Quote 4
Three times I lost her: once with the flowers because of the noisy clouds of smoke; once when she went into the sea instead of smiling at me; once under the bridge when I went in to join her and she came toward me but did not smile. She whispered to me, chewed me, and swam away. Now I have found her in this house. She smiles at me and it is my own face smiling. I will not lose her again. She is mine. (23.1)
Here's our take on this somewhat baffling passage. Beloved is thinking about how she's lost her mother three times. But wait. The three times she lists couldn't have all occurred in hers or Sethe's lifetime (if we consider these "memories" as actual events and not something dreamed up by Beloved).
How do we know this? Well, that part about the sea is a reference to the Middle Passage, which most likely occurred at least a good 50 years before the time of Sethe and Beloved.
So how about this? What if Beloved's mother isn't just Sethe, but other mothers "Beloved" has had? We're not talking about reincarnation here; we're thinking that Morrison wants us to think about why history seems to repeat itself over and over again.
The questions Beloved asked: "Where your diamonds?" "Your woman she never fix up your hair?" And most perplexing: Tell me your earrings.
How did she know? (6.39-40)
It seems kind of weird that Beloved knows to ask about diamonds. But just to play devil's advocate: Morrison does leave some room for error on Beloved's part—after all, Beloved mentions diamonds, but Sethe only had crystal earrings. So it's possible that Beloved isn't who you think she is (i.e., the baby ghost). Denver may be remembering things in a way that seems pretty (over)dramatic, but it kind of works. Because time and memory are so jumbled together in Sethe's and Denver's world, maybe Beloved did know all these things before Sethe told the girls about them. You've got to wonder though…
Quote 6
Sethe is running away from her, running, and she feels the emptiness in the hand Sethe had been holding. Now she is running into the faces of the people out there, joining them and leaving Beloved behind. Alone. Again. Then Denver, running too. Away from her to the pile of people out there. They make a hill. A hill of black people, falling. And above them all, rising from his place with a whip in his hand, the man without skin, looking. (26.146)
Despite what it may seem, this isn't a scene out of the (slave) past; it's a sign of what's coming: an exorcism of the past, Beloved, and the memory of slavery. But because Beloved is of the past, she can only view things from that perspective.