Title Ambiguity: The Double Denotation of Beloved

"Ten minutes, he said. You got ten minutes I'll do it for free.
Ten minutes for seven letters. With another ten could she have gotten "Dearly" too? She had not thought to ask him and it bothered her still that it might have been possible--that for twenty minutes, a half hour, say, she could have had the whole thing, every word she heard the preacher say at the funeral (and all there was to say, surely) engraved on her baby's headstone: Dearly Beloved. But what she got, settled for, was the one word that mattered. She thought it would be enough, rutting among the headstones with the engraver, his young son looking on, the anger in his face so old; the appetite in it quite new. That should certainly be enough. Enough to answer one more preacher, one more abolitionist and a town full of disgust." (page 5).

Behold! The first occurrence of the title word in the story. Approximately 5.5 pages into the novel, it seems as though Ms. Toni Morrison has granted her readers the simple pleasure of knowing the meaning behind the title of the book. However, being a Morrison novel, nothing is ever as it seems in Beloved. 

While still indulging in the brief pleasure Morrison has allowed us, we find it in our abilities to begin piecing together the puzzle of the novel. Regretfully, Sethe choose those 7 letters to forever mark the gravestone of her dead baby girl (the same dead child whose spirit we find out, one paragraph later, is haunting 124). With this knowledge gained, we figure this is a suitable title for a book that tells the story of a house haunted by a "sad, not evil" ghost. Unfortunately, we haven't solved the mystery of the title just yet. In fact, this pleasure is only an illusion; there is more to come on the significance of 'Beloved'.

Obviously, there is a reason I bring up this instance in the plot 67 pages into the novel. Almost 60 pages after our revelation of discovering the origin of the title, we gain a little bit more insight. A mysterious girl shows up in the novel and upon being discovered by Paul D, Sethe, and Denver on their way home from "Colored Thursday" of the carnival, our characters engage in conversation:

"You from around here?" Sethe asked her.
She shook her head no and reached down to take off her shoes. She pulled her dress up to the knees and rolled down her stockings. When the hosiery was tucked into the shoes, Sethe saw that her feet were like her hands, soft and new. She must have hitched a wagon ride, thought Sethe. Probably one of those West Virginia girls looking for something to beat a life of tobacco and sorghum. Sethe bent to pick up the shoes.
"What might your name be?" asked Paul D.
"Beloved," she said, and her voice was so low and rough each one looked at the other two. They heard the voice first--later the name.
"Beloved. You use a last name, Beloved?" Paul D asked her.
"Last?" She seemed puzzled. Then "No," and she spelled it for them, slowly as though the letters were being formed as she spoke them.
Sethe dropped the shoes; Denver sat down and Paul D smiled" (page 67).

The two denotations of Beloved provide several similarities. For one, there is a mention of a wagon ride for both: The baby, before dying, rode in a wagon in her escape; Beloved must have just hitched one. Beloved's hands are soft as new, just as the baby's hands would have been. Later discovered, Beloved is around 19 or 20 years old--about 2 years older than Denver. The baby was 2 years old when Denver was born. Sethe also recognizes the similarities (or maybe just reacts to the significance of Beloved's name). 

I believe that Beloved and Sethe's dead baby may have something else in common. Morrison has already made evident the supernatural elements in her story; maybe this is an additional item meant to spook the reader with its eeriness.

Once again, what at first seems to be the reason for the  novel's single-word title may not exactly be it. The connection between these two 'Beloved's is obvious but can only be revealed with time and patience. I have finally reached that point in the novel where I cannot put it down because of its increasing buildup of suspense. The eeriness, intriguing as it is, is making me overly anxious. My mind is full of ridiculous questions, but in Beloved, nothing is too ridiculous to withhold from asking:

• Is Beloved a reincarnation of Sethe's dead child? Paul D (who, despite my earlier predictions, does not seem to be going anywhere) did in fact drive the baby's spirit out, so could it be that the baby is coming back in a more physical form?
  
• Why did she rise out of the water? (That part of the chapter reminded me of the corpses rising from the lake in a scene of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.)
• How long will she stay? Will she form a 'sisterly' bond with Denver?

Among the most  unresolvable questions, why haven't I read a novel by Toni Morrison before? She is a modern literary genius, with her plot twists and inscrutably peculiar writing style; the praise for her work is not to be rendered meaningless.