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Paul D’s tobacco tin can be seen as a symbol of him repressing memories and holding back emotions. Sethe and Paul D connect through their mutual pain of being slaves. Paul D has suffered as a slave, so much that there is a “tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be” (86). He has locked away his memories and feelings deep within him to protect himself from the trauma. Every time he feels his emotions coming out, “one by one, [he buries them] into the tobacco tin” choosing to suppress them because he cannot cope with what has happened to him (133). The tin is where Paul D stores and collects all his feelings and memories important to him. Paul D has been damaged severely from his time as a slave that when he arrives at 124, “nothing in this world could pry [the tobacco tin] open” (133). He purposefully isolates himself from others by preventing himself from opening the tobacco tin.
Paul D. faced many traumatizing events while he was a slave at Sweet Home and a prisoner in Alfred, Georgie. As a slave, Paul D was treated like an animal, “shoved […] into” a wooden box with a “cage door” separating him from other slaves (126). The events he endured have broken him and left him to “keep the rest where it belonged” in his tobacco tin (86). Morrison uses the symbol of a tobacco tin to show how Paul D. believes he is overcoming the pain of his past but is disillusioned and metaphorically trapping himself in another box. He has even begun to push Sethe away believing “saying more might push them both to a place they [cannot go] back” to, referring to their time at Sweet Home and being in slavery (86). Morrison characterizes Paul D who is damaged by his time as a slave to show how Sethe, another former slave, cannot help nor save him from the emotions he is running away from. Another symbol that reflects the tobacco tin is the iron bit. The iron bit was used when Paul D was a slave to restrict him from being able to speak. The iron bit is a crucial piece to Paul D’s tobacco tin because “it put a wildness where before there wasn’t any” referring to how the iron bit took a piece of his identity (84). The tobacco tin represents the harsh emotions that Paul D has suppressed as a result of the horrors of slavery. Morrison uses the iron bit to suggest Paul D has been changed by being enslaved and the “wildness” will remain for a while.
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