The Beloved discussion begins

We began the day with a quick quiz and spent the rest of the period on the discussion questions below. They should be completed for HW. We will discuss them tomorrow.
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Beloved Discussion Questions
1) Trace the shifting character of the house over the course of the novel. How does setting reflect plot (and/or theme) in this case?

• “124 was spiteful” (3).
• “124 was loud” (169).
• “…she neither saw the prints nor heard the voices that ringed 124 like a noose” (183).
• “124 was quiet” (239).
• “Unloaded, 124 is just another weathered house needing repair” (264).
• “Something is missing from 124” (270).

2) Compare Stamp’s conversation with Paul D (235, the final lines of “Book Two”) and Denver’s remembered conversation with Baby Suggs (244, five or so pages into “Book Three,” right after a conversation between Baby and Sethe). What advice does each seem to give? How does their advice fit in with the overall message of Morrison’s novel?
3) Near the end of the novel, Paul D claims he wants to “put his story next to [Sethe’s]” (273), yet on the next page, the narrator tells us that “It was not a story to pass on” (274). Are these statements contradictory? What does Morrison seem to be saying about the past and the future?
4) Who or what is Beloved? Defend your answer. More importantly, what purpose does she serve in the novel?
5) Clearly, one theme of this novel is the search for self. Paul D struggles to explain for himself what the whites—“the definers” (190)—called his manhood, and Sethe struggles to find her own identity as a “free” woman. What resolution, if any, have the characters come to at the end of the novel?