Quote 4
Halle was more like a brother than a husband. His care suggested a family relationship rather than a man's laying claim. (2.16)
Does Sethe seem a little spoiled to you? After all, having an intact family was rare for slaves. Or is she allowed to wish for more?
"I don't care what she is. Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing." (4.38)
How's this for a rare moment? Sethe is defending Denver from Paul D's criticism. Relish it, because the rest of the book will be all about Sethe ignoring Denver for Beloved's sake.
"I didn't see her but a few times out in the fields and once when she was working indigo. By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line. If the moon was bright they worked by its light. Sunday she slept like a stick. She must of nursed me two or three weeks—that's the way the others did. Then she went back in rice and I sucked from another woman whose job it was […] One thing she did do. She picked me up and carried me behind the smokehouse. Back there she opened up her dress front and lifted her breast and pointed under it. Right on her rib was a circle and a cross burnt right in the skin. She said, 'This is your ma'am. This,' and she pointed. 'I am the only one who got this mark now. The rest dead. If something happens to me and you can't tell me by my face, you can know me by this mark.' Scared me so. All I could think of was how important this was and how I needed to have something important to say back, but I couldn't think of anything so I just said what I thought. 'Yes, Ma'am,' I said. 'But how will you know me? How will you know me? Mark me, too,' I said. 'Mark the mark on me too.'" Sethe chuckled.
"Did she?" asked Denver.
"She slapped my face." (6.26-28)
For all you psychology nerds, here's a possible explanation for Sethe's form of extreme mothering: Sethe never got a chance to know or have her mother, and what she does know of her mother is a slave brand and a slap in the face. So it's no wonder she's so into nursing Denver (even when there's blood on her breast) and, before Denver, baby Beloved. Or why she so forcefully does not want to send her kids back into slavery.