Later in Beloved, Paul D observes that he "wants to put his story next to" Sethe's. What does the way Morrison interweaves the flashbacks of two individuals suggest about human relationships, community, and narrative? How does this chapter show how Paul D can put his story next to Sethe's?
2. Sethe notes in this chapter that "she could feel at home on Sweet Home . . . if she picked some pretty growing thing and took it with her." How does this chapter exemplify Sethe's observation about the nature of memory? In the same chapter, Baby Suggs--herself not present--describes "the nastiness of life" as "the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children." How does this realization affect the thoughts and actions of Paul D and Sethe as they make love and afterward, and how is it mimicked in the form of the chapter's many voices and flashbacks?
3. As Morrison observes elsewhere in Beloved, slavemasters treated slaves as though they were no more than animals. The novel's primary villain, Schoolteacher, encourages his nephews to study Sethe and classify her characteristics as either "human" or "animal." In this chapter, Morrison seems to address herself to the slavemaster, inverting the terms with which he defined African-Americans, and drawing strength and narrative vitality from those inversions. Explore the set of revolving metaphors--animal, vegetable, and human--with which Morrison describes the pleasure of sexual love and constructs an authorial voice that celebrates physicality.