“I was about to turn around and keep on my way to where the muslin was, when I heard him say, “No, no.”
“Once Stamp Paid brought you a coat, got the message to you, saved your life, of fixed the cistern he took the liberty of walking in your door as though if were his own”
“Was she vexed by the loss, the free and unasked-for revival of gossip by the man who had helped her cross the river and who was her friend as well as Baby Suggs'”
“Perhaps it was the smile, or maybe the ever-ready love she saw in his eyes–easy and upfront, the way colts, evangelists and children look at you: with love you don’t have to deserve–that made her go ahead and tell him what she had not told Baby Suggs, the only person she felt obligated to explain anything to.”
Noun
Murmuring-a low sound made when many people are speaking
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Sethe was dishing up bread pudding, murmuring her hopes for it, apologizing in advance the way veteran cooks always do , when something in Beloved’s face, some petlike adoration that took hold of her as she looked at Sethe, made Paul d speak.
The narrator used murmuring as her speaking in a soft tone. When I heard murmuring I thought about heart murmur.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murmuring
Verb
Expressionlessness-lacking expression
Beloved by Toni Morrison page 139
Deep down in her dark rown eyes, back behind the expressionlessness, was a palm held out for a penny which Denver would gladly give her, if only she knew how or knew enough abouther, a knowledge not to be had by the answers to the questions Sethe occasionally put to her:’
I figure it was less or lack of expression or emotion I just never knew this was actually a word.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expressionless
adjective
Reluctant – feeling or showing doubt about doing something : not willing or eager to do something
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Sentence– He teased Sethe into tents she was reluctant to enter.” In chapter 4
Shoat:-a young hog and especially one that has been weaned.
Beloved By Toni Morrison on page 190 on the top of the page.
Did you steal that shoat? You stole that shoat.
Schoolteacher was asking Sixto if the animal was stolen. It’s just a different word to describe hog.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shoat
sulk
səlk/
verb
verb: sulk; 3rd person present: sulks; past tense: sulked; past participle: sulked; gerund or present participle: sulking
1. 1.
be silent, morose, and bad-tempered out of annoyance or disappointment.
“he was sulking over the breakup of his band”
synonyms: mope, brood, be sullen, have a long face, be in a bad mood, be in a huff, be grumpy, be moody;
informalbe down in the dumps
“Dad was sulking”
noun
noun: sulk; plural noun: sulks
1. 1.
a period of gloomy and bad-tempered silence stemming from annoyance and resentment.
“she was in a fit of the sulks”
synonyms: (bad) mood, fit of ill humor, fit of pique, pet, huff, (bad) temper; More
Beloved By Toni Morrison Page 142.
…..She kept them alive and they ignored her. Growled when they chose; sulked, explained, demanded, strutted, cowered, cried and provoked each other to the edge of violence, then over. She had begun to notice that even when Beloved was quiet, dreamy, minding her own business, Sethe got her going again…
Word Reused with meaning
…Growled when they chose; bad mood, explained, demanded, strutted, cowered, cried and provoked…
spry
sprī/
adjective
adjective: spry; comparative adjective: spryer; superlative adjective: spryest
(especially of an old person) active; lively.
“he continued to look spry and active well into his eighties”
synonyms: sprightly, lively, agile, nimble, energetic, active, full of energy, full of vim and vigor, vigorous, spirited, animated, vivacious, frisky, peppy
“isn’t Aunt Helen spry for her age?”
Taken from Beloved By Toni Morrison Page 109…
……First she’d be up and spry in the morning and by the second milking she couldn’t stand up. Next she took to sleeping late. The day I went up there she was in bed the whole day, and I thought to carry her some bean soup and ask her then. When I opened the bedroom door she looked at me from underneath her nightcap. Already it was hard to catch life in her eyes……
Word Spry Reused
…First she’d be up and be active in the morning and by the second milking……
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