haunted by her past. Although Sethe is no longer enslaved, she is not yet free from her memories of the child and husband she buried, of the brutal violence on the plantation she fled, of life and of death, and of everything in between.
Beautiful, unflinching, and profound, Beloved is Morrison’s crowning achievement and is one of America’s greatest novels.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of fiction.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504044059 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Worth Books |
| Publication date: | 03/14/2017 |
| Series: | Smart Summaries |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 30 |
| Sales rank: | 877,815 |
| File size: | 816 KB |
About the Author
Worth Books’ smart summaries get straight to the point and provide essential tools to help you be an informed reader in a busy world, whether you’re browsing for new discoveries, managing your to-read list for work or school, or simply deepening your knowledge. Available for fiction and nonfiction titles, these are the book summaries that are worth your time.
Read an Excerpt
Summary and Analysis of Beloved
Based on the Book by Toni Morrison
By Worth Books
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4405-9
CHAPTER 1
Summary
One
In 1873, the house at 124 Bluestone Road is haunted by the ghost of a dead little girl. Sethe's sons, Howard and Buglar, are scared away by the venom that possesses the address, leaving their mother, Sethe, their younger sister, Denver, and their dying grandmother, Baby Suggs, to deal with the ill-natured house themselves. Baby Suggs says moving away is useless because all houses have the ghosts of Negro grief in them. She dies shortly thereafter, tired of fighting and heartbroken from the death of her grandchild.
Paul D knew Sethe when they were slaves at the Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky in 1855, and after many years, he shows up at her door in Ohio. When Sethe invites him inside, he walks into a red pulsing light, which he immediately identifies as a spirit. A wave of grief washes over him, and he understands that the spirit is more sad than evil. Sethe introduces him to her daughter, Denver, who is 18 years old, and who, unaccustomed to strangers and overwhelmed by his kindness, becomes emotional. Paul D tells the two women about his memory of Sethe when they were young and she was pregnant, telling him of her plans to escape and follow her children who were already on a wagon to freedom. Denver, excited to meet someone who knew her father, Halle, before he went missing, is eager to hear more about him.
Feeling she can say anything to Paul D, Sethe confides in him about the time back in Kentucky when two white boys assaulted her, holding her down and drinking the milk from her breasts. That act broke her heart, but the beating she got for accusing the boys opened up her back, leaving scars that look like a chokecherry tree. Paul D is tender with Sethe, inciting the house to pitch and shake in anger. When the house quiets, Paul D and Sethe make love. He decides to stick around, and the ghost decides to leave. Tired of always guarding against happiness, Sethe wants to let Paul D into their lives. Denver, however, is suspicious. She is close to the ghost baby and she suspects that it's planning something. Paul D's arrival has messed up those plans and has put space between her and the ghost.
One day, a fully dressed woman walks out of the water, sits on a stump near the steps of 124 Bluestone Road, and falls asleep. When Sethe, Denver, and Paul D return from a carnival, they find the exhausted, thirsty, and weak young woman. She tells them her name is Beloved — the word engraved on the headstone of Sethe's dead baby. Denver becomes a devoted caregiver to Beloved and grows quite possessive of her. As the mysterious Beloved gets stronger, Paul D feels increasingly uneasy, though he has no say in the matter: Sethe and Denver like having Beloved around.
Beloved has an insatiable desire to hear stories about Sethe's life and Sethe obliges. But when Beloved brings up "diamond" earrings, Denver is curious: How on earth does the mysterious girl know about the crystal earrings Mrs. Garner, the wife of Sweet Home's owner, gave Sethe as a wedding present back in Kentucky?
Paul D is wary of Beloved. She acts weak, but her skin is glowing and her eyes bright. She claims she walked long and far before arriving at the house at 124 Bluestone Road, but her shoes are new and her skin soft. Worse, he's beginning to notice a "shining" in her: a look of desire and lust directed at him. When Paul D tells Sethe that there's something about the girl that makes him uneasy, Sethe gets angry and protective of her.
Paul D tells Sethe what happened to her husband, Halle. He didn't leave her; he'd gone insane witnessing the two boys assaulting her. He tells her how they knew Halle had gone mad when they found him next to the butter churn, rubbing butter all over his face. Paul D begins his own account of the torture and abuse he suffered, but something stops them both; it's too much to bear, and the past is safer buried where it can't get out.
Beloved admits to Denver that she is her dead sister, though her mood turns mean and sharp when Denver suggests they keep the fact a secret from their mother. Beloved makes it clear that she's here for Sethe, and hints that there might not be enough room for both her and Denver. Eager to soothe Beloved's dark mood, Denver tells her about her birth: how Sethe escaped from the plantation and gave birth in a lean-to with the help of a white girl named Miss Amy Denver. Denver tells the story with embellishments to ensure she keeps Beloved entertained. After helping with the delivery of Sethe's newborn, Amy Denver leaves them alone on the "wrong side" of the river to fend for themselves. Stamp Paid, an agent for the Underground Railroad, finds Sethe and brings her and her baby across the Ohio River to Baby Suggs. Her other children had arrived by wagon some weeks before, safe and sound. The already crawling little girl really loves reaching for Sethe's crystal earrings.
The house at 124 Bluestone Road, before it became a place of chafed spirits, was a happy place. Baby Suggs gave sermons in the Clearing (she was a preacher with a great big heart), but after her grandbaby's slaying, Baby Suggs is never the same. She said it was the bad luck of white folks that changed her.
Understanding that Halle is not coming back, Sethe goes to the Clearing to think. There, she decides she wants Paul D. Lonely and sad for so long, Paul D stirs up dangerous memories, but he is kind and tender, and happiness is worth the pain. She closes her eyes and thinks about Baby Suggs and the times she used to massage Sethe's neck so well. Suddenly, healing hands touch her neck; then they wrap around her throat, choking her. If Denver and Beloved hadn't come along, she would have been dead. At first, Sethe thinks it was Baby Suggs's ghost that was strangling her, but deep down she knows it wasn't. Denver knows it was Beloved.
Back when Denver was around seven years old, she studied with other black children at Lady Jones's house-school. Clever and dedicated, she nevertheless stopped attending classes when a classmate asked about her mother: Did she really kill her baby? And did Denver really live in prison with her? So humiliated and disturbed by the crime, Denver quits school and turns deaf and mute. It isn't until a couple of years later that she speaks again — to the baby ghost. After that, the spirit gets personal and spiteful, eventually driving away Denver's brothers with weird broken mirrors and handprints in a cake.
When Paul D was a slave, he attempted to kill Brandywine, who became his owner after schoolteacher sold him. As punishment, Paul D was made part of a chain gang with 45 other men. All day, they were chained together, and at night, they were locked in coffin-like boxes. One night during a rainstorm, they escaped into a camp of Cherokee, who set them free. These "Buffalo" men tell Paul D to follow the tree blossoms to the Free North. He travels for years, including a 3-year stopover in Delaware with an older weaver woman. By the time Paul D arrives at 124 Bluestone Road, he has locked his dark memories away as if he had a tobacco tin in his chest. Nothing can pry it open. It's safer that way.
Feeling unwelcomed in the bedroom for reasons he can't explain, Paul D starts sleeping in the rocking chair in the kitchen, then in Baby Suggs's old bed, and lastly, in the storeroom. He feels as though the house is repelling him, and he has to fight not to leave Sethe, whom he loves. One night, Beloved comes into the storeroom to seduce him, asking him to touch her "on the inside parts" and call her by her name. He tries to resist, but the spell is too powerful. He says her name as he enters her, then repeats "red heart" over and over again. The rusted-shut tobacco tin in his chest unlocks before he can stop it.
Paul D, stripped of his manhood and full of shame, knows Beloved has hexed him, but he can't break away. He decides to tell Sethe of the ugly liaison, but instead proclaims that he wants them to have a child together. He can feel Beloved's malice toward him when he moves back into Sethe's bedroom.
Back when Denver was a few weeks old, Baby Suggs hosted a party of friends and neighbors at 124 Bluestone Road. The next day, she felt something ominous coming and had a vision of dark high-top shoes — a premonition of the shoes that Beloved wore when she first arrived. That day, 18 years ago, schoolteacher, the new owner of Sweet Home, his nephew, a slave catcher, and the sheriff arrived on horseback to bring Sethe back to Kentucky. When they entered the back shed, they found Sethe dangling her little daughter's dead body. She was holding Denver against her blood-soaked chest while her two boys lay on the ground, injured but alive. Stamp Paid snatched Denver from her arms before she could hurt her, too. Sethe went to jail for murder, taking the infant Denver with her.
Stamp Paid feels Paul D has a right to know what happened. He lets an old newspaper clipping tell the story of how a pretty slave girl went to the shed to kill her children.
Paul D confronts Sethe about that fateful day, but her explanation is dizzying. Sethe says her freedom and that of her children were the things in life she wasn't giving up. She wanted to put her babies where they'd be safe. Paul D can't cope with the ugly truth and walks out.
Two
Stamp Paid has been inside the house at 124 Bluestone Road only once since the Misery (what he called Sethe's violent reaction to Fugitive Bill) and that was to take Baby Suggs's body out. Hearing that Paul D moved out of the house the same day he showed him the newspaper clipping, Stamp Paid feels bad. He's especially worried about Sethe being alone in the house with the return of the hauntings, and so, in honor of Baby Suggs, he decides to visit Sethe and Denver. As he approaches the chattering house, its voices lower but, overcome with fatigue and sadness, he's unable to knock on the door. Over many days, he tries six times, but he fails.
Meanwhile, Sethe is mourning the loss of Paul D, but keeps herself busy with Beloved and Denver. The three women spend a day ice skating, laughing and falling on the ice. When they return to the house to warm up, something inside Sethe clicks: she finally knows for sure that Beloved is her slain daughter. She's happy that her baby isn't mad at her anymore.
Stamp Paid returns and tries again to knock at the door. He thinks he now understands how tired of fighting Baby Suggs must have been — fighting the ghost, for her freedom, for the lives, souls, and hearts of the world. After that miserable, murderous day, Suggs was a broken woman. He's worn out, too. He tries to knock on 124's door once again, but the door doesn't open. Peering though the window, he sees two women in the kitchen: Denver, and someone he doesn't recognize. Stamp asks around town about the new black girl, but no one's heard of her.
For the first time, Sethe is late for work and reprimanded. She was once soft and trusting, but now she is blunt and curt with her boss. In her mind, Sethe rehearses how she'll make Beloved understand the way it was at Sweet Home, and why she killed her. When she returns home for dinner, she locks the door tight behind her.
Denver once swallowed her sister's blood while nursing on her mother's breast. Truth be told, Denver had always been afraid of Sethe, and her brothers were, too. While Denver waited for her daddy's return, the ghost baby was her secret company, that is, until Paul D came and drove it away.
Beloved looked down at Sethe from her place between life and death, the clouds blocking her view. She is a ghost longing and wanting, who sees dead Halle's face with his locked eyes. Halle trembles and leaves his body and goes to full death, but she can't. Under the water, she turns into a human form, walks out of the river, and to the house at 124 Bluestone Road to join Sethe. Her only desire is to see Sethe's smiling face. Now Sethe, Denver, and Beloved know the truth. She came from the other side and she is theirs and they are hers.
Paul D lives in the damp church cellar now. He's taken to drinking liquor to keep warm and numb his mind: plagued by the contents of the tobacco tin making him wish he had died back in Kentucky years ago with his friend and fellow slave Sixo. It pains him to think about Sethe and how she moved him out of a place in which he wanted to take root.
Back at Sweet Home, after Mr. Garner died and Mrs. Garner took to her bed, things got bad. Schoolteacher was not kind like the Garners; he was evil, he beat the slaves mercilessly. The remaining Sweet Home slaves had plotted their escape — Halle, Sethe, their three children, Sixo, Paul D, and Paul A — but everything went wrong. Halle disappeared, then returned crazy, butter all over his face; Paul A disappeared, too, possibly hanged by schoolteacher, his head and feet cut off; Paul D and Sixo were captured, and Sixo was set on fire, then shot; Paul D chained and locked in a cabin, a bit in his mouth. That's when Sethe, nine months pregnant, tells Paul D that she's escaping. He's sad knowing he won't see her again.
Stamp Paid sits on the church steps next to Paul D and they discuss the matter of Sethe and Beloved. Stamp insists that Sethe was doing her best to protect her children, as insane as it sounds. Paul D tells Stamp that there's something not right about Beloved.
Three
The house is quiet. The three women have become too weak from hunger to argue. Before, Sethe, Denver, and Beloved played at everything: cooking, sewing, gardening, doing their hair and clothes. But the mood changed for the worse: Beloved demands, Sethe praises and acquiesces, and Denver is excluded. Sethe is as thin as a rail, but Beloved, though without much food, gets plumper by the day. Beloved is like a parasite, draining Sethe's life force, perhaps as revenge for her death. All that's left to nourish them are two hens; if they both lay an egg, the demanding and tantrum-prone Beloved gets both. Denver's been cut out completely, and it's becoming difficult to tell Beloved and Sethe apart. Desperate, Denver must separate herself from her family to save them, and she goes for help. It has been years since she's left the yard of 124 Bluestone Road, but with Baby Sugg's encouraging words in her head, she steps into the world.
Denver comes upon Lady Jones's house where she'd studied many years ago. Lady Jones invites her in and feeds her. Denver tells her of her mother's "condition," and the next day food starts showing up at the gate of 124 Bluestone Road, donated by women throughout the community. As Denver returns their dishes and thanks them, her world outside the house expands. But as she becomes stronger, her home life deteriorates: It's an insane asylum inside the house. Beloved grows larger, her stomach swelling like she's pregnant, and Sethe gets smaller. She sits all day babbling to Beloved the reason she did what she did. It was out of true love, she says. Beloved refuses to forgive, taking more and more from Sethe.
Denver realizes that to save herself and her mother she needs to find work — another first for her. Through their maid Janey, Denver finds a job helping out Edward Bodwin and his sister, Miss Bodwin, local white abolitionists and the owners of the house at 124. Denver confides in Janey the real reason she needs work: Her dead sister has returned and will not rest until she's killed their mother. The news about Beloved quickly spreads, and the black women in the community band together to help, led by Ella, a leader in the community and a friend of Baby Suggs's and Stamp's.
Denver is waiting for Mr. Bodwin to fetch her for her first day of work when the group of thirty churchwomen come down the road. Curious, she waves. The ladies fall to their knees, praying and singing songs that draw Sethe and Beloved out onto the porch. When Mr. Bodwin pulls into the yard, the sight of his white face sends Sethe, ice pick in hand, running toward him. Afterward, some say Beloved's body exploded right before their eyes, while Denver wrestled her mother to the ground, saving Mr. Bodwin from getting a blade thrust through his heart.
Some time later, when Paul D sees the 18-year-old dog, Here Boy, asleep inside the yard at 124 Bluestone Road, he knows it's a sign that Beloved's truly gone, because from the moment Beloved arrived, the dog was nowhere to be found.
One evening, Denver crosses paths with Paul D, and he asks about her family's well-being. Denver is doing well; Miss Bodwin is teaching her, hoping to send her to college, but Sethe is destroyed. Denver thinks she's lost her mother to madness, but Paul D is welcome to visit her if he promises to be careful of what he says. Their conversation is cut short when a young man, whom Denver obviously likes, joins them.
Paul D escaped from slavery and was captured five times. He thinks about the battles fought, the miles walked, and the freedom won. He walks into 124's empty quiet space, where a red shaft of light once bathed him in terror and grief. Now there is nothingness. He sits at the kitchen table and hears singing in the keeping room. It's Sethe lying in Baby Suggs's bed. He's afraid she's planning on dying there, so he tells her he'll take care of her now. He wants to put his story next to hers. But Beloved, her "best thing" has left her, and she's weak and afraid. No, Paul D tells Sethe, she is her own best thing. "Me? Me?" she asks, incredulous, their fingers intertwined.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summary and Analysis of Beloved by Worth Books. Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Context,Overview,
Cast of Characters,
Summary,
Character Analysis,
Themes and Symbols,
Author's Style,
Direct Quotes and Analysis,
Trivia,
What's That Word?,
Critical Response,
About Toni Morrison,
For Your Information,
Bibliography,
Copyright,