Morrison makes it clear that the victimization of former slaves does not stop with their escape from slave states. Law intervenes in Baby Suggs's life all the way to her burial. She enjoys only a four-week acquaintance with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren before schoolteacher, justified by the Fugitive Slave Law, terrifies Sethe into mayhem. Taking to her bed in search of respite from more worries than she can handle, Baby Suggs absorbs herself in the abstract comfort of color until her death. Sethe's order to "Take her to the Clearing," where she wants Baby Suggs buried, also meets opposition from laws that force mourners to bury the popular matriarch in the cemetery.
The classical theme of hubris (exaggerated pride), an essential in Greek tragedy, delineates Sethe as the tragic heroine of this story. Because of her outrageous act of self-sufficiency, her neighbors rescind the sympathy and camaraderie usually extended to ex-slaves, and they exile her in the land of freedom that she risked everything to attain. After Baby Suggs’s death, mourners refuse to enter 124 or partake of Sethe's food. As Stamp Paid contemplates the family's fate, he blames himself for acting out of mean-spiritedness and envy. By searching for the "pride [that] goeth before a fall" in Sethe, he discloses that pride in his own heart. Shamed by his uncharitable act, Stamp Paid downgrades his own status from a rescuer of runaway slaves and "Soldier of Christ" to an ignoble meddler.
Another classical theme, harmony, crumbles quickly under the weight of local suspicion, blame, and alienation. Before Beloved’s death, the community of ex-slaves shared their miseries in the warmth of Baby Suggs's house and shared spontaneous bursts of revelation and rejoicing in the clearing. These connections fade to nothing as Beloved’s ghost replaces the spirit of generosity and acceptance. In place of harmony, Sethe rewards herself with the satisfaction that she succeeded in rescuing her children from whipping, lynching, starvation, and sale. Thus, the theme of endurance takes precedence over harmony. Sethe, content in her efforts, locks out the inharmonious neighborhood that turns its collective back on her.
Skating both literally and symbolically on slippery ice, Sethe and Denver share one skate each while Beloved, treated to a full set, receives the privileges accorded a guest. The scene, unobserved by outsiders, ends with Sethe's unforeseen tears. The girls support her both physically and emotionally as they walk back to the house where Sethe provides them with warm milk. But this milk, symbolically thinned by the family's precarious position on Bluestone Road, requires artificial flavoring.
