Summary: Chapter 12
Denver’s attachment to Beloved intensifies. Beloved’s
gaze sustains and completes Denver, and Denver fears that she has
no self apart from Beloved. Meanwhile, Sethe, ignoring her earlier
sense that Beloved is her daughter’s reincarnation, decides that
Beloved must have recently escaped from years of captivity. She
knows Ella to have endured such an experience: a white man and his
son locked her up and raped her repeatedly.
Denver often feels lonely and rejected by Beloved. When
she isn’t directly stimulated, Beloved lapses into a dreamy silence,
and she never interacts as much with Denver as she does with Sethe.
Denver, interested only in the present, does not care for the stories
about the past that Sethe narrates in response to Beloved’s questions.
Denver also knows about Beloved’s attentions to Paul D because she
has noted her nighttime trips to the cold house where he sleeps.
One day, Denver and Beloved go into the cold house to
get cider. Suddenly, Beloved disappears into the darkness. Denver
is certain that Beloved has gone forever and begins to cry, only
to find Beloved in front of her, smiling. Beloved reassures Denver
by telling her, “This the place I am.” Beloved then drops to the
ground where she curls up and moans softly. Her eyes focus on a
spot in the darkness where she claims to see “her face.” When Denver
asks her to clarify, she says mysteriously, “It’s me.”
Summary: Chapter 13
Thinking about schoolteacher’s arrival at Sweet Home makes
Paul D again question the legitimacy of his manhood in the way that schoolteacher
used to force him to do. He likens Beloved’s current manipulation
of him to schoolteacher’s abuse and decides that the only way he
can hope to stop Beloved is to tell Sethe what has been happening.
He meets her outside the restaurant where she works, but he cannot
muster up enough courage to confess that he is “not a man.” He surprises
himself—and Sethe, who thinks he is about to tell her he is leaving—by
asking her to have a baby with him. It begins to snow, and they
laugh and flirt on the walk home. Beloved, who has been waiting
for Sethe, meets them outside and absorbs Sethe’s attention, leaving
Paul D feeling cold and resentful. Sethe, however, breaks Beloved’s
spell by insisting that Paul D resume sleeping with her at night.
Sethe decides she cannot have a baby with Paul D because “[u]nless
carefree, motherlove was a killer.” She begins to question Paul
D’s intentions: perhaps, she thinks, he is jealous of Denver and
Beloved and wants his own family. Ultimately, Sethe recognizes that
she is just trying to justify her decision to not have any more
children.
Summary: Chapter 14
After Sethe takes Paul D upstairs, Beloved begs Denver
to drive Paul D away, but Denver replies that Sethe will be angry
at Beloved if Paul D leaves. One of Beloved’s teeth falls out, and
she wonders fearfully if her entire body will begin to fall apart.
She finds it difficult to feel complete and unified when Sethe is
away. Beloved begins to cry, and Denver takes her in her arms, while
the snow gathering outside 124 piles higher
and higher.
Analysis: Chapters 12–14
The language used to describe Denver’s relationship with
Beloved is loaded with the vocabulary of need and desire. Denver
feels that Beloved’s interested gaze sends her to a place “beyond
appetite” and that looking at Beloved is “food enough.” Beloved
provides emotional sustenance for Denver in a way that Sethe never
could, because Denver is simultaneously responsible for and dependent upon
Beloved. Beloved’s constant neediness is most like an infant’s desire
for its mother; when Sethe is not there for Beloved, Denver becomes
a sort of surrogate mother figure. She is forced out of her role
as a daughter and into a more adult role that involves working in
the interest of another’s welfare.
