 Slavery, brief freedom, and their lasting psychological presence. Some years after the Civil War, former slave Sethe lives with her grown daughter Denver outside Cincinnati. Sethe is stolid and hard working; Denver wants society. Paul D, a former slave who knew Sethe, happens on them and joins the farm and family, but not before the house rattles and pitches, as if spirits reject Paul D s coming. Next, inexplicably, a young woman about Denver s age arrives, behaving in childlike ways, speaking and walking awkwardly, calling herself "Beloved." Who she is, her effect on Sethe, and Paul D s responses propel Sethe into the past and Denver into a new maturity.