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Part 2, Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beloved, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery
Motherhood
Storytelling, Memory, and the Past
Community
Home
Summary
Analysis
Denver’s monologue follows Sethe’s. She asserts that Beloved is her sister and that they have a special bond: she swallowed Beloved’s own blood along with her mother’s milk after Sethe killed Beloved. Denver thinks of her brothers, who have left, and says she is scared to leave 124 alone.
Denver sees herself as more than sisters with Beloved, as blood-sisters of a sort. Her intense feelings are only made more intense by the fact that she has always been alone. And being alone and isolated from the world has made her afraid of that world, making her even more alone.
Themes
When she was younger, Denver was afraid Sethe would kill her, too. She would dream that her dad, Halle, was coming. She idealized Halle as “an angel man.” Denver’s monologue ends like Sethe’s, insisting that Beloved is hers.
This is the first time we see how Sethe’s actions affected the young Denver. She was constantly afraid of her mother, who she knew had the capacity to kill her, even if out of love, and therefore she dreamed to be saved by her father who would never come for her. This may be why she sought a home in her boxwood room, safe not just from the ghost of 124 but also from her mother.
Themes
