Characters impacting the story in both forms. (dead or alive)
The living grieving over the dead.
Past/Present
The story often flips back and forth from the past to the present.
How the past affects the present.
Freedom/Slavery
How the lives of the characters have differed between the two very different types of living.
The lasting effect of slavery on the characters of the story
both dead and people of the past have an affect on their counter parts, living people/people of the present.
"Her past had been like her present--intolerable--and since she knew death was anything but forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color." Morrison 2
"Mister, he looked so... free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher." Morrison 141
Quote from the character Paul D, a former slave. He's comparing himself to another man that he calls free. he describes looking free as better, stronger and tougher. showing how much value freedom means to him.
free life so tasty he never forgot it. Moving down a busy street full of white people who needed no explanation for his presence, the glances he got had to do with his disgusting clothes and unforgivable hair. Still, nobody raised an alarm. Morrison 513
Quote about the character Paul D experiencing life as a free man. Talks about how despite his appearance no one cares about his presence as a black man in a city filled with white people. All because he is known to not be a slave anymore.
To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The "better life" she believed she and Denver were living was simply not that other one. Morrison 84
Quote about how the characters Sethe and Denver are trying to hide from their past by living their new lives. But realizing their "new" life was not what they thought it would be.
"You forgetting how little it is," said her mother. "She wasn't even two years old when she died. Too little to understand. Too little to talk much even." Morrison 4
Quote referring Beloved, Sethes dead baby that plays a prominent role in the story, as a constant reminder to the characters of the horrors and trauma caused by slavery.
"Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafters with some dead Negro's grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby." Morrison 7
Quote about baby Beloved haunting the main characters in their house. An example of a character impacting the story dead just as much as if they were alive.
There was nothing to be done other than what she had done, but Sethe blamed herself for Baby Suggs' collapse. However many times Baby denied it, Sethe knew the grief at 124 started when she jumped down off the wagon, her newborn tied to her chest in the underwear of a whitegirl looking for Boston. Morrison 173
Quote about Sethe feeling grief for injuring Baby Suggs which is when life at their house (124) started to go downhill.
