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Paul D gets the bit after trying to escape from Sweet Home
“I had a bit in my mouth.” (82)
“...who'd had the bit always looked wild after that...There ain’t no wilderness in your eye nowhere.” “There’s a way to put it there and there’s a way to take it out. I know em both and I haven’t figured out yet which is worse.” (84) -
Paul D sees Sixo die
“Smoky, stubborn fire. They shoot him to shut him up. Have to." (267)
"Paul D shrugs because he can't shake his head...."You should have heard him, Sethe.""(269) -
Paul D learns his price
"He would have to trade this here one for $900 if he could get it..." (267)
"He has always known, or believed he did, his value-as a hand, a laborer who could make profit on a farm-but now he discovers his worth, which is to say he learns his price. The dollar value of his weight, his strength, his heart, his brain, his penis, and his future.” (pg 267)
The image of the priced cow represents the degradation of Paul D as only an animal when his life is amounted to dollar value. -
Paul D is put in a chain gang in Georgia after trying to kill Brandywine
“He was sent there after trying to kill Brandywine, the man schoolteacher sold him to...He didn’t know exactly what prompted him to try-other than Halle, Sixo, Paul A, Paul F, and Mister. ” (125)
"...they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on." (128) -
Paul D arrives at 124
“As if to punish her [Sethe’s] further for her terrible memory, sitting on the porch not forty feet away was Paul D, the last of the Sweet Home men." (7)
"He stood up and smiled. "How you been, girl, besides barefoot?"" (7) -
Paul D, Denver, and Sethe go to the carnival
"There's a carnival in town. Thursday, tomorrow, is for coloreds and I got two dollars. Me, you, and Denver gonna spend every penny of it." (56)
"The happy one was Paul D. He said howdy to everybody within twenty feet." (56) -
Beloved shows up at 124
"A fully dressed woman walked out of the water." (60)
"Beloved was shining and Paul D didn't like it." (76) -
Paul D is moved by Beloved
"She moved him...Imperceptibly, downright reasonably, he was moving out of 124." (134)
"...the flakes of rust made either as they fell from the seams of his tobacco tin. So when the lid gave he didn’t know it. What he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying, ‘Red heart. Red heart,’ over and over again. Softly and then so loud it woke Denver, then Paul D himself. ‘Red heart. Red heart. Red heart.'" (137-138)
The image of the tobacco tin represents the suppression of memories. -
Stamp Paid shows Paul D the newspaper article of Sethe
“He had made up his mind to show him this piece of paper--newspaper--with a picture drawing of a woman who favored Sethe except that was not her mouth. Nothing like it.” (183)
""I know her mouth and this ain't it."...Oh, he heard all the old man was saying, but the more he heard, the stranger the lips in the drawing became." (183) -
Paul D leaves 124
“‘What you did was wrong, Sethe’…’You got two feet, Sethe not four,’ he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet.” (pg 194)
“This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw. This here new Sethe didn’t know where the world stopped and began. Suddenly he saw what Stamp Paid wanted him to see: important than what Sethe had done was what she claimed. It scared him.” (pg 193) -
Stamp Paid comes and finds Paul D at the church
""Is she [Beloved] what run you off? Now what I told you 'bout Sethe?"" (277)
"A shudder ran through Paul D. A bone-cold spasm that made him clutch his knees." (277) -
Paul D returns to 124
"His coming is the reverse route of his going." (310)
“There are too many things to feel about this woman.” (321)
