MovieChat Forums > Beloved (1998) Discussion > loved the film - have some questions (co...

loved the film - have some questions (could contain spoilers)

posted 19 years ago by TheKissOfLife
9 replies | jump to latest

I loved this movie, it was so moving but I'm a little confused about some things.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*

1) When Beloved was describing where she was before she came to Sethe's house, where exactly was she anyway? Was she in hell? The way she described it sounded like she was, I've never been to hell before, obviously lol, but the description sounded alot like a hell or something to that effect.

2) What was this thing between Beloved and Paul D? Did she put him in some sort of sexual trance? Because she was just staring at him in one scene and he just fell right to sleep, like he had been knocked out.

3) I know this is a stupid question, but where did that Amy Denver come from? Was she just a homeless white person or had she escaped from an asylum or something lol cause she just popped outta no where.

4) Was Beloved seeking revenge on Sethe for killing her towards the end of the film? Because she began to act crazier than she ever did in the whole movie. She was very bratty-like. And the worse she got, the sicker Sethe got.

5) Could someone explain the whole tree-on-the-back thing to me again. I know she explained it in the movie but I was kinda distracted during that scene with something else.

6) Was Beloved pregnant?? It looked like it when she was naked during the scene when Sethe tried to stab Mr. Bodwin.

Sorry if these were stupid questions lol. But Thanks to those who can clear them up for me!

I'm sorry I had to humiliate you like that. It's okay, you can hate me. Poor thing.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] elitedancer0401 19 years ago

Yes, Beloved was pregnant.

[–] Bandgeeklover2006 19 years ago

In my opinion:

1) I think she was refering to an inbetween world because she said people were there, cause I was thinking a grave. Maybe she meant underground and with the other dead people.

2)I think she did put a "curse" on him. He kind of explained it in the alley when he met up with Sethe after work when he was going to admit to sleeping with her. He didn't want Beloved there anyway.

3)She was running away to Boston to buy velvet (?!?). She just ran into her.

4)Yes I think she was. You kinda hear this after Denver goes to get a job then she starts to cry and then it cuts to the older women talking about her coming back and how mothers shouldn't kill children and children shouldn't kill their parents.

5)This was her marking, like when she described the circle and cross on her mother. She got the scars before she ran away and when Amy looked at her back she told her she had a tree. I don't think there was a special meaning, just a tree shape.

6)Yes, she was pregnant with Paul D's baby

[–] dorante75 19 years ago

The tree on her back were the scars left after she was whipped by SchoolTeacher when they "took her milk" back at SweetHome. The pattern of split flesh and puss looked like a tree to Amy Denver when she was helping Sethe.

[–] dorante75 19 years ago

1. In the book there is a section that talks about the place Beloved was. It talks about the middle passage, the route that slaves took from West Africa to the Carribean to the U.S. The dark place with people crouching and dying and sick is the slave ship.

2. She "fixed him" as Paul D. described it. It's a kind of spell.

3. Amy Denver was a white indentured servant who was also running away. She was beaten and mistreated by her master and was going to Boston to escape. She ran into Sethe, another run away. One of the many examples of twinning that Ms. Morrison uses in her prose.

4. Exactly. Beloved, as a representation of the past, was killing Sethe slowly with need. Because Sethe, and many newly freed slaves, refused to think about the hatefuly past of slavery it began to eat them alive inside. It crippled them because the horror of it was so fresh. Think of it as a manifestation of Post Tramatic Stress Disorder.

5. Sethe was beaten with a whip because she told Mr. Garner, the old woman with the goiter on her neck who owned Sweet Home (the plantation), that Schoolteacher's nephews tied her down and took her milk from her breasts while they described her animal characteristics. The beating was so severe that the scarring covered her entire back and healed in the likeness of a tree with branches and flowers, a chokecherry tree.

6. Two schools of thought on this. She was either pregnant with Paul D.'s child (the result of what happened in the shed) or she was consuming Sethe (as Sethe wasted away, Beloved got fatter).

Hope this helps. I recommend reading the book. The language is so pure and beautiful it will leave you "trembling like the baptized in its wash."

[–] TheKissOfLife 19 years ago

Thank you guys so much for your explanations! they were very helpful, and dorante, i will pick up the book now, thanks.

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[–] jramberg 17 years ago

Amy Denver was an indentured servant
The tree on her back was the description that Amy Denver made while nursing Sethe back to health. The whip tore her back up like the image of a tree..with blood and clots..it looked like a chokecherry tree. So Sethe told Paul D she had a tree on her back.
Paul D got Beloved pregnant.

[–] XxXSquallLeonHartXxX 17 years ago

the book gives explanation in a dual response u can look at Beloved describing where she was as either a grave "i'm small in that place like this" and she curled up and rocked back and forth. that could possibly describe her wintry grave but it wasnt cold as she said it it was hot so it culd possibly be the cramped corridors of a slave ship where there were alot of ppl down there and some dead.

[–] Redsunbeam 16 years ago

In the book, no one knows whether Beloved is literally pregnant, or if her constant eating, especially of candy, made her gain so much weight that she appears pregnant. Either way, the stomach has a symbolic quality of Beloved having "swallowed" both Sethe and Paul and in turn producing, or "giving birth" to, something new and horrific (madness?)