Summary Of Beloved

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Garner, who tried to kill all of her children when they were captured by her slave owner, and she did succeed in killing one. When the novel begins, Sethe and her daughter, Denver, are living with the ghost of the baby Sethe killed when she was about to be recaptured. After another former slave, Paul D., arrives, he chases away the ghost, but soon a young woman named Beloved comes to Sethe's home. This woman is strangely similar to Sethe's dead daughter, which is ironic because the word "Beloved" is the only word engraved on her baby's tombstone, though it is never entirely clear if the woman truly is the baby's ghost turned to flesh.

The women in Beloved are the stronger characters of the story because they are the ones who stay, despite their past. The men, however, have to run from it. When Sethe is raped by the "nephews," she still finds the courage to move beyond the pain and her fear. Her husband, Halle, only witnesses the rape and this is enough to drive him to smearing ...

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