In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison performs horrors and hauntings through figures of speech such as personification, metaphor, and alliteration. For the purposes of this blog post, I am going to concentrate on Morrison’s use of metaphor to represent the novel’s larger concern with the issues of memory, trauma, and slavery. Morrison uses the comparison of Paul D and the tobacco tin to illustrate not only the traumatic history of slavery, but the effects and hauntings of a personal past that has yet to be processed or come to terms with. Morrison writes: 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, note book 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. (Morrison 133) This beautifully written passage describes in metaphor the traumatic past of slavery and abuse that Paul D has lived through and stored up in his memory. The tobacco tin is used to illustrate how Paul D has compartmentalized his horrific and disturbing past in an attempt to move on in pursuit of a new future. Unfortunately, his past is unforgettable, despite Paul D’s efforts to contain his memories of past trauma, he is unable to put them to rest. His traumatic past continues to haunt him, his memories may be compressed, but they are still ever-present. Through this passage, Morison is describing the consequences of the buildup of unprocessed traumatic memory. The tobacco tin, “lodged in his chest,” replaces Paul D's heart, something characteristically warm and life-giving becomes dead and cold. The heart is the center of human life, our beating pulse reminds us that we are alive, it reminds us who we are. Morrison’s metaphor suggests that the traumatic memories of Paul D’s past have become the center of his life, his past trauma pulsing through his veins and circulating each aspect of his life. The tin is described as sealed and fastened, “nothing in this world could pry it open” (Morrison 133). Often, with unprocessed traumatic memories, our brain has the tendency to store them in a less accessible, “safe,” parts of our brains. Of course, these memories can resurface when triggered. The danger of these unprocessed memories is that we are unable to control when or where they may reemerge. This is where the idea of trauma and haunting intertwine. With her metaphor, Morrison shows how unprocessed traumatic memories can become our hauntings. Collective and individual traumatic memories associated with slavery prove to be the haunting force of the novel, constantly present not only in the minds of the various characters but in the minds of the readers as well. In conclusion, Morrison, through the use of figures of speech, specifically the metaphor, illuminates the reality of living with, and being haunted by, a traumatized past as a result of slavery. Morrison intentionally chose the metaphor of the tobacco tin, its production was so closely associated with, and dependent on, slave labor. The tin itself on a collective level is representative of the way American economy and society centered around slavery. On a personal level, the tin represents Paul D’s traumatic memories and how they became the center of his own life, proving how a traumatized past becomes a force of haunting. Works Cited Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage, 2016.
1 Comment
Noor Dabbas
11/12/2017 11:19:57 am
The importance of the tobacco tin can also be seen as a coping method, but it is only one of the various ways Morrison portrays the process of dealing with trauma.It can be argued that Paul D can only be the jovial man who tries to win Denver over and make Sethe's life easier because of his tobacco tin method. Although it is an unhealthy coping mechanism, it could be interesting to compare him to Sethe, another person who had to undergo the same traumatic events Paul D was faced with, as she deals with her trauma differently, letting it remain circling her forever and preferring glum solitude with her daughter. On the flip side, he can even be compared to someone who took a healthier route, being Baby Suggs, who instead of bottling up her trauma decided to face it head on and encourage other survivors to do the same.
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