Beloved Part 2 Chapter 19 - 25

Stamp Paid feels guilty for being the reason for Paul D’s departure, and he decides that he needs to go Sethe. He works up the courage to go to 124, which is something he hasn’t done in a long time, but he can’t bring himself to knock on the house door. Stamp Paid remembers that he had last visited the house to collect Baby Suggs’s body. He remembers how quiet Sethe had been during the funeral, and her refusal to sing with the mourners had upset quite a few of the people in the community. He overhears a loud mix of voices coming from the house, and can only discern the word ‘mine.’ He tries to knock on the door several times but each time he thinks better of it and departs. Sethe feels that Paul D, like the rest of the community, has abandoned her. Beloved finds a pair of skates, and asks Sethe about them. Sethe takes both Beloved, and Denver for skating, and they have a merry time. They return home and have hot milk together in front of a fire. Beloved begins to sing a song, which shocks Sethe since Beloved is singing a unique song that Sethe used to sing for her children.

Stamp Paid goes back to 124 and remembers how he had tried to convince Baby Suggs to continue with her religious services in the Clearing, but Baby Suggs had just wanted to lie in bed and think about colors. She had changed drastically after the incident with Sethe. He approaches the door and hears loud voices, and begins to believe that the sounds belong to the people who had suffered the cruelties of slavery. He decides not to knock on the door once again. The morning after the skating trip, Sethe begins to think that the shadows she had seen holding hands during her trip to the carnival hadn’t represented her future with Paul D but rather they had been about Beloved. After hearing Beloved sing that song, Sethe begins to believe that Beloved is related to her dead baby. She believes that Beloved knows everything about her past, and she recalls how she had slept with the engraver to have her dead child’s tombstone engraved. The man had only etched the words “Beloved.”

Stamp Paid finally works up the courage to knock on the door, but no one answers it. He catches a glimpse of Beloved from the window and informs Ella about the strange woman he had seen at 124. He decides to talk to Paul D about it and learns that the man has been sleeping in the Church Cellar. Sethe returns from the restaurant one evening and takes food for her family. It reminds her of the time Sixo had stolen a pig at Sweet Home and had been severely punished by the Schoolteacher. Sixo had tried to explain that he wasn’t exactly stealing since he would eat the pig and do the farm work all the better, but Schoolteacher had told him that slaves shouldn’t be thinking about defining things but focused on understanding things that had been defined for them. She remembers how Schoolteacher had treated them like cattle, as he counted their teeth and measured their bodies. Sethe once overheard him talking to his nephew, and the two of them were defining Sethe’s animal and human characteristics through a table. She had tried to talk to Halle about Schoolteacher and how he differed from Mr. Garner. Halle had simply stated that he was white and a slave master, just like Mr. Garner. However, Schoolteacher’s cruelty had reached an excess and the slaves at Sweet Home began to plan an escape. Sethe failed to escape but she managed to have her children freed from the clutches of the evil man. Stamp Paid gives up on getting inside 124, as no one answers his knock, and he becomes convinced that the voices he hears from the house belong to angry slaves. He criticizes slave owners for treating slaves like animals, when in fact it was their attitude that drove them to be animals. 

Sethe’s thoughts revolve around Beloved and her belief that she is her dead child. She recalls the hanging of her mother, her escape from sweet home, and the day she had killed her child. She obsesses over how her action had been one of love, as she had sought to protect her children. She had wanted to take them all to the other side, to her mother. After killing the baby, Sethe had wanted to end her own life but she had known that she needed to live on for her other children, and now even her dead child had come back to her. Denver’s thoughts also revolve around Beloved, as she too becomes convinced that she is her sister. Denver feels connected to Beloved because she had drunk her sister’s blood along with her mother’s milk. She thinks about how nice it is to have Beloved, and how it had been to have her brothers since she never wants to be alone. As a child, Denver had been afraid that Sethe would kill her just like her sister, and she had constantly thought of her father, Halle, as the one who would come to save her. She thinks Beloved is hers just like Sethe thinks about Beloved.

Beloved’s thoughts are presented confusingly as there seems to be no concept of time. She thinks obsessively about how Sethe is hers, and the place where she had been before. She recalls being on a slave ship from Africa with several other people, some of them dead, and she had been separated from a ‘she.’ Beloved had then found herself in the water, she had come out of the water, and found Sethe, whom she recognized as the person from whom she had been separated. She believes that they can now be together forever. She recalls a woman that she had been with before the slave ship, and she had seen a face in the water before she had emerged near 124. Beloved believes that Sethe is both the face she saw and the woman she had been separated from. The thoughts of Sethe, Beloved, and Denver mix with one another as Beloved thinks that she came from the other side. Sethe thinks that Beloved is hers and that she is safe. Denver loves Beloved and believes that she came at the time they needed her. Denver also believes that their father will also come to them, and Beloved repeatedly thinks, “You are mine.”

Stamp Paid goes out to see Paul D, who is thinking about his last days as a slave in Sweet Home. He wonders whether Schoolteacher and Mr. Garner had truly been different from one another. He remembers the time the slaves had gotten together to plan an escape when the Schoolteacher’s rule had become too cruel. They had intended to escape together, Sixo, Paul D, the thirty-mile woman who had been with Sixo, and Sethe along with her children. The plan had become complicated when Sethe had become pregnant. However, they had proceeded with their escape plan. It had gone disastrously bad though despite the successful escape of Sixo’s woman and Sethe’s children. Schoolteacher became convinced that Sixo had lost his mind, and decided to burn him alive. Sixo had laughed at the man as he had burned to death.

Paul D had later heard Schoolteacher discuss Paul’s monetary value as a slave. He had brought Paul D back to the farm in chains, and he had then seen that Sethe hadn’t managed to escape, although her children had. He realizes now that the schoolteacher’s nephews had probably taken advantage of her right after that. He recalls the price Schoolteacher had quoted as his value, and wonders about the value of Baby Suggs, Halle, and the others. He remembers that Sixo had been laughing because his woman had escaped and she had been pregnant with his child.

Stamp Paid finds Paul D drinking heavily, and apologizes that he has to sleep in the church. He assures Paul D that someone in their community would willingly offer him a place in their house, but Paul D is not interested in living at anyone’s house. Stamp Paid feels guilty about showing Paul D the news clipping, and he tells the man about his past. Stamp Paid had been a slave called Joshua, but he had changed that name when his master had taken his wife to bed. Stamp Paid had been so angry with his wife that he had wanted to break her neck, but he had satisfied himself by changing his name. He tells Paul D that he had been present on the day when Sethe had killed her child. He explains that it had been an act of love, as she had tried to ‘out-hurt the hurter.’ He then asks Paul D about the woman he had seen at the house, and he learns that no one knows where she came from. Just as Stamp Paid is about to leave, Paul D asks him how much a black man can take, and the man replies that he must take all that he can. Paul D’s only response is to ask why.

Analysis

The novel strongly features the theme of community. The reader sees how Slavery destroys family units, but the slaves can find a sense of belonging in groups outside the traditional structure of a family. The slaves at Sweet Home, support and help each other despite their lack of blood relations as indicated in Sethe and Paul D’s first meeting. The novel shows how slaves were able to bear the cruelties of their masters by turning to one another. This aspect is most evident in Paul D’s memories of being in the chain gang. The slaves of the chain gang were only able to bear the hardships of their situation by singing songs as they worked. Additionally, they only manage to escape from the terrible ordeal by cooperating as a team. Baby Suggs understands the power of the community, and she rallies the community around 124 through the sermons that she delivers in the clearing. Paid Stamp’s account indicates how important the gatherings under Baby Suggs had been since he repeatedly tries to persuade her to return to the clearing.

On the other hand, the community has a negative role in the plot of the novel as well. The community of people around 124 grows jealous of Baby Suggs when she celebrates the reunification of her family. They believe her actions to be prideful and so they fail to warn Sethe about the arrival of the Schoolteacher. It is evident that had the community fulfilled its role, then Sethe wouldn’t have had to murder her child.