Baby Suggs, Halle and Sethe on the Beloved family tree
The present of the novel is 1873, at 124 Bluestone Road outside Cincinnati, and the Beloved family tree reaches back from there to a farm in Kentucky called Sweet Home.1 Most of the family history arrives in memories, so the chart is built in the order the reader learns it.
Sethe is the daughter of an enslaved woman born in Africa, whose name Sethe never learned and whom she barely knew.3 At Sweet Home Sethe married Halle Suggs, and Halle is the father of all four of her children.3 His mother is Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-in-law, who was already living at 124 when Sethe escaped. She died eight years before the novel opens.12
Halle was meant to run north with Sethe on the night of the escape, and he never came.2 Paul D last saw him broken in mind at Sweet Home, after Halle had witnessed what was done to Sethe there.3 The chart marks Halle with an unknown fate rather than a death, because the novel never says what became of him.
The four children on the Beloved family tree
Sethe has two sons, Howard and Buglar, a daughter who is crawling when the family escapes, and Denver, born on the way north.3 Before her own escape Sethe sent the three older children ahead to Baby Suggs at 124.2
Denver is born by the Ohio River. A white girl named Amy Denver finds Sethe close to death on the road, cares for her and helps her give birth, and Sethe names the baby after her.23 Denver is eighteen when the novel opens.1
Not long after Sethe reaches 124, schoolteacher, the new master of Sweet Home, comes with a nephew, a slave catcher and a sheriff to take the family back. Sethe kills the crawling baby with a saw and is ready to kill the others before she is stopped.2 Stamp Paid, the man who helped Sethe reach 124, saves Denver that day.3 The dead child’s stone carries one word, Beloved.1
By 1873 the baby’s ghost has driven both sons away from the house, and each left before he turned thirteen.1 On the chart Howard and Buglar keep their place under Halle and Sethe with a state that says they have gone.
Beloved and the dead daughter on the family tree
In chapter 5 a young woman who calls herself Beloved appears outside 124. She knows things about Sethe’s past that no stranger should know.2 In Part Two Sethe comes to believe that she is the daughter she killed, grown to the age the child would have reached.
The novel never settles the question. Morrison said that Beloved is the daughter, while critics have read her as a ghost, as a reincarnation, or as a figure for the legacy of slavery.13 A Beloved family tree that drew her as the crawling baby would decide what the book leaves open.
The chart therefore keeps two symbols. The crawling baby is the third child of Sethe and Halle, with the cross of her death in 1855. Beloved stands apart below the family, joined to Sethe by a dotted blue arrow labelled Taken for, which begins in Part Two and records what Sethe believes, not what the chart claims.
The people around the Beloved family tree
Paul D is the last of the Sweet Home men. He arrives at 124 in chapter 1, drives the baby ghost out and moves in with Sethe.2 His brothers and Sixo, who planned the escape and was killed during it, belong to the Sweet Home story.3
Sweet Home was owned by Mr Garner, whom the enslaved remember as the kinder master. After his death his sick widow, Mrs Garner, brought in her brother-in-law, schoolteacher, whose nephews held Sethe down and stole her milk.32
In Cincinnati the family is surrounded by the free Black town. In Part Three Denver goes out for help, and Ella gathers the women who come to 124 and sing Beloved out of the house.3 At that moment Edward Bodwin, the abolitionist who owns 124, arrives, and Sethe runs at him with an ice pick, taking him for schoolteacher.13 Beloved is gone when it is over, and Paul D comes back to care for Sethe.2
The novel was suggested by the case of Margaret Garner, who escaped from Kentucky with her family in January 1856 and killed her two-year-old daughter when they were found in Cincinnati.1 Margaret Garner is not on the chart, which draws only the people of the novel.
The Beloved family tree part by part
Each card gives the changes to the Beloved family tree at the end of a group of chapters. The novel tells its past in memories, so a card names what the reader learns there. Read each card after its chapters.
Chapters 1 to 4
Paul D at 124
Spoiler note. The ghost is driven out.
- Sethe and Denver live alone, the sons gone and Baby Suggs dead.
- Paul D arrives and drives the baby ghost from the house.
Chapters 5 to 15
A woman from the water
Spoiler note. Beloved arrives.
- Beloved appears outside the house and is taken in.
- Denver tells the story of her birth and of Amy Denver.
Sources2
Chapters 16 to 18
The day schoolteacher came
Spoiler note. The killing is told.
- The killing of the crawling baby is told.
- Stamp Paid tells Paul D, and Paul D leaves 124.
Part Two
The house of three women
Spoiler note. Sethe names Beloved her daughter.
- Sethe takes Beloved for her daughter and gives her everything.
- Beloved grows demanding, and Sethe fades.
Part Three
The women at the gate
Spoiler note. The ending is told in full.
- Ella and the women sing outside 124, and Sethe runs at Mr Bodwin.
- Beloved vanishes, Denver goes to work, and Paul D returns.
How to read this Beloved family tree
On the Beloved family tree a square is a man and a circle is a woman. A double line is a marriage, and a line down from a couple or a parent leads to a child. Halle is marked with an unknown fate, and the crawling baby carries the cross of her death.
The red outline is the house at 124 and the blue outline is Sweet Home, with a mark at the corner of each member. Paul D leaves the house outline in chapter 18 and returns in Part Three. The coloured lines carry the story. The grey triple arrow from schoolteacher to Sethe is slavery, the dark red arrow from Sethe to the baby is the killing, and the teal dashed arrow from Ella to Beloved is the exorcism.
To draw a Beloved family tree for a class, open this chart in the editor, or start from the story charts. The symbols are set out in the genogram symbols.
Questions about the Beloved family tree
Who are Sethe’s children in Beloved
Howard, Buglar, the crawling baby whom Sethe kills, and Denver. Halle Suggs is the father of all four.3
Is Beloved Sethe’s daughter
The novel leaves it open. Morrison said she is, and critics read her in other ways too.1
How is Baby Suggs related to Sethe
Baby Suggs is Halle’s mother, so she is Sethe’s mother-in-law.3
People and sources
A page of its own lists all 18 characters on the chart, each with a short note and the sources for it, and the four numbered sources this article cites. It also gives this page as a reference in the APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard styles, ready to copy.