Close Reading 2: Blindsided

"Sethe hung her hat on a peg and turned graciously toward the girl. "That's a pretty name, Beloved. Take off your hat, why don't you, and I'll make us something. We just got back from the carnival over near Cincinnati.

Most people can attest that Sandra Bullock
represents Sethe, caring for strangers, and treating
them like family. 

Everything in there is something to see." Bolt upright in the chair, in the middle of Sethe's welcome, Beloved had fallen asleep again. "Miss. Miss." Paul D shook her gently. "You want to lay down a spell?" She opened her eyes to slits and stood up on her soft new feet which, barely capable of their job, slowly bore her to the keeping room. Once there, she collapsed on Baby Suggs' bed. Denver removed her hat and put the quilt with two squares of color over her feet." (64)

Beloved is a stranger. As a new character, nobody knows about her, yet she rises from water like a submarine in a white dress. To me, this passage further defines Sethe's motherly character, and how, despite the fact the she doesn't know Beloved, still takes her in. She cares for her by providing Beloved a bed, "making [food]for her", and a providing a place to sleep. Sethe's action is analogous to the movie The Blindside, which is based on the football offensive Michael Oher's biography. In this movie, Sandra Bullock (who closely relates to Sethe) takes Michael (who closely relates to Beloved) in, and gives him his own bed (as visible in the image above), food, shelter, and her family. This analogy shows us the motherly edge of character such as Sethe, who go out of their way to care for others. In such analogies, we see the relationship between a caring mother, and a stranger. Furthermore, this alters the psychoanalysis of Sethe. In the beginning of the book, Sethe is seen as a "crazy" mother, to who Denver is the world. Yet, she allowed Paul D to live in her house, despite Denver's blunt objection; she allowed Beloved, someone who she's never met but only heard of and reminisces her of (other) dead daughter, to live in her house. This motherly, caring action defines Sethe's character, and allows the reader to understand that, despite what the local "whitegirl", may think of her, she is human after all.
Internally, it appears that Beloved is the daughter that Sethe lost. Perhaps her caring actions in the past, and the fact that she allowed Paul D to come into her exclusive life, caught up to her and now rewards her with a daughter. I predict that Sethe will keep Beloved, despite Paul D's objections and complaints. When Sethe is feeding Beloved with sugar, it appears that "Denver laughed, Sethe smiled, and Paul D said it made him sick to his stomach" (66). Is Paul D jealous of Sethe's adoption? Angered that his "dream family" of Sethe, Denver, and himself, is now vaporized? This tangentially introduces the psychoanalytical side of the mysteriously evolving Paul D.