ughout his story. This tin container is the means for holding what his soul cannot. But Beloved seduces Paul D in the cold house, thus provoking the flaking of the rusty tin and exposure of his red heart (p117). She moved closer with a footfall he didnt hear and he didnt 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 didnt know it. What he knew was when he reached the inside past he was saying, Red heart. Red heart, over and over again. (117) Sethe goes through a cycle in the novel. She goes from one extreme to the other. Sethe at first is insistent on beating back the past. With everything she does in the present, is a means to erase the past. Working dough. Working, working dough. Nothing better than to start the days serious work of beating back the past (73). Eventually Sethe is forced to face the past because of Paul D and Beloved. When she finally is able to face her past, she becomes a different woman. She becomes so infatuated with her past that she begins to neglect the present. She neglects her life and the responsibilities of the present. Beloved plays the key role in the process of rememory for Sethe. It is Beloved who makes Sethe remember her actions and feel her feelings. In the novel, she exists in the flesh, baring the scar of death along her neck. She is in a sense, the ultimate rememory- the ultimate reincarnation of a miserable past burdened by the horrors of slavery. As Paul D tells Stamp Paid, She reminds me of something. Something, look like, Im suppose to remember (234). In Beloveds monologues, she conveys a series of impressions of the terror of the life of the baby ghost and the blended memories of slavery. Although it is never clear whether Beloved comes back to life out of her own will, or if she is just the product of Sethes mind that longs for redemption. Beloveds image disrupts the life of the present, defies all laws of cohe...
