It always amazes me when a writer covers a lot of ground in short form. This early passage in Belvoved not only defines the character of Sethe, it establishes the evil side of the ghost inhabiting their house, and describes the terror of living with it.
Looking, in fact acting, like a girl instead of the quiet, queenly woman Denver had known all her life. The one who never looked away, who when a man got stomped to death by a mare right in front of Sawyer’s restaurant did not look away; and when a sow began eating her own litter did not look away then either. And when the baby’s spirit picked up Here Boy and slammed him into the wall hard enough to break two of his legs and dislocate his eye, so hard he went into convulsions and chewed up his tongue, still her mother had not looked away. She had taken a hammer, knocked the dog unconscious, wiped away the blood and saliva, pushed his eye back in his head and set his leg bones. He recovered, mute and off-balance, more because of his untrustworthy eye than his bent legs, and winter, summer, drizzle or dry, nothing could persuade him to enter the house again.
This context of the haunted house also gives a chance to give a clear motivation for Sethe’s decisions. She says to Paul D:
I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running—from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth.
This helps the reader understand Sethe’s mindset when Schoolteacher found her. It also explains the downward spiral she enters when Beloved enters her life.
