• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

IB English Seniors – Quotes from Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Parts I and II. NOTE: the page numbers in your book may not coincide with those listed below depending on type size and ISBN.

All of the passages below will lead you into the “bigger picture”. Be prepared to comment on the CONTEXT of the following:

1. “124 was spiteful. Full of baby’s venom.” (p. 3)

2. “Ten minutes for seven letters” (p. 5)

3. “I wouldn’t have to ask about him, would I? You’t tell me if there was anything to tell, wouldn’t you?” (p. 8)

4. “Then schoolteacher arrived.” (p. 9)

5. “I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house.” (p. 15)

6. “Time never worked the way Sixo thought, so of course he never got it right.” (p. 21)

7. “It wasn’t no white boy at all. Was a girl. The raggediest-looking trash you ever saw saying, ‘Look there. A nigger. If that don’t beat all.’” (p. 31)

8. “Paul D. messed them up for good. Her brothers had known, but it scared them; Grandma Baby knew, but it saddened her.” (p. 37)

9. “To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay.” (p. 42)

10. “A FULLY DRESSED woman walked out of the water.” (p. 50)

11. “Or just me bringing my night bucket into his cabin.” (p. 58)

12. “Both were taken up many times by the crew.” (p. 62)

13. "Denver hated the stories her mother told that did not concern herself, which is why Amy was all she ever asked about. The rest was a gleaming, powerful world made more so by Denver's absence from it. Not being in it, she hated it and wanted Beloved to hate it too, although there was no chance of that at all." (62)

14. “Why was there nothing it refused? No misery, no regret, no hateful picture too rotten to accept? Like a greedy child it snatched up everything. Just once, could it say, No thank you? I just ate and can't hold another bite? . . . But my greedy brain says, Oh thanks, I'd love more . . . my brain would go right ahead and take it and never say, No thank you. I don't want to know or have to remember that. I have other things to do: worry, for example, about tomorrow, about Denver, about Beloved, about age and sickness not to speak of love. But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day." (70) 15. "'Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed,' she said, 'and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad luck in the world but white folks.'" (89)

16. "Bit by bit, at 124 and in the Clearing, along with others, she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another." (95)

17. "She had been so close, then closer. And it was so much better than the anger that ruled when Sethe did or thought anything that excluded herself. She could bear the hours -- nine or ten of them each day but one -- when Sethe was gone. Bear even the nights when she was close but out of sight, behind walls and doors lying next to him. But now -- even the daylight time that Beloved had counted on, disciplined herself to be content with, was being reduced, divided by Sethe's willingness to pay attention to other things. Him mostly." (100)

18. "This is worse than when Paul D came to 124 and she cried helplessly into the stove. This is worse. Then it was for herself. Now she is crying because she has no self . . . She doesn't move to open the door because there is no world out there. She decides to stay in the cold house and let the dark swallow her like the minnows of light above. She won't put up with another leaving, another trick. Waking up to find one brother then another not at the bottom of the bed, his foot jabbing her spine. Sitting at the table eating turnips and saving the liquor for her grandmother to drink; her mother's hand on the keeping-room door and her voice saying, 'Baby Suggs is gone, Denver.' And when she got around to worrying about what would be the case if Sethe died or Paul D took her away, a dream- come-true comes true just to leave her on a pile of newspaper in the dark." (123)

19. "had all the children she needed. If her boys came back one day, and Denver and Beloved stayed on -- well, it would be the way it was supposed to be, no? Right after she saw the shadows holding hands at the side of the road hadn't the picture altered? And the minute she saw the dress and shoes sitting in the front yard, she broke water. Didn't even have to see the face burning in the sunlight. She had been dreaming it for years." (132)

20. "It made them furious. They swallowed baking soda, the morning after, to calm the stomach violence caused by the bounty, the reckless generosity on display at 124. Whispered to each other in the yards about fat rats, doom and uncalled-for pride." (137)

21. “Mrs. Garner hummed when she worked; Mr. Garner acted like the world was a toy he was supposed to have fun with.” (p. 139)

22. “But you got my boy, and I’m all broke down. You be renting him out to pay for me way after I’m gone to Glory.” (p. 146).

23. “When the four horsemen came . . . the house on Bluestone Road was so quiet they thought they were too late.” (p. 148)

24. “And about that party too, because that explained why nobody ran on ahead; why nobody sent a fleet-footed son to cut ‘cross a field soon as they saw the four horses in town hitched for watering while the riders asked questions.” (p. 157) 25. “Perhaps it was the smile, or maybe the ever-ready love she saw in his eyes – easy and upfront, the way colts, evangelists and children look at you: with love you don’t have to deserve – that made her go ahead and tell him what she had not told Baby Suggs . . .” (p. 161)

IB English Seniors – Quotes from Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Parts II, III

26. “Maybe he should have left it alone; maybe Sethe would have gotten around to telling him herself; maybe he was not the high-minded Soldier of Christ he thought he was, but an ordinary, plain meddler who had interrupted something going along just fine for the sake of truth and forewarning, things he set much story by.” (p. 170)

27. “Sethe and her daughter were dry-eyed on that occasion. Sethe had no instructions except ‘Take her to the Clearing,’ which he tried to do, but was prevented by some rule the whites had invented about where the dead should rest.” (p. 171)

28. “The twenty-eight days of having women friends, a mother-in-law, and all her children together; of being part of a neighborhood; of, in fact, having neighbors at all to call her own – all that was long gone and would never come back.” (p. 173)

29. “The click had clicked . . . Beloved turned to look at Sethe. ‘I know it,’ she said. (p. 176)

30. “Strangers and familiars were stopping by to hear how it went one more time, and suddenly Baby declared peace. She just up and quit. By the time Sethe was released sh had exhausted blue and was well on her way to yellow.” (p. 177)

31. “I’m saying they came in my yard.” “I’m saying they came in my yard.” “I’m saying they came in my yard.” (p. 179)

32. “The stench stank.” (p. 181)

33. “He’s sleeping in the church,” said Ella. (p. 187)

34. “No, no. That’s not the way. I told you to put her human characteristics on the left; her animal ones on the right. And don’t forget to line them up.” (p. 193)

35. “Bit a piece of my tongue off when they opened my back. It was hanging by a shred. I didn’t mean to. Clamped down on it, it come right off. I thought, Good God, I’m going to eat myself up. They dug a hole for my stomach so as not to hurt the baby.” (p. 202)

36. “Maybe it’s still in her the thing that makes it all right to kill her children. I have to tell her. I have to protect her.” (p. 206)

37. Pages 211-213 – “clouds . . . a hot thing” – examine the symbolism of these two repetitive phrases. 38. “His tobacco tin, blown open, spilled contents that floated freely and made him their play and prey.” (p. 218)

39. “But once Sethe had seen the scar, the tip of which Denver had been looking at whenever Beloved undressed – the little curved shadow of a smile in the kootchy-kootchy- koo place under her chin – once Sethe saw it, fingered it and closed her eyes for a long time, the two of them cut Denver out of the games.” (p. 239)

40. “Don’t box with me. There’s more of us they drowned than there is all of them ever lived from the start of time. Lay down your sword. This ain’t a battle; it’s a rout.” (p. 244)

41. “Two days later Denver stood on the porch and noticed something lying on the tree stump at the edge of the yard. She went to look and found a sack of white beans.” (p. 248- 249)

42. “It was Ella more than anyone who convinced the others that rescue was in order.” (p. 256)

43. Suddenly she leveled her eyes at his. “But who would know that better than you, Paul D.? I mean, you sure ‘nough knew her.” He licked his lips, “Well, if you want my opinion . . .” “I don’t,” she said. “I have my own.” (p. 267)

44. “Don’t you die on me! This is Baby Suggs’ bed! Is that what you planning?” (p. 271- 272)

45. “It was not a story to pass on . . . They forgot her like a bad dream.” (p. 274)

46. NOTE: What is the symbolism (significance) of the number 124?

Load more

  4

Copy Link