Female Friendships

Honestly, that family suffers from a dearth of outside friends and a preoccupation with the past. All of the drama and focus is facing inwards, in the interpersonal relationships and the past of all the members of Sethe's unconventional family. But this is what I believe causes the negative cycle between Sethe and Beloved and the frustration that Denver feels.

It is obvious that Denver suffers from lack of companionship by the amount of time and energy she sinks into a relationship with Beloved before she finally realizes no action she does will have an effect. Denver is looking for a close female friendship or a surrogate sibling bond with which to release all the thoughts and issues she had and is having in her life, constantly describing people and things to her and feeling hopelessly addicted to gaining her attention even when she feels that Beloved is taking over her life. If she had the opportunity to have a mutual friendship, she wouldn't be stuck in this unhealthy power imbalance by her need for affection.

Denver deserves a better companion, someone who actually cares about her and feels a responsibility to reciprocate attention. But because her family is stuck in the past, only capable of contemplating what had been done and the people who had come from that action--a ghost sister who had been killed, a mother who had been the killer, a man with a tin box for a heart, the haunting spirit of slavery contaminating everything--she doesn't have any other recourse.