Structure of Beloved

Part two of Beloved is told in individual voices or stories, emphasizing each character's isolation. Denver is isolated from the community, Sethe is isolated by choice, Stamp Paid feels closed off from 124, and Paul D. is isolated because he can't face the past.The three part structure of Beloved reflects a person's journey from a Slave to a Freed Slave to a Free Person. In part two, all of the characters are largely in the middle of this transition, even those such as Denver who never actually experienced slavery themselves. The introduction of Stamp Paid as a major character in this part is a symbol of their journey because he is the one who ferried them across the Ohio River to freedom. The second part is all about escape, which is shown in the way the characters remember the past. In the first part of the book, the characters remember their time at Sweet Home and how trapped they felt as slaves. In the second part, their memories are centered around those of escape from slavery, emphasizing the characters' transition from Slaves to Freed Slaves. This transition is also represented by Beloved. In the first part of the book, Sethe was trapped because she believed that Beloved was dead, and even when the girls came back Sethe didn't believe it was her daughter. Now that Sethe acknowledges that Beloved is her daughter, she can more easily make the transition to Free Person. Slaves cannot fully comprehend love and so they can't truly be free. Sethe's love is sort of dysfunctional in the first part, being described as "too thick" and not quite right. In the second part, she starts to prioritize and once she is able to open herself up to be loved she can love others better. Beloved's purpose for coming back from the dead is to aid the other characters in their transition between Slavery and Freedom. Each part in the book represents a different part of the journey, which leads readers to believe that the transition will be completed, at least for certain characters, in the third part.