I want to choose the passage in the beginning of the story on page 5, paragraph 4, 5, and 6.

What stood out to me was the nonchalance air that the section had.

“Ten minutes for seven letters”. This stood out to me a lot because it is the first look at how much she loved her children. It never explicitly tells the reader what exactly this line means. But it is implied that she was willing to give the engraver ten minutes of sexual pleasure in exchange for the 7 letter of beloved to be engraved on her baby daughter’s tombstone. She was even willing to give another ten minutes or maybe even thirty in order to engrave the word Dearly as well.

She was counting on the stillness of her soul, as in she gave her soul away in order to provide and give something deserving to her daughter who had died at such a young age.

She knows that she has repressed her own soul to do this but the only thing she cared about was the soul of her daughter and how it may have raged her more. She believes that as long as her daughter comes and listens to her, she will understand how much Sethe really loves her daughter.

Another detail that explains that she’s lost her soul was how she kept referring to her knees being wide open like the ‘grave’. She was willing to lose a bit of herself to engrave those letters for her daughter because she truly was her beloved.

Something to think about: was she feeling guilty about killing her daughter even though she justifies it? Is she torturing herself to keep herself sane, staying in the house, succumbing to sexual advances of the engraver?

Another thing that crossed my mind when reading this passage is, what is her daughter’s real name? We know that Beloved is not her real name because it was something the preacher had read in the funeral that resonated with Sethe.

It brings to mind the lack of independence Africans had before and after the Civil War. Names are independent of each individual. When her daughter died, she is only referred to as beloved in the story and never by her actual birth name. I feel that beloved is a word of ownership. You have to be someone or something’s beloved. In this way, her daughter (in a way) will always be hers and will always stay with her.

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“She and Mrs. Garner were the only women there, so she decided to ask her.

“Halle and me want to be married, Mrs. Garner.”

“So I heard.” She smiled. “He talked to Mr. Garner about it. Are you already expecting?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, you will be. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Halle’s nice, Sethe. He’ll be good to you.”

“But I mean we want to get married.”

“You just said so. And I said all right.”

“Is there a wedding?”

Mrs. Garner put down her cooking spoon. Laughing a little, she touched Sethe on the head, saying, “You are one sweet child.” And then no more.”

This passage is from page 31.

In this passage Sethe is asking Mrs. Garner for a wedding for herself and Halle. Mrs. Garner was the owner of Sweet Home and the slaves that worked there. She doesn’t seem to be too interested in what Sethe is asking for. She mentions that Halle is a good person for Sethe. When Sethe asks if there is a wedding, it’s clear that she wants to have a ceremony, but Mrs. Garner laughs and calls her a sweet child. She fails to take Sethe seriously, and calls her a child because of the fantasy that she desires. I think this is showing one thing in the life of a slave, you can’t get what you desire. From what I interpreted, Mrs. Garner, like any other slave owner, didn’t care for the slaves working in her home. She only asked Sethe if she was pregnant, which she wasn’t, and that she will have to get pregnant. This passage displays that concept of marriage among slaves, which was prohibited because they were thought to be obligated to their owners instead of to each other. Also, their children were to be taken away from them. This passage is significant because it shows that these people who were slaves had no free will. They couldn’t live how they wanted to live, and couldn’t live with the people they wanted to live with. Even their children were taken away from them.

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