CHAPTER 26

Notes

The mood of the house at 124 Bluestone has changed to silence, foreshadowing that the resolution of the novel is approaching. The unnatural quietness is caused by the hunger that the inhabitants feel. Since Sethe has been fired from SawyerÂ’s Restaurant and has not gotten another job, there is no money to buy food. It is ironic that in spite of the lack of food, Beloved grows larger as Sethe seems to be wasting away.

Denver undergoes a huge change in this chapter. Realizing what is happening to her mother, she switches her allegiance from Beloved to Sethe. She knows that if any of them are to survive, she must take matters into her own hands. With great fear, she goes out into the world alone for the first time. It is a great act of bravery since she has been taught that the outside hurts people so badly that they lay down and die or kill their children. Denver becomes the hope at the end of this painful novel for the next generation.

Despite all her deprivations, Denver understands that one of the most important tools for survival is community. As a result, she bravely knocks on the door of Lady Jones, who invites her in for tea and calls her “baby.” It is ironic that this word is used to describe Denver at the point in her life when she is finally accepting responsibility and becoming a woman. She explains to Lady Jones that the family is going hungry, for Sethe is out of work. Lady Jones takes matters into her own hands. Soon the women of the neighborhood are bringing food to the 124 Bluestone and leaving it outside on the stump. They also leave their names so that Denver will know where to return the dishes.

Inspired by the caring of the community, Denver decides to go and see the Bodwins, who have helped her mother and grandmother in the past. When she knocks on their door, she is greeted by a black woman named Janey. Denver instinctively trusts Janey and tells her what is going on at 124 Bluestone. Janey tells the black community about the ghost that is haunting 124 Bluestone and rallies them to come to SetheÂ’s aid. At the end of the chapter, thirty of the neighborhood women have armed themselves with amulets and their Christian faith and arrive at SetheÂ’s house to help drive the ghost away.

The women arrive on the same day that Denver is to begin work at the Bodwins. When Sethe hears the voice of the women singing, she opens the door to see what is happening. Just as she looks out, Mr. Bodwin pulls up in a cart. In her weakened state, Sethe thinks he is Schoolteacher come to take Beloved away. She grabs the ice pick and rushes out to stab him and protect her daughter.

Several important points are brought out in this chapter. Sethe voices the central problem of her life when she says that "the best thing she was, was her children." Unable to differentiate between herself and her sons and daughters, Sethe has not been able to grant herself a separate existence that has needs of its own. In order to overcome her past and heal herself, Sethe needs to recognize and accept her own value as a person, separate and apart from being just the mother of her children.

Another important point is made through the Bodwins, who are supposed to be "good whitefolks." In spite of their reputation as abolitionists, they have a horribly racist figurine in their kitchen; it is a statue of a small black boy kneeling and saying, “At Yo’Service.” Edward Bodwin also waxes nostalgic over the "heady days" he enjoyed during the trial of Sethe Suggs. Earlier in the novel it was said of the Bodwins that they hated slavery worse than they hated slaves. While it is true that the Bodwins saved Sethe's life by keeping her from being hanged for her daughter's death, it was done for the abolition movement, not because they cared about Sethe as a human being. They do not even seem to have many feelings for Janey Wagon, the black woman who has served them twenty-four hours a day for twenty years.

Some of the most respected characters in the novel, including Baby Suggs, Halle, and Sixo, believed that whites, without exception, were untrustworthy, for they always inflicted pain on the blacks. During the course of the novel, whites are repeatedly shown inflicting pain. In fact, the only white who is fully good is Amy Denver. She unselfishly helped Sethe deliver her baby and headed her towards freedom. Sethe senses the basic goodness of the girl and names her baby after her.

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