ay, No thank you? I just ate and cant hold another bite? I am full God damn it of two boys with mossy teeth, one suckling on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading teacher writing it up. I am full of that, God damn it, I cant go back and add more. (70) Yet she does add more, because she is forced to. The internal and external scars which slavery has left on Sethes soul are irreparable. Her brain will not let her forget the images ingrained in her mind, just as Paul D is haunted by his own images; nights in the cellar, pig fever, iron bits, smiling roosters, fired feet, laughing dead men, hissing grass, rain, apple blossoms, neck jewelry, Judy in the cherry trees, cameo pins, aspens, Paul As face, sausage or the loss of a red, red heart. (235) Paul D similar to Sethe also tries to forget his past. Paul hides his past inside his tin heart: 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 her got to 124 nothing in this world could pry it open. (113) While Paul D helps Sethe face her own past, he too is forced to return to his own past and open his sealed tin heart. Going back to the past disrupts the peace of the present for both Paul D and Sethe. Even though they do share their memories, there is only so much that both of them are willing to divulge. They both share the same belief that it is best to keep the past buried. Saying more might push them both to a place they couldnt get back from (72). For both Sethe and Paul D, Beloved forces the two of them to deal with the past they are afraid to. Part of Beloveds character is her mechanism for causing others to deal with their pasts. The image of the tobacco tin containing all of Paul Ds repressed memories of abuse and degradation through his life of slavery is used thro...
