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April 07, 2007
Paul D's Tobacco Tin
So we’ve already had some discussion in class about the role that memory plays in Beloved. As I was reading the chapter ending on page 133, the one about Paul D working on the chain gang in Georgia, I read an interesting paragraph: “It would be some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his brother, Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook paper, one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing in this world could pry it open” (133). This tobacco tin seems to be where Paul D stores all these bad memories that he’s had. I thought the most interesting part of this paragraph was the last sentence that talks about how no one in this world could pry [the tobacco tin] open. I think this is foreshadowing how Beloved will affect Paul D’s life at 124, although Paul D is the one who scares Beloved off when he arrives.
Posted by hellauer at April 7, 2007 03:43 PM