Beloved takes place in 1873, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Sethe, an ex-slave, has been residing at 124 Bluestone road for 18 years, along with her 18-year-old daughter, Denver.  Eight years prior, Sethe’s mother in law, Baby Suggs, had lived with them for 10 years, until she passed on that year, and Sethe's two sons, Howard and Buglar also lived there for 10 years.  Before Baby Suggs’s death, Howard and Buglar ran away.  Sethe supposed their reason for leaving was the malicious presence of a violent ghost that had been haunting and tormenting her family for years.  Denver, on the other hand, enjoyed the presence of the ghost, which was believed to be the spirit of her dead sister, Beloved.

On the day the novel commences, Paul D shows up at Sethe’s front door.  Paul D had been a friend of Sethe’s from 20 years back, when they worked together on Mr. Garner’s Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky.  As he approached her, it brought back memories from Sweet Home that she would have preferred to leave in the past, buried in her mind.  At this point in the novel, it switches back and forth between Sethe’s present life in Cincinnati and her life 20 years ago when she worked as a slave at Sweet Home, in Kentucky.  Sethe’s flashbacks of Sweet Home are revisited several times over, each time with a little more information than the preceding one. 

As Sethe, (the protagonist), reflects on her past memories, we learn that she was born is South, to a mother she has few recollections of.  When Sethe was no more than 13 years old, she was sold to the Garners, who were kind and caring towards their slaves.  Upon her arrival, she noticed that she was the only female slave; all the others were men.  These five men, (Sixo, Paul D, Paul A, Paul F, and Halle), who had taken to calves because of the absence of women, lusted after her.  After a year at Sweet Home, Sethe chose Halle for her own, mainly because he bought his mother’s, (Baby Suggs), freedom by working another job during the weekends.  Sethe and Halle later had two sons, Howard and Buglar, and a baby daughter, who is known only as Beloved.  Sethe eventually decides that she must leave Sweet Home, while pregnant with Denver, partly because of the arrival schoolteacher, Mr. Garner’s racist bother in law. 

Schoolteacher, was aware of the slaves’ getaway, and was able to capture Sixo and Paul D.  He immediately killed Sixo, however, he brought Paul D back to Sweet Home.  Sethe, still at Sweet Home preparing for her escape, sent her children off to meet up with Baby Suggs in Cincinnati.   Before her departure, schoolteacher’s nephew captured Sethe, violated her, and then stole the milk from her breasts.  However, what Sethe was unaware that her husband, Halle, was watching the whole thing from the loft above the barn.  Sethe reported to Mrs. Garner the events that took place in the barn, and when schoolteacher got word of it, he had her brutally whipped.  Halle never met up with Sethe for their escape because watching schoolteacher’s nephews violate her horrified him, causing him lose his sanity. 

Nevertheless, Sethe ran away alone.  On route, Sethe collapsed from exhaustion in a forest.  Amy Denver, a while girl, found Sethe and nursed her back to health.  While traveling on a boat with Amy, Sethe gave birth to her baby, and decided to name her Denver, after he rescuer Amy Denver.  Eventually, Sethe arrived at Baby Suggs’s house, with the help of Stamp Paid. 

A month after Sethe arrived in Cincinnati, schoolteacher found Sethe, wanting to take her children and her back to Sweet Home.  Sethe, not wanting her children live a life of slavery, took her children into the woodshed and attempted to murder them.  Sethe only managed to kill her third child, cutting her throat with a handsaw.  Sethe buried her third child below a headstone that read ‘Beloved’.  She then gets thrown into jail, along with her baby Denver, however, white abolitionists fought for her release, and she gets let free.  When she returned to 124, Baby Suggs had sunken into a hopeless, depressed state, and the community had shunned her family. 

While all these events happened to Sethe, Paul D was in Georgia, where he was part of a chain, being tortured for killing his new owner, Brandywine. The terrifying happenings there caused him to disregard all of his memories and emotions.  Paul D, along with the other chain gang members, escaped during a rainstorm, and they traveled north.  Many years later, he happened upon Sethe’s front porch in Cincinnati. 

Paul D’s arrival was exactly what Sethe had needed.  The first time he entered the house, Paul D chased the malevolent ghost away that had been haunting Sethe and Denver for quite some time.  Denver, who enjoyed the presence of the ghost because she was so lonely, hated Paul D for chasing it away.  After that, Denver had a hard time excepting Paul D, but one Thursday afternoon, he took the two of them to a carnival in town and changed Denver’s opinion of him.  On the arrival back at 124, they found an odd young woman asleep in front of their porch.  This woman, coincidentally named Beloved, was believed to be the embodied ghost of Sethe’s dead daughter.  Both Sethe and Denver developed an intense obsession with Beloved, but Beloved was even more deeply obsessed with Sethe.  Paul D and Beloved developed a hate for each other upon her arrival at 124.  However, Beloved was able to control Paul D like a toy by seducing him against his will. 

Eventually, Sethe told Paul D that she killed her third child, and he responded by leaving 124.  Once Paul D had left, Beloved and Sethe became exceptionally close, and Beloved became very violent, controlling and leechlike.  Beloved demanded Sethe to explain to her why she murdered her, and Sethe became obsessed with telling her why.  Denver, all the while, was very worried about he mother, and set out to get help from her former schoolteacher.  Worried about Sethe, the community planned an exorcism for Beloved.  Upon their arrival, they found Beloved, sitting on the porch with Sethe, naked and pregnant.  While the community gathered, Mr. Bodwin, Sethe’s new employer, arrived at the house.  Sethe mistook Mr. Bodwin for schoolteacher, and ran at his with an ice pick, in attempt to kill him.  Some of the spectators restrained her, however, during all the madness, Beloved vanished, and it never seen again.

Paul eventually returned to 124, and found Sethe lying in Baby Suggs’s bed, awaiting her death.  Sethe, weeping for her dead daughter Beloved, stated that she was her best thing.  The novel ended by saying that the town, and the residents of 124, erased Beloved from their memory, like an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep.