Morrison's use of a complex circular narrative technique squeezes out bits of information from various viewpoints, none of which supplies the whole picture. The bits of information, which form the outline of a gestalt, or pattern, create enough clarity to elicit suspense in the reader, who must remain in tune as Sethe holds back crucial information and Denver continues to anticipate some undefined connection with the past. Sethe makes plain to Paul D that Denver is the center of her life and the sole concern of her daily existence. Her brief comment that the jail rats "bit everything in there but her" delineates the extent of Sethe's protection. Sketchy details, deliberately chosen for maximum concealment, obscure the story between the arrival of slave catchers at 124 Bluestone Road and Sethe's incarceration in a cell. Meanwhile, the charmed protection that Sethe describes Denver as having seems symbolically represented in the ring of boxwood bushes that Denver enters to escape from loneliness. Denver's green retreat, another Edenic symbol, suggests a religious treatment of the spot where her grandmother once preached.
The description of Denver being born in a vaginal-shaped canoe adds to the motif of genital images. Imagining herself delivered on the river that divides slavery and freedom pleases the girl because the event epitomizes Sethe's devotion to motherhood.
The burden of painful memories for both Sethe and Paul D produces typically female and male responses. Sethe, like the house, covers herself in a breastplate of silence as a means of shielding Denver from earlier horrors. Paul D, the intruding male figure in a female-dominated environment, sings away his troubles with restless, urgent, masculine verses recalling hunger, labor, weariness, and a controlled impulse to avenge himself on the overseer. Realizing that his macho lyrics are out of place, Paul D turns his pent-up energies to the repair of the broken window and table leg. His supportive presence results in a tenuous harmony within the household as he ponders settling into a steady job and family life.
