Saturday, April 30, 2016
Just a thought
Back to Beloved, I want to talk about Paul D. There is one moment in the novel where Paul D is having a flashback and he recalles one woman being nice to him after he escapes his imprisonment. He remembers that instead of the women letting him stay with her and making him sleep on the coach or the shed, she offers him a bed with cotton sheets. I found this particular part very powerful because Paul D say he was about ready to cry from her offer and interpreted it as it is the first time he is offered a bed like any human being, so therefore he is now considered a human being because he has freed himself from slavery.
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When Paul D feels this wave of emotion, the reader also feels this burst of sympathy for his current state of abuse. He had been beaten down his whole life and then one day someone is finally nice to him and it is beyond saddening. We cannot truly empathize with his previous trauma because we have not gone through the slavery he had. It was truly an important moment in the novel.
-BY JACLYN MURPHY
This is a pretty interesting point because although Paul D finally feels safe somewhere, he still leaves after a while. He leaves because the past continues to creep up on him and he runs from it. This is definitely one of the ongoing themes in Beloved. The former slaves must learn to deal with the past head on and stop running from it in order to be able to live peacefully in the present. When Beloved finally forces Paul D to confront his past by "opening his tobacco tin," he's able to move on with his life. Likewise, when Sethe runs off her porch in the end of the novel away from Beloved, she too is able to move on.
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