Representations of the Past and Future in Beloved

 

Beloved by Toni Morrison has many themes and messages throughout the book. There are many characters that represent many different things. I feel that Paul D represents the future and moving forward with life. Paul D represents the possibility of healing from the traumas of the past. Beloved represents the past, actively moving backwards into the past. She is the opposite of Paul D. She represents unhealed trauma. Both Paul D and Beloved influence Setha with their opposite views of the past, the future, and the trauma of their history.  

Paul D has had a very hard life. He was a slave at Sweet Home with Sethe. Even though he has had a terrible past he believes in the possibility of a better life. Paul D doesn’t dwell on the mistreatment and horrors of his past. The past is like a block preventing him from the chance of a happy and peaceful future. He tries to forget the trauma of his past. He looks forward to the future. He has hope for the future. One of Paul D’s main ways of trying to move forward is to suppress his emotions and try to forget the tortures of the past.  

It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, 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. (Beloved, 123)

The reader does not know this yet, but the end of this sentence has foreshadowing “nothing in this world could pry it open.” (Beloved, 123) It has not been revealed to the reader yet that Beloved is a manifestation of the past, a spirit. Early on in the book we do know that Beloved is able to open the “tobacco tin” and at the end this makes sense since Beloved is not of this world.

…he didn’t hear the whisper that the flakes of rust made either as they fell away from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn’t know it. (Beloved, 137-138)

Beloved is a manifestation of the past. She represents the past that refuses to be forgotten. Sethe is unable to make peace with the past. Her traumatic memories keep her tied to the past. It is the traumatic events of her past along with her love for her children that manifests Beloved. Sethe’s killing of Beloved was motived by her desire to protect her children.  “I took and put my babies where they’d be safe.”  (Beloved, 193). Beloved comes back and haunts Sethe. She represents all the painful memories and trauma of the past. Her presence causes Sethe to relive the trauma and guilt of killing her daughter. The guilt has always been there but when Beloved moves into 124 the guilt comes to the surface again. Sethe feels trapped by the past. She is unable to move on. “But her brain is not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.” (Beloved, 83). Beloved makes Sethe face the past and relive the past, preventing Sethe from moving forward into the future.

Paul D represents a future for Sethe that is not just living in the past and not stuck in 124. Actually, it is interesting that Paul D represents the future since he is a part of Sethe’s past. Both Paul D and Beloved are part of Sethe’s past. They both come back to her at 124 too. Paul D pushes Sethe to confront her painful past with the goal of moving forward. Beloved also pushes Sethe to relive her painful past but Beloved’s goal is more to continue to live in the trauma of the past rather than work through the trauma of the past and move into the future. Beloved drives Paul D away but after Beloved is gone Paul D returns. He is worried that Sethe has given up the will to live, that the past has won. Paul D tries to get Sethe to see that there is more to life still, that there is a future worth living for.

‘Sethe,’ he says, ‘me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow’ (Beloved, 322)

Comments

  1. Sasha GoncaloDecember 16, 2024 at 6:37 PM

    It is interesting that you point out how although both Paul D. and Beloved are parts of Sethe's past, Paul D. represents a possible happy future where as Beloved try's to drag Sethe into the past. I think part of the reason for this is because Paul D. is from a happier time in Sethe's life where her family was still together. He also doesn't feel like Sethe owes him anything in the way Beloved seems to. And most obviously he is still living and has the potential to have a future, while Beloved is dead and stuck in the past.

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  2. MitchellDecember 18, 2024 at 10:10 AM

    I agree that within the present-day (1873) narrative, Paul D represents the potential for some kind of future beyond enslavement--or, as Sethe succinctly thinks of it, "plans." One major limitation on Sethe's experience of "freedom" after her escape from Sweet Home--and certainly after "the Misery"--is that she is unable and unwilling to make any kind of plans. Paul represents this possibility of not only survival but some kind of "flourishing" or happiness. But I'd note that he ALSO represents the past, and the encroachment of the past on the present--he is the one who brings Sethe the news about Halle, which hits her hard and reopens the trauma. And the two of them SHARE this history at Sweet Home, which is exactly what make Sethe so confident that she can tell HIM about what happened 28 days after she arrived at 124. So Paul does represent a future, but as the final quotation in this post reflects, it is a future that they "need" in order to put to rest these "yesterdays" that have shaped their experience so profoundly.

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