Respond/Reflect 1: Before Beloved

Paul D, a character who is often seen as tough, doesn't want
to be vulnerable to the world and open to emotion. This also
defines the stereotype, that all males should be "strong",
both physically and emotionally.

In the passage above, we see Paul D's inner feelings. Paul D doesn't want Sethe to see him as weak. As the image of the old tobacco tin shows, his heart is "rusted shut", unwilling to open up and become vulnerable. More broadly, this represents how everything and everyone has a deeper meaning, gilded and protected from judgement. Reading Beloved allowed me to observe people around me psychoanalytically. It allowed me to (attempt to) better understand inner feelings and one word texts.

"in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut. He would not pry it loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame him. And it would hurt her to know that there was no red heart bright as Mister's comb beating in him." (90)


Before reading Beloved, I saw the world through a 2-d perspective. I didn't question anything and avoided confrontation. But after reading Beloved (through a psychoanalytical lens), I was able to observe people from a 3-d perspective; the PA lens allowed me to find deeper meanings of what people said. Like Paul D's tobacco tin, these people were rusted shut, afraid of becoming vulnerable to the world. Thus, most people would relate to Paul D's character, shut away from the world, raising a general question: if something is poisoning someone mentally, is it logical to keep it bottled up?

Moreover, the psychoanalytical lens allowed me to observe other books, that I've read in the past or am reading currently differently. This lens allowed me to observe characters and their actions, psychoanalytically. It allowed me to  understand how the characters transform and evolve mentally, throughout the book.