Beloved Three

Self Love

In the Clearing, Baby Suggs instructs the people in a new form of worship: self worship. Baby Suggs tells them "More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. more than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart." She instructs those at the Gathering that no one else is going to love any part of them, they are responsible for this love. Self love=self preservation, according to Baby Sugfs. And then there is Sethe. Sethe loves so much that lives outside of her. She laments to Paul D after Beloved leaves that "she was the best of me", to which Paul D replies (in one of the most heart achingly beautiful moments of the book) "You your best thing, Sethe. You are". Sethe has, in her mind loved her children so fiercely and strongly; however, because she fails to love herself, from whom these children come, whether that love is too thick or too thin, it isn't enough to survive. She needs that self love Baby Sugfs preaches on in order to survive these moments.