Beloved: Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The novel begins in 1873, eight years after the end of the Civil War, by describing a house on the edge of Cincinnati: “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.” The house is haunted by the ghost of the baby of Sethe, a former slave who lives at 124 with her daughter, Denver. They have lived in the house for 18 years. Sethe’s sons, Howard and Buglar, ran away from the house a little over eight years earlier, scared by hauntings such as a baby’s handprints appearing in a cake. Sethe’s mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, used to live at the house, but became withdrawn not long after Howard and Buglar left and did nothing but “ponder color.” She died soon after.

Shortly after Baby Suggs’ death, Sethe and Denver attempt to call forth the ghost to talk to it, but it does not appear. Denver suggests that the deceased Baby Suggs is preventing it, but Sethe counters that the baby-ghost is simply too young to understand them. Sethe recalls burying the baby, and the engraver of its tombstone only having time to engrave “Beloved”, rather than the full phrase “Dearly Beloved” that Sethe wanted. But she still believes that this one word was enough of a response to the townspeople that were disgusted with her.

Sethe remembers once suggesting to Baby Suggs that they could move out of the house to escape the ghost, but Baby Suggs told her there was no point, since there’s “not a house in the country ain’t packed to its rafters with some dead Negro’s grief.” Baby Suggs’ comment prompts Sethe to think of her own past, which she tries not to remember. But she cannot help thinking of Sweet Home, the plantation on which she was once a slave.

Sethe goes outside and is surprised to find Paul D, an ex-slave who also worked on Sweet Home, sitting on her porch. He asks about Baby Suggs and Sethe tells him that her death was easy and that “being alive was the hard part.” Sethe asks about her husband Halle, who she hasn’t seen since fleeing Sweet Home and thinks may be dead, but Paul D doesn’t have any news about him. Sethe invites Paul D inside to stay the night.

Upon entering the house, Paul D feels some kind of presence and asks, “What kind of evil you got in here?” He reflects on Sethe’s beauty and recalls how her children had been sneaked out of Sweet Home and sent to Halle’s mother, Baby Suggs, and how Sethe had run away after, to meet up with them. Paul D remembers how the owner of Sweet Home died and Schoolteacher came to manage the plantation.

Sethe tells Paul D that the sad presence he feels in the house is from her daughter. She tells him that she works at a restaurant and sews to make money in order to feed herself and Denver. Paul D remembers more of his past from Sweet Home: Sethe came to Sweet Home at age 13, the only female slave there. All the male slaves there desired her but let her choose her own man, since they were “Sweet Home men.” The owner of Sweet Home, Mr. Garner, took pride in his slaves being real men, though other slave-owners told him that no slaves could be men. Sethe eventually chose Halle, a Sweet Home man who had worked extra time to buy freedom for his mother, Baby Suggs.

Denver meets Paul D and is shy around him, since she is not used to friendly acquaintances or guests. She is upset by the attention that her mother gives to Paul D and is jealous of their shared knowledge and memories of Sweet Home. She wishes for the baby to do something disruptive. She tells Paul D about the ghost in an attempt to break up his conversation with Sethe. She asks why they talk about Sweet Home if it was so bad. Sethe replies that such memory “comes back whether we want it to or not.”

As Sethe and Denver start to prepare dinner, Denver makes a rude remark to Paul D and then begins to cry. She says that she can’t live any longer in the house, since people avoid it and don’t speak to Denver or Sethe. Paul D is sympathetic to Denver and suggests that they move, but Sethe rejects the idea.

Sethe makes reference to having a tree on her back. Paul D asks her what she means and she explains: on Sweet Home, when she was pregnant with Denver and still lactating to nurse her infant (the baby that is now the ghost), two white boys held her down in a barn and took her breastmilk. She told Mrs. Garner and when the boys found out that she had told on them, they whipped her, leaving a tree-shaped scar on her back. When Sethe was escaping to Cincinnati, a white woman who helped her saw the scar and told her that she had a chokecherry tree on her back.

Alone in the kitchen with Paul D, Sethe puts biscuits into the oven. Paul D comes up behind her and embraces her. As she weeps, he begins to kiss her and undoes her dress. Sethe savors the brief moment of respite and pleasure but suddenly the house begins to shake, throwing her to the floor. Paul D yells at and fights the house, throwing the kitchen table around.

After the house settles down, Denver takes the biscuits onto the porch and eats, while Sethe and Paul D go upstairs. Alone, she thinks of her brothers and remembers her young childhood with Baby Suggs and them. Now she feels lonely and miserable.