Plot
What does Stamp Paid struggle to do outside 124?
Knock -- he usually doesn’t but this is Baby Sugg’s house and he’s hearing voices
How does Sethe’s idea of family change in this chapter?
Previously trees or bushes have represented comfort -- Denver’s boxwood bushes, Amy Denver sugarcoating things (or denying the truth) by calling Sethe’s scars a chokecherry tree, the trees that Paul D follows north to freedom -- but what does it make Sethe remember in this chapter?
Who is Stamp Paid?
On page 203: “Stamp Paid raised his fist to knock on the door he had never knocked on (because it was always open to or for him) and could never do it. Dispensing with that formality was all the pay he expected from Negroes in his debt.”
Why do you think it was so hard for Stamp Paid to knock on the door of 124?
What does Beloved find prompting Sethe to “lay it all down”?
Ice skates
What does Sethe overhear Mr. Garner talking to his pupils about? How does this further the recurring idea of animals?
Give examples of times where three has been an important number.
Who is Ella and what does she say about Sethe?
On page 205: “Their skirts flew like wings and their skin turned pewter in the cold and dying light. Nobody saw them falling”
What is the significance of the repetition of the phrase “Nobody saw them falling”?
How did Stamp Paid get his name?
Original name was Joshua. Gave up this name when he gave his wife to his master’s son. This sacrifice was so big he felt he had paid all his debts.
Narration plays such a big role in this book and Morrison switches narrators so often, what do you think was the purpose of using first-person narration for the first time here?
Explain the idea of the jungle.
What does Sixo do that results in a beating from schoolteacher? What was his reasoning?
From page 213: “He kept the ribbon; the skin smell nagged him, and his weakened marrow made him dwell on Baby Suggs’ wish to consider what in the world was harmless. He hoped she stuck to blue, yellow, maybe green, and never fixed on red.”
Why does Stamp wish this for her and what do the different colors represent?
What is Stamp Paid holding in his hand and where did he get it? What does it make him think about?
A ribbon that was attached to a bit of human scalp (dead girl) -- he thinks about what kind of person could commit that kind of atrocity
How does the idea of the “definers” and “defined” play out in this chapter?
What does Beloved herself symbolize to Denver and to Sethe?
Describe the character of Mrs. Garner as we see in this chapter.
From pages 218-219: “Ella was unmoved. She had been Baby Sugg’s friend and Sethe’s too till the rough time. Except for a nod at the carnival, she hadn’t given Sethe the time of day.”
Why do you think Ella shows such little compassion or understanding for Sethe even though she too had experienced horrible trauma in her life and thus might understand Sethe’s reasoning?
Why does Sethe steal from work? What does stealing make her remember?
Food, kerosene -- she doesn't like the shame she feels when white people pass and look at her at the store while she’s standing in the outside line
What are some examples of repressed memories in this chapter? Can you think of an example that isn’t an explicitly repressed memory?
Explain the significance of the red ribbon. (starts page 212)
Why was Sethe so happy the day after the ice skating? What had she realized the day before and what was her reaction?
From page 234: “It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared where they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.”
What is this “jungle” and what does this description say about Stamp Paid’s point of view?