How To Open Paul D's Tobacco Tin In Beloved

In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, the centralized theme is that one's past will always catch up to them and they’ll have to accept it in order to move on to their future. Morrison shows this by using the literary device of symbolism in connection to Paul D’s tobacco tin throughout the story. The tobacco tin is kept as a secret at first, closed and without anybody knowing what's inside. Beloved then is able to open the tobacco tin, causing Paul D to have to face his past whether he wants to or not. This then led to Paul D being satisfied with the contents inside being out there because he is finally able to move on towards what he wants for his future. Paul D had a very gruesome past which caused him to build a wall around himself and shut

Since Paul D really believes that nothing could ever get him to open up he decides to stop focusing on the box. He believed that nothing or nobody in this world would ever be able to open up the tin box, but Beloved was actually able to. This highlights the fact that although he believed that he would never have to deal with the contents of his tobacco tin, he actually still had to and because of Beloved he was able to. When a person stops putting so much focus on just the negative things that have happened in their lives it allows for them to start building peace for themselves. Paul D “never worried about his little tobacco tin anymore. It was rusted shut”(137). Sometimes in the process of accepting one's past it involves not even realizing it’s happening. Paul D “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”(138). Paul D didn’t realize that his healing from the past was soon to start and that he would be able to move on to a new

Paul D is finally able to talk about Sixo’s death and reflect on it. “Something is funny. Paul D guesses what it is when Sixo interrupts his laughter to call out, ‘Seven-O! Seven-O!’ Smoky, stubborn fire. They shoot him to shut him up. Have to… Paul D hears the men talking and for the first time learns his worth”(267). By Paul D reflecting on the way Sixo died he now understands that he can be way more than just a slave and he doesn't have to sit around in his freedom still stuck on the fact that at some point he was one. Paul D sees how Sethe is still stuck on her past the way he was and wants her to be freed from her past as well and forgive herself in order for her to have even better things for herself in the years to come. Paul D tells Sethe “me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some of kind of tomorrow”(322). Dwelling on the past won’t make it go away, one has to accept it, move on from it, and keep building their future. Now that Paul D has learned this he wants Sethe to open up her sort of “tobacco tin” and let go of her past in order for them to be able to start fresh since she is one of his loved ones that went through a lot of abuse like he