Study Questions
1. Why does Paul D make love to Sethe each morning before he is seduced by Beloved?

2. Why does Denver enjoy Beloved’s staring at her?

3. What happens between Denver and Beloved in the cold house?

4. How do Paul D and Sethe conduct themselves when he meets her after work?

5. How does he see her pregnancy as a solution to his problem?

6. Why does Beloved think her body is falling apart?

7. How would you describe the feast at Baby Suggs’ house?

8. Why had her congregation shunned Baby Suggs and her family after the feast?

9. Why hadn’t Baby Suggs been able to find her children?

10. Why had the Bodwins been so helpful to Baby Suggs?

Answers
1. Paul D makes love to Sethe each morning before he is seduced by Beloved because he knows Beloved seeks him sexually and he wants to have no appetite for her, since it is Sethe he loves more each day.

2. Denver enjoys Beloved’s staring at her because she feels Beloved is “interested” and “uncritical.” It makes her feel Beloved needs something from her.

3. When Denver and Beloved go to the coldhouse to get the cider, Denver cannot see in the dark and loses Beloved, who seems to magically disappear. She thinks Beloved has returned to wherever it was she came from and is bereft until Beloved shows herself again.

4. Paul D and Sethe conduct themselves like children when he meets her after work: laughing, holding hands, patting each other’s behind, hugging, and Paul D giving Sethe a piggyback ride.

5. Paul D sees Sethe’s pregnancy, to which she has not agreed nor is yet a reality, as a solution to his problem because it would help him “…hold on to her, document his manhood and break out of the girl’s spell—all in one.”

6. Beloved thinks her body is falling apart because she’s pulled out a back tooth which is rotten. She thinks this is the beginning of her body falling apart, which means the end of this embodiment and her current life.

7. The feast at Baby Suggs’ house had consisted of 90 people eating an abundance of blackberry pie, turkey, strawberry smash (punch), perch, cat fish, corn pudding with cream, rabbit, raised bread, shortbread, batter bread, and bread pudding. All were laughing as the tired, overfed children fell asleep in the grass.

8. Baby Suggs’ congregation had shunned her and her family after the feast because they felt she was too “uppity”: their proof had been that she had a two-story house, the Bodwins had helped her, her daughter-in-law and grandchildren were with her, and she had had an overabundance of food at the feast.

9. Baby Suggs had not been able to find her children once she was free and living at 124 Bluestone Road because the Whitlow place, where the children had been born, was gone and “a man named Dunn” somewhere in the West hadn’t been a good enough address for a letter to be delivered.

10. The Bodwins had been helpful to Baby Suggs because they were both anti-slavery and friends of Mr. Garner, her former owner at Sweet Home.