Open Up Your Tabacco Tin Heart

You would think that an adult, who has dealt with issues beyond our imagination, would be grown up. Sethe, Paul D, and Denver in Beloved, prove otherwise. A woman or man who has been through unspeakable abuse, lost loved ones, grew up without a sense of individualism or self, and puts themselves through traumatic events, does not know everything. Experience evolves wisdom and maturity, however experience alone doesn't. It is the experience, and how we as individuals deal with that experience that develops our maturity. After Sethe makes a new life for herself with her four children, her past comes back to revive her repressed memories and experiences by taking her and her children away. Knowing of the physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma that lies in this man's hands, she tries to murder her children to protect them from that trauma. In her mind, being murdered by your own mother is better than enduring the abuse of schoolteacher and Sweet home. Being dead would be better than enduring this life. However, her actions prove to be unwise after her two sons run away out of fear of their own mother, her dead baby girl haunts her and her house, and her last remaining child worries that every night might be her last. Again, as I always say, the length of the novel provides enough time for growth for every character. Sure enough, the second time the same scenario happens (only this time it is just innocent Edwin Bodwin instead of schoolteacher), she understands and is mature enough to make a better decision. She attempts to kill Edwin instead of her children, something she probably should have done the first time around. What causes this growth? I believe one of the factors is good company. Throughout the novel, Sethe asserts her independence. However, when she welcomes Paul D's companionship, the ghost leaves, she looks more towards her future, she grows. Her independence out of fear of loving or trusting anyone more than she has to stunts her personal growth, because she is left alone with only the shell she is and her memories. Her memories were also a large factor. She could never get past them, never forgive herself for them, never accept them. Even when obvious signs support that Beloved is her daughter, she chooses to be ignorant and ignore these signs out of her fear of the past. And when she does accept that Beloved is her daughter reincarnated, she succumbs to all of Beloved's demands and allows herself to consumed by Beloved, similar to how she succumbed to all of slavery's demands and allowed herself to be enslaved by the past. Although, as soon as she decides to attack Edwin (thinking he's schoolteacher), she proves her ability to confront her past and Beloved disappears, just as her imprisonment with her past disappears. Sethe isn't the only one that grows by accepting the past either. Paul D has lived by gathering all his feelings and memories into a "tobacco tin" of a heart. It isn't until Beloved (a symbol for the past) forces him to break open his heart and reveal all he is scared of, all he has suffered, and all that he feels. It is difficult for him, just as it is for Sethe, but it reveals opportunities to grow, to move on, to take on a different life, similar to what Denver does to grow as well. Denver's version of her "tobacco tin" is the house, 124. She is suffocated there, surrounded by memories of her brothers, Baby Suggs, the baby ghost, and all of her mothers looming memories. The second she leaves 124, she is filled with courage and purpose. It is hard for her to find her way at first, but she soon understands and embraces this new world and allows for it to help her mature and grow. Do we see a pattern yet? Morrison cannot stress enough the possibility for growth by accepting, embracing, and letting go. Sethe is forced to accept what she did, even as she showers Beloved with attention, trying to redeem herself, embraces Edwin (schoolteacher, or an even deeper interpretation, the past), and lets it go. As does Paul D and Denver. Everyone has their own version of a tabacco tin heart, it is just how you learn to open it, embrace its contents, and allow that space for growth instead of the obstacles that hold you down that lead to your own growth.