I. Book Report #2 II. Tittle ( no. of pages ) Beloved 62 III. Author Toni Morrison IV.

. Setting of the story Cincinnati, Ohio, at Sethe and Denver live in the haunted house at 124. V. Characters w/ description Beloved - she is the ghost and reincarnation of Sethe's older daughter, who was murdered by her mother to keep the child out of slavery. Angry over what has happened to her, Beloved relentlessly antagonizes and disrupts Sethe's household. When Paul D drives her out of the house as an infant ghost, she returns as a female who is intent on devouring Sethe. Sethe Suggs - black woman and previous slave, who was orphaned by the death of her slave parents. She is the wife of Halle. Paul D Garner - The last surviving male amongst the slaves from Sweet Home Plantation. Baby Suggs (Grandma Baby) - The mother of Halle and the mother-in-law of Sethe. She is bought out of slavery by her son, Halle, and moves to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she runs a way station at 124 Bluestone and preaches in the Clearing. Denver Suggs - Sethe's daughter, born in a boat on the border between slavery and freedom. She is named after Amy Denver, the young white indentured slave girl that helps Sethe deliver her baby. Schoolteacher - The widower of Mr. Garner's sister. He takes over the Sweet Home Plantation after Mr. Garner dies. Buglar and Howard - Sethe's sons, who leave home after Sethe tries to kill them and Baby Suggs dies. Lillian Garner - he wife of Mr. Garner, the owner of Sweet Home. Amy Denver - A white indentured servant girl. Mr. Buddy - The master of Amy Denver, an indentured servant. Paul F Garner - One of the three Pauls who work on Sweet Home Plantation. Halle Suggs - Sethe's husband and the youngest of Baby Suggs' eight sons. He hires out his work on Sundays in order to make enough money to buy his mother's freedom. Sixo - A slave known as the "wild man." Although he is supposedly a 'slow learner,' Sixo discovers the workings of the Underground Railroad and begins to plan his escape with his lover, Patsy. Vashti - The wife of Stamp Paid, then named Joshua. She is repeatedly forced to have sex with the slaveholder's son and dies an early death. Patsy - The Thirty-Mile Woman. She is so named because she lives on a plantation thirtmiles away from her lover, Sixo. The nephews of Schoolteacher - Two unnamed white boys, probably older adolescents. They brutalize the pregnant Sethe, stealing her milk, and then whip her so badly that her back is permanently and severely scarred. Edward Bodwin A white abolitionist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. He works for the Underground Railroad and lets Baby Suggs live in his old family home in return for her labor. He also saves Sethe from being hanged for the crime of killing her daughter. Miss Bodwin - The sister to Edward Bodwin. She visits Sethe and gives her gifts and helps Denver to come out of her shell. Nan - A one-armed slave woman whose responsibility is the nursing and care of the children of the slaveholders and the slaves.

Ma'am - Sethe's mother whose name is never given. She survives the Middle Passage from Africa, but is raped repeatedly during the journey. Ella - A woman who helps Sethe get to Baby Suggs when she arrives in Ohio. She spent her adolescent years imprisoned by a white man and his son, who brutalized her sexually. Reverend Pike - The minister of the Church of the Holy Redeemer in Cincinnati, Ohio. He helps Baby Suggs in her unsuccessful attempt to locate her children by writing letters for her. He also preaches the sermon at Sethe's daughter's funeral and is the one who names her "Beloved." Hi Man - The lead man on the chain gang in the Alfred, Georgia prison camp. Lady Jones - A black schoolteacher. She hates her light skin color because it reveals her racial mix and reminds her of her mixed heritage. She is Denver's mentor and friend and assumes responsibility for seeing that Denver becomes a fully realized human. Nelson Lord - A schoolmate of Denver, who reveals the secrets of Denver's mother, concerning the murder and her subsequent imprisonment. He later tries to redeem with Denver. Stamp Paid - An "agent, fisherman, boatman, tracker, savior, spy." He takes Sethe and Denver across the Ohio River and is a pillar of the African-American community in Cincinnati. He was originally named Joshua and was married to Vashti. Sawyer - A white restaurant owner who gives Sethe a job as a cook. Janey Wagon - The maid of the Bodwins, who comes to Denver's aid when she is trying to get help for Sethe.

VII.

Character/characters that you like best

Sethe Suggs because she is a strong woman who lives under an oppressive cultural and social system that does not permit her to be nurtured or to nurture others reliably. She hurt severely by her mother's inability to care for her because of the slave environment in which they lived; taken from her mother as an infant, she only saw her a few times in her life. VIII. Incident of the story that you like best ? Why ?

The young sons play with super natural element . All Of the gharacters are believe in ghost. IX. 25 vocabulary words w/ meaning and sentences 1. bit - a piece of iron put in a slave's mouth to keep him from talking. Bit of luck we can be laughing all the way to the bank. 2. brine in the barrel - an early method of preserving fish and meat with salt . I eat Brine In The Barrel . 3. C - men with dark, wiry hair, especially blacks . He scared at buffalo men . 4. chamomile sap - the medicinal, sweet-smelling juice from an herb He takes a chamomile sap . 5. chippy - a young prostitute . We then went to find a chippy for you know what! 6. chokecherry - a common shrub that bears red berries . I was thinking they meant the chokecherry, which is just another one of the cherry trees. 7. clabber - thickened milk or cream .

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. X.

XI.

I drink a Clabber everyday . coffle - a line of chained slaves . The last prisoner in the coffle was the tailor, a gray-haired, elderly man with a wrinkled face. comfrey - a herb used to make tea . Comfrey leaf, but only one at a time. croaker sack - burlap bag Sack of potatoes in a week. dropsy - a sickness caused by excessive accumulation of fluid. The leaves and roots break stones, provoke urine and cure the dropsy. faggot - a small bundle of wood, usually used to start a fire Hazel faggots can be seen at the waterline opposite the landing stage. fixing ceremony - preparing a body for burial foal - a crude term that whites used to refer to the birth of a black baby . Foal at foot and was very well behaved. Fugitive Bill - a bill that required a free state to return a slave to his/her rightful owner The fugitive was running away from the danger. haint - a ghost I seen an haint going to my room . half peck - a dry measurement equal to four quarts horehound - a type of candy keeping room - a parlor She went to Keeping room . in deep water - in trouble Alex is in deep water . juba - an African dance Juba is my favorite dance . skin voting - the privilege of voting if you had white skin; blacks could not vote American can skin voting than to Indonesia . privy - outdoor toilet Ben use privy . rind - a piece of pork skin used as seasoning while cooking vegetables Mother used rind . rue - a bitter herb, often used in literature to symbolize regret Angel dont like rue . Beautiful lines of the story . . . [I]f you go thereyou who was never thereif you go there and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again; it will be there, waiting for you . . . [E]ven though its all overover and done withits going to always be there waiting for you. Summary of the story

The book begins in 1873, in the aftermath of slavery and the Civil War. The story begins just before Paul D comes to stay with Sethe and Denver at 124. Much of the information that weaves the story together,

however, is told with the memories of these three characters. This summary is in chronological order to make it easier to understand. In 1848, Baby Suggs left Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky and was driven to Cincinnati, Ohio, after her son, Halle, purchased her freedom from Mr. Garner, the plantation owner. Sethe arrived at Sweet Home as Baby Suggs' replacement. A year after her arrival, she married Halle and bore him 3 children: two sons and a daughter, over the next few years at Sweet Home. Mr. Garner died and his wife became ill; she asked a schoolteacher to run Sweet Home. The schoolteacher treated the slaves like animals and abused them, and they all planned to run away. Sethe sent her children to Ohio and stayed to wait for Halle, because he wasn't where they agreed to meet when they planned to run. In the days she spent waiting for Halle, the schoolteacher and his nephews took Sethe, who was six months pregnant with her fourth child, to the barn and nursed the milk from her breasts. Sethe was beaten the next day, and that night she ran away alone. As she tries to walk to Ohio, a white girl finds Sethe and helps her to the Ohio River where Sethe has her baby, Denver. The next day, Sethe and Denver make it to Baby Suggs at 124 and are reunited with Sethe's other children. Twenty-eight days after her arrival at 124, the schoolteacher shows up to take them back to Sweet Home. Sethe, fearing her children are to be sold into slavery, snaps, killing her first daughter with a saw and injuring her sons before anyone can stop her. She goes to jail and takes Denver with her. When she gets out of jail, she prostitutes herself for a headstone for the baby's grave that reads only, "Beloved." The baby's ghost makes itself a constant presence at 124 and Sethe's sons run away, while Baby Suggs lays in bed waiting to die. No one in the community will have anything more to do with 124 or the people in it, so when Baby Suggs dies in 1865, Sethe and Denver are alone until Paul D shows up in 1873. Paul D scares away the ghost of 124 and he, Sethe, and Denver begin a new life together, until Beloved shows up at 124. No one has any idea who she is or from where she came. Sethe and Denver take her in. Beloved becomes instantly attached to Sethe. Denver becomes intensely devoted to Beloved because she thinks she is her baby sister's ghost come to life to keep her company. Beloved breaks Paul D down, seducing him against his will. He leaves after Stamp Paid informs him of the murder of Sethe's daughter. When Paul D leaves, Sethe begins to believe that Beloved is her reincarnated daughter because of coincidental connections between Beloved and the baby ghost. Beloved and Sethe become interested only in one another. Later, they become angry and violent with each other because Beloved thinks Sethe abandoned her; she begins to dominate Sethe with her anger. Sethe starts to waste away as Beloved's pregnant stomach grows, and Denver is forced to seek help for her mother outside of 124. Denver gets a job with the Bodwins, the white folks who rented 124 to Baby Suggs. As Denver waits on the porch for Bodwin to pick her up, a group of colored women come to 124 to rescue Sethe from Beloved, the ghost haunting 124. Beloved and Sethe step onto the porch to see what's going on, and when Sethe sees Mr. Bodwin, she tries to kill him, believing the schoolteacher has returned. Beloved runs away because she thinks Mr. Bodwin is the white man that has come back for her, and Sethe has abandoned her again. With Beloved gone, Sethe gives up on life because she has lost her child, the best part of herself, again. Paul D comes back to 124 to help Denver take care of Sethe. Time passes and Beloved is forgotten. XII. Theme or Moral lesson The theme of Beloved is that a person must confront the past in order to heal the wounds it has caused. The main characters and all the members of the black community in Cincinnati are haunted by the traumas of slavery and racism. XIII. Reaction Beautiful novel I learn many lessons about the story .