I think that the pivotal scene of the novel” Beloved” is the scene that Sethe was holding her dead daughter to her chest with on hand and holding the heels of Denver on the other to swing to the wall of the shed. The two boys were lying in the dirt at the feet of Sethe and soaking with blood. This scene was happened when the schoolteacher, one of his nephew, slave catcher and a sheriff came to the house 124 on Bluestone to catch Sethe and her children who escape from the farm of Kentucky. The paragraph is found on page 175 of old edition.
Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding a blood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an infant by the heels in the other. She did not look at them; she simply swung the baby toward the wall planks, missed and tried to connect a second time, when out of nowhere- in the ticking time the men spent staring at what there was to stare the old nigger boy, still mewing, ran through the door behind them and snatched the baby from the arch of its mother’s swing.
I think this scene is pivotal because if the schoolteacher and his nephew were not coming to the house of 124 to catch Sethe and her children. She definitely would not kill her child and the whole novel would be different. She would live her life as others forget her past experience as a slave and might be living happily and freely with her children. If this event hadn’t happened, her two sons probably would not leave her and Denver would have friends and would not isolate herself in the house and the neighbors also would not abandon her and Denver. Baby Suggs was a preacher and was respected by the neighbors for her great heart. But after Baby Suggs died and the dead of Sethe’s daughter, Denver and Sethe seemed to isolate themselves in the house and neighbors seemed to abandon them. Sethe would not also feel guilt for her dead daughter and would not try to fulfill the needs and demand of Beloved that she believes is her daughter who she killed.
