Close Reading #2

The Supernatural

"Beloved went on probing her mouth with her finger , "make him go away" she said,"she might be mad at you if he leaves. Beloved inserting a thumb inside her mouth along with her forefinger pulled out a black tooth.There was hardly any blood but Denver said, "oooh didnt that hurt you?" Beloved looked at her tooth and tought. This is it, next time would be her arm, her hand, her toe. Pieces of her would drop, maybe one at a time, maybe all at once. Or one of those mornings before denver woke and after sethe left she would fly apart."

The idea of the supernatural scares people and believing in that idea can end up making you do and say unethical things. This is exactly what happened to beloved. Since sethe and her family didn't really know where beloved came from, appearing out of nowhere, and not even beloved herself knew what occurred to her in the past, they believed that she is, well at least Sethe, she is a reincarnation of Sethe's dead baby. This family is very culturally supernatural and you notice it throughout beloved. In this text we see the scary thought of the supernatural being talked about, by beloved. Her teeth falls out and she automatically believes that she will start to, “fly apart” and begin to lose her lips, and her body will give up on itself. She believes it, “had started” when her tooth came out. 

Beloved actually believes that she is cursed and she will one day fall apart. That's the reason why she reacts this way, all anxious and scared as she starts thinking of the worst. Her thoughts speak for herself. She thinks this way because she feels that she herself comes from the supernatural with her idea that she is gonna fall apart soon and she has been given limited time to live with sethe, executing her inner plan. Since beloved herself doesn't know anything about herself, the supernatural ideology suits her well. Beloved  being frightened with this occurrence shows us her human side, that even though she acts different, and sometimes not completely ethical, like in this passage, about to drop to, "pieces" she is just as scared as a person would be. She portrays the same emotions as everyone else. She doesn't really understand that teeth fall apart all the time and tooth being,"black"tells her that her time is coming to end. But in reality its black due to the bad maintenance of her teeth.