Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved covers many different scenes and spans many different places and time periods. This differentiation makes the novel diverse and eclectic and keeps the reader’s mind busy focusing on multiple scenarios. I believe a pivotal passage that would change the path of the whole novel if it had not happened is when Baby Suggs gets her freedom and moves to Cincinnati and (with help from the Bodwin siblings) begins work repairing shoes and taking in laundry in her very own house. Many events in the work follow Baby Suggs’ freedom, such as Garner’ death and the subsequent worsening of conditions at Sweet Home, and it is because Baby Suggs is free and has a house that Sethe can envision a place for her family to live together in freedom when she and the Sweet Home boys are thinking about escaping. Eliminating this passage would raise questions about the fate of many of the book’s characters, but most importantly we wonder, would Baby Suggs be free? If yes, would she move to Cincinnati? This scene and its effects are important in the novel, and many events following Baby Suggs’ freedom and her move to Cincinnati are relying on this particular scene.
The scene when Baby Suggs gets her freedom, drives to Cincinnati with Garner and buys a house is a brief and exciting one and can be noticed from the reading and has a lot of themes from the novel. Like many scenes from the novel this one was not clearly told, and many Beloved scenes require special attention to conclude what really happened and how it relates to the rest of the scenes. Making this kind of connection between passages necessitates a talent of creativity, originality and inventiveness.
Halle has worked so hard and has put extra effort by working the week-ends to buy his mother’s freedom. In return, Baby Suggs wishes he and the rest of her family can be free and all together- using Baby Suggs’ voice Morrison mentions that “At the back of Baby Suggs’ mind may have been the thought that if Halle made it, God do what He would, it would be a cause for celebration. If only this final son could do for himself what he had done for her and for the three children John and Ella delivered to her door one summer night.” (Morrison, 159) Baby Suggs is so grateful and thankful to her son Halle and wishes the best life for her son because of what he did for her. From this quote it is obvious that Baby Suggs’ gratefulness to her son Halle is because of the freedom he gave to her. At this point I thought about a related pivotal scene that is pretty similar and so close to Baby Suggs’ freedom. What if Halle didn’t work hard to make enough money for his mother’s freedom? What if he couldn’t afford for her freedom? Answering these questions implies a major path change of the novel and many scenes would have been eliminated if Halle hadn’t have worked on his mother’s freedom.
Baby suggs crosses to Cincinnati with Mr Garner. The author describes the scene when they have gotten to the river and says ‘This is a city of water,” said Mr. Garner. “Everything travels by water and what the rivers can’t carry the canals take. A queen of a city, Jenny. Everything you ever dreamed of, they make it right here. Iron stoves, buttons, ships, shirts, hairbrushes, paint, steam engines, books. A sewer system make your eyes bug out. Oh, this is a city, all right. If you have to live in a city–this is it.’ (Morrison, 168) Mr Garner mentions the water which represents life and freedom. He describes to Baby Suggs the importance of what she is about to experience. She experiences and tastes the freedom for the first time. Morrison also mentions “And when she stepped foot on free ground she could not believe that Halle knew what she didn’t; that Halle, who had never drawn one free breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this world. It scared her. Something’s the matter. What’s the matter? What’s the matter? she asked herself. She didn’t know what she looked like and was not curious. But suddenly she saw her hands and thought with a clarity as simple as it was dazzling, “These hands belong to me. These my hands.” Next she felt a knocking in her chest and discovered something else new: her own heartbeat. Had it been there all along? This pounding thing? She felt like a fool and began to laugh out loud.” (Morrison, 166) the author describes the Baby Suggs impression and her remembrance of her son Halle who was part to get her freedom. Baby Suggs at this point realizes that she is free and she owns her body, her hands and her emotions. She was happy and full of joy. She had thoughts about the rest of her family and wishes one day everyone would have a taste of freedom.
When Baby Suggs gets her freedom and moved to Cincinnati, she works as a cobbler and takes in laundry. Baby Suggs’ moving triggered many scenes and provoked an intention to others to escape and move to Cincinnati where she had her own house. Sethe and Halle eventually had two sons and a daughter. Garner, the husband slave owner, dies, and his brother, a schoolteacher, comes to run the plantation. Garner’s brother is extremely cruel. He brings two young white boys with him. One day when Sethe was walking outside the room where the schoolteacher teaches the young boys and they take measurements of her body- she discovers they are measuring her like she is an animal and is upset that they do not see her as a human. Sethe is pregnant with another daughter when she decides to run away from the plantation and escape for freedom with her husband, the three kids, and her husband’s three brothers. This scene is highly related to Baby Suggs moving to Cincinnati and this is how Sethe had the idea and the consideration to escape from Kentucky and head to Ohio to 124 house.
When Sethe has the chance she sends the kids in a wagon to Baby Suggs’ house first- and here the schoolteacher discovers the plan to escape. The adults are all horribly punished for trying to run away, but Sethe never gives up trying to escape with her kids. She succeeds- though the children arrived before Sethe and her new baby. When the kids arrive to Cincinnati Baby Suggs has a complex feeling which is a mixture of happiness and sadness, the author describes her feeling by saying that “When the children arrived and no Sethe, she was afraid and grateful.” (Morrison, 159) Baby Suggs was happy for the kids but so afraid to not have Sethe with her and the kids.
In the novel Sethe’s freedom follows Baby Suggs’ freedom. Suppose Baby Suggs’s never moved and never felt the unexpected job of being free. Perhaps Sethe would not be motivated to escape and not necessarily get her freedom and move to Cincinnati to join Baby Suggs. Even if she did, it there would be much more of a challenge in making a home in a free without Baby Suggs help and without offering her house as a home and refuge.
Finally, the scene of Baby Suggs freedom and her move to Cincinnati is a very important step in the novel and it is a crucial event in the story. If the scene had never happened, a major change would be imposed to the following scenes. The pattern of the events might have happened but the novel would serve a different meaning than the actual one. For example, if Sethe had settled her family in a city that was farther away from Kentucky than Cincinnati, the schoolteacher and slave catcher might not have been able to find them and Sethe might not have been driven to kill her own baby. Not being able to follow Baby Suggs’s freedom and her move to Cincinnati might not have prevented Sethe and her kids from gaining freedom. But I would suggest that it would’ve been done in a different manner and the course of events would be other than what was mentioned in the novel.

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In the novel “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, each character faces their own hardship and struggles to get to the point where they are at. There are many moments in the story that can impact the story in a major way, it would change how each character would live. One of these moments that would majorly impact how the story would be written is when the schoolteacher comes into the Garner house after Mr. Garner had passed away.

After the schoolteacher comes into the Garner house, he brings his two nephews with him and soon after they steal Sethe’s milk. We learn of that when Sethe is talking about it with Paul D years after it had happen.

“…The milk would be there and I would be there with it.” “Men don’t know nothing much,” said Paul D, tucking his pouch back into his vest pocket, “but they do know a suckling can’t be away from its mother for long.” “Then they know what it’s like to send your children off when your breasts are full.” “We was talking ’bout a tree, Sethe.” “After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk. That’s what they came in there for. Held me down and took it. I told Mrs. Garner on em. She had that lump and couldn’t speak but her eyes rolled out tears. Them boys found out I told on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still.” “They used cowhide on you?” “And they took my milk.” “They beat you and you was pregnant?” “And they took my milk!”

In this scene Sethe is talking to Paul D while she is making dough and Sethe starts talking about how important it was for her to give milk to her daughter Denver. Then she goes back into time to explain to Paul D what had happen to her when the schoolteacher came into the Garner house with his nephews. Sethe tells Paul D that she was taken to a barn with the schoolteacher and the two nephews where they held her down and raped her there.

This scene is important because it starts a big spiral of misfortune for Sethe for many years to come. After this happens to Sethe, she starts to lose many things that are important to her and this kind of thing that happen to her in such an early age would have effect on her and those around her. This would not have happened if the schoolteacher did not come into the Garner house and took advantage of the fact that he was in control over those that lived there.

Soon after this happen another impactful scene would appear in front of Sethe. The schoolteacher tried to take Sethe and her children to be taken as slaves. Sethe would respond to this by trying to kill her children, so that they would not have to live being a slave.

“…Right off it was clear, to schoolteacher especially, that there was nothing there to claim. The three (now four—because she’d had the one coming when she cut) pickaninnies they had hoped were alive and well enough to take back to Kentucky, take back and raise properly to do the work Sweet Home desperately needed, were not.”

In this scene Sethe was able to see the schoolteacher before the schoolteacher saw her and quickly gather her children into the barn. In the barn Sethe decided that it was better for her children to die then face the life of living as slaves. The schoolteacher finds Sethe in the barn after she had killed one of her children, while the other three had escaped and he quickly notices what Sethe had done. The schoolteacher could not take Sethe as a slave after noticing what she had done to her children because she was sick.

This scene is important because after experiencing being raped by the schoolteacher’s nephew Sethe yet again was faced with another hardship. To have to pick whether you like your children live as slaves or kill them so that they wouldn’t have to experience it, that is something that not one person would want to do. Sethe having to make this choice just tells how much her children were part of her life and the value they represent. If the schoolteacher never came into the Garner house, Sethe would have been living with her children in a peaceful life instead of having to make the choice of whether killing her children or letting them live as slaves.

After having to live with all this that happen to Sethe, the moment when she learned that her husband Halle, whom lived with her at the Garners did not abandon was an emotional moment for her.

“There is also my husband squatting by the churn smearing the butter as well as its clabber all over his face because the milk they took is on his mind [. . . ] I don’t want to know or have to remember that. I have other things to do: worry , for example, about tomorrow , about Denver, about Beloved , about age and sickness not to speak of love.”

In this scene Paul D tells Sethe about her husband Halle who she thought abandon her when they lived at the Garner house. Sethe learns that Halle did not abandon her, but that Halle went crazy because he was in the barn when Sethe was raped by the schoolteacher’s nephews.

This scene is important because Sethe thought the entire time that her husband abandoned her. Sethe was worried about Halle a lot because she did not know what had happen to her since she never got to see him. When she learned that he went crazy because of what he saw, she could come to the fact that Halle did not survive after seeing what had happen to her and did not blame him anymore for not being able to save their children. It also let a lot of burden off her mind because she did not have to think about what condition Halle was in anymore. Sethe also realizes that instead of letting out her emotions, she had been living with them all the time all stuffed up inside of her.

If the schoolteacher had never came into the Garner house after Mr. Garner had passed away these moments would have never happen to Sethe. Not getting her milk stolen would have never scarred or would have it have made Halle go crazy. Sethe would also never would have been presented with the choice of killing her children or letting them be sold as slaves. The schoolteacher not coming into the house would have changed a lot of what the story would have become.

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In the story “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison, there are many outstanding moments that are important to the information the author wished to convey.  However, the most pivotal moment in the novel is the killing of Sethe’s first daughter.  Had this moment not occurred the main idea of the plot could not be developed.  Also, the title would most likely be different.  This is because the title “Beloved,” is the name the dead baby acquired after her reincarnation.

As the story progressed readers know and understand the dead baby is Sethe’s child but are not readily given information as to how the baby died.  On page 92 of my reading the narrator gave an indication of the events that led to the killing of the baby as stated by Sethe, when she tried to give her boyfriend, Paul D, what she thought was a logical explanation for killing her baby.  The narrator stated, “simple: she was squatting in the garden and when she saw them coming and recognized Schoolteacher’s hat, she heard wings.  Little hummingbirds stuck there needle beaks right through her head cloth into her hair and beat their wings.  And if she thought anything, it was No. No. Nonono. Simple. she just flew Collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. ….By the time she faced him [Schoolteacher], looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks.  He took a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there was none.”

It was accidentally that Sethe happen to see Schoolteacher before he saw her.  Because she was sitting or bending down in the garden she was able to see his hat floating above the fence as he approached the house.  Bells went off in her head she did not need a visual of his body.  She could never mistake the man who had beat her so badly before she escaped.  She knew his presence meant only one thing, a return to slavery for her and her children.  In a frenzy and on impulse she grabbed what was dear to her, her children and somehow managed to get them all to the woodshed.  Once there she decided to do whatever it took to keep them safe.  In her mind they would all be better off dead than alive as slaves.  Schoolteacher was shocked when he saw her holding the baby, he moved away from her when noticed what Sethe had done to her own.

The killing of the baby sent a series of events that form the plot of the story.   Sethe had experienced slavery in some of the worst ways.  She knew what was waiting for her if she allowed Schoolteacher to take them back.  She knew what it was like to be beaten, classified as an animal and having reservations about loving anything, even her children, because they could be taken away and sold as her master wished.  Because she knew all these things as soon as she recognized that hat she sprang into action.  She kept saying no repeatedly because after escaping slavery and experiencing the joys of freedom and allowing herself to love her children, psychologically she could not visualize herself and her children living as slaves again.   She moved very fast, like a hummingbird, that was how quickly she gathered all her children.  They were the only thing that mattered to her in life.  Somehow on her own she was able to carry, push, pull and drag her children to the woodshed.  On impulse she decided death would be a better option, death would be safer.  She tried but succeeded in killing only her first daughter.  This is the daughter that after her death set off a series of events that changed the life of Sethe and her family.   She took to haunting the house and later reincarnated in the flesh and using the only word Sethe could afford to have inscribed on her headstone as he name, “Beloved.”

Paul D arrived at the house at Bluestone Road and was happy to see Sethe again.  He became content there and decided to stay with Sethe.  He successfully got rid of the baby ghost and life at the house seemed to be back to normal for Sethe and Denver.  Things began to gradually change for the worst after Beloved appeared out of nowhere.   Her presence caused problems in Sethe’s relationship with Paul D.  Others began to wonder what was going on at the house and who the new arrival was.  Stamp Paid was no exception, he was the man who helped Sethe escaped slavery.  He was not content with Sethe’s boyfriend Paul D living at Bluestone Road without knowing her brutal past.  He took it upon himself to inform Paul D of the unfortunate events that occurred years before at that house, in the wood shed.  It was a newspaper clipping with her picture that Stamp Paid used as evidence when he confronted Paul D.  Paul D was shocked by the news and was in denial.  In an effort to further elaborate on the unfortunate events that day the narrator explained Stamp Paid thoughts on page 89 of my reading `by stating, “Stamp Paid looked at him….He was going to tell him that, because he thought it was important: why he and Baby Suggs both missed it.  And about the party too, because that explained why nobody ran on ahead, why nobody sent a fleet footed son to cut ‘cross a field soon as they saw the four horses in town hitched for watering while the riders asked questions.  Not Ella, not John, not anybody ran down to Bluestone Road, to say some new white folk with the look just rode in.  The righteous look every Negro learned to recognize along with his ma’am tit.  Like a flag hoisted, this righteousness telegraphed and announce the faggots the whip, the fist, the lie long before it went public.”

Stamp Paid felt compelled to explain to the shocked Paul D why nothing was done to prevent Sethe from reaching her breaking point that day.  He felt he had to let Paul D understand that he and Baby Suggs had a feeling something was wrong but did not pinpoint what it was until too late.   He wanted to offer an explanation about why no one in town sent a warning to Bluestone Road.  No one sent one of their sons who ran fast to take a shortcut to the house with a warning.  He wanted to tell him Baby Suggs had given a big party the day before and exhaustion could have contributed to the inattention the town gave the new arrivals.   After all, it was a time in slavery when strangers who rode into town stood out and everyone heard of their arrival quickly.   Strange white men who had a certain way of carrying themselves were viewed with more suspicion than usual.

As shocked as Paul D was about Sethe snatching up her children and taking them to the wood shed where she succeeded in killing one and attempted to kill the others, Stamp Paid felt deep down, just by the look on Paul D’s face that he was also shocked that no one warned Sethe and the other occupants at Bluestone Road that these men were coming.   The author elaborated that not Ella or John made an effort to send a warning because we have come to know Ella and John as being absolutely against slavery and did everything they could to protect Negroes.  They made it their duty to know what was going on so they could help in any way they could. On that particular day they failed Sethe’s family, the same family they so valiantly helped to escape slavery.  Stamp Paid felt he was obligated to offer an explanation as to why Ella, John and the rest of the town did not warn the family.  He wanted to make him understand that although the men had the look that indicated they were slave catchers asking questions to track down escaped slaves in order to recapture and probably beat, torture and quote passages from for the bible to support the need of Negroes to remain in slavery, no one came with a warning, no one helped Sethe that day to hide herself and her children before it was too late.

The quotation mentioned above is important to what is considered the most pivotal moment in the novel.  This is the moment where the arrival of the slave catchers led to Sethe killing her baby.  This baby was killed violently.   The author revealed later that Sethe used a handsaw to cut her throat.  It was angry baby who after haunting Sethe and her family for years returned as Beloved, who professed outwards, love for Sethe but was plotting to harm her in revenge for the suffering she experienced.  Beloved is the character that drives the main plot of the story.  Without her initial death this would not be possible.  Therefore, the quote in paragraph one is indeed the pivotal moment in the novel.

Paul D was unforgiving of Sethe’s killing her child.  On page 93 of my reading he stated, “What you did was wrong Sethe….You have two feet, Sethe, not four.”   And the narrator went on to say that, “right then and there a forest sprang up between them, trackless and quiet.”   Upon realizing the news Stamp Paid told him was true Paul D could not support the decision Sethe had made and he told her exactly how he felt.  To him it was the wrong decision.

He tried to explain to her that as a human being she had made the wrong choice.  He tried to make her see that her way seemed animalistic.  He made it clear that nothing she said would make him believe killing was the best way to keep her children safe.  After they had that conversation their relationship ended.  It was as if Paul saw her as a monster or an animal, she was no longer the woman he had always admired and loved.  He could no longer continue their relationship and the distance was evident to both of them even before the conversation ended.

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