From the first page of the lyrical long first section of Beloved, the reader knows she or he is in the hands of a master storyteller. Morrison paints a harrowing picture through Sethe, Paul D, Stamp Paid, Baby Suggs, and, of course, Beloved herself. But Morrison’s prose never settles. It is always on edge, its images just beyond clarity. Long before Paul D is told explicitly of Sethe’s past, the reader has guessed what lies at heart of the eerie haunting of 124 Bluestone Road, Sethe’s defining action.
A reader might well ask why Morrison does not end the novel at that point. I suspect the answer is that her goal is something other than American Gothic. This is tragedy, more Greek than Shakespearean. Thus the lyricism gives way in the shorter second section to a sequence of viewpoints (Stamp Paid’s, Denver’s, Sethe’s, Beloved’s) that problematize Sethe’s earlier dramatic action and Paul D’s visceral reaction to knowledge of it. This is not justificatory; it is about seeing the act for and as what it is. Sethe’s life and the lives of those around her have been destroyed as a consequence of her action. In part, it is those consequences that help us to see really see Sethe’s awful choice.
The third section of the novel brings the transformed understanding home in the form of the chorus of the thirty women determined to exorcise 124 Bluestone in order to rescue Sethe. And especially in the return of Paul D, prepared to acknowledge now that his initial reaction had been unjust.
Having finished reading Beloved, you will want to start reading it again immediately. That sounds like a good idea. Highly recommended.