Beloved combines the haunting story of Margaret Garner, a former slave convicted of murdering her young daughter, with the fictional but realistic storytelling of Toni Morrison that breathes life and terror into the experiences of slaves. In the novel, Sethe follows the path of Margaret, murdering her first daughter in an attempt to keep her from slavery. Though ghastly, her efforts are successful, and neither she nor her remaining children must return to slavery. A character she knew during her time as a slave on the plantation Sweet Home, Paul D, appears early in the novel, having not seen each other in about 20 years. Paul D is a very hypocritical character, because though he is seen as “the kind of man who could walk into a house and make the women cry” (20), he himself does not allow anyone to open his “tobacco tin” of his memories and his past (86).
When Paul D first arrives, Sethe almost immediately begins to open up to him and give him information she hadn’t disclosed to most anyone else. Sethe doesn’t seem to understand how he can open women up as he does and make them trust him as they would trust other women. This ability of his is opposite to his inability to express his sentiments on his own past. He allows people to confide and put their faith in him while simultaneously closing himself off to others. Sethe entrusts many secrets to him, and Stamp Paid tells him stories of his past, while Paul D offers little in return of his own past.
Contrary to many other characters in literature, he is also very aware of his fault as he doesn’t allow anyone or himself to access his past memories or his emotions. He often reflects on events such as his time in Alfred, Georgia and Trenton to the readers, but doesn’t convey his feelings about them to the other characters. When he does articulate stories from previous times, he often does it with a distant, detached air to the events. This is an important precaution for him to take, as when he reveals too much to Sethe and realizes his mistake, he is completely destroyed, his heart “blown open, spilled contents floated freely” (258). Paul D is entirely mindful of hypocrisy and its effects on him. He appears to believe that though it is painful, pushing Sethe to examine more closely her traumatic past and free herself from it will help her, but enabling another to open him up would only cause him to break rather than more forwards. He’s bottled up his past to keep it from influencing him the best that he can.
Though demonstrated through many characters in many forms, Paul D is the mostly clearly hypocritical when he behaves in ways that others trust very deeply while rarely trusting anyone himself. His actions don’t seem to affect the novel greatly as a whole, but he becomes a victim of his own actions when he becomes unable to release himself from the horrors of his past.
