Tobacco Tin Heart

Posted on May 19, 2022 by 23beauchesnel

The story, Beloved, by Toni Morrison articulates the severity of slavery in the 1870’s. The novel doesn’t just take you to overlook and observe how the slaves were being treated, but instead dives into their emotions to a bigger depth level. Morrison uses multiple literary devices to articulate the pain and emotions of the characters that she is bringing to life. One of the literary devices that help carry and transition her story is the tobacco tin heart. This is used in many ways throughout the novel to transition and bring the reader to understand the character Paul D more. 

Paul D was one of the main characters in the story who lived at Sweet Home like Sethe and Halle. Paul D’s story doesn’t start and end with Sweet Home being the worst he had to endure in his lifetime. He had many memories after Sweet Home that were way worse to an entire degree. Yes, slavery is horrible but Paul D’s torture didn’t come close to what happend to other people; he was a prisoner of the chain gang. That was torture alone.

He most likely made it self consciously, unaware of it until he felt everything release.

Over time, Paul D developed a coping mechanism. He most likely made it self consciously, unaware of it until he felt everything release. Toni Morrison refers to this as a tobacco tin in place of his heart. In the story she uses the tin to hide away painful memories from her character development. Every memory of Sweet Home or his earlier times before then had been placed into this tobacco tin and shoved down where it could no longer be felt. “It was some time before he could put Alfred, Georgia, Sixo, schoolteacher, Halle, his brothers, Sethe, Mister, the taste of iron, the sight of butter, the smell of hickory, notebook paper, one by one, into the tobacco tin lodged in his chest. By the time he got to 124 nothing in this world could pry it open.”  Any memories that cause him pain, like Sethe, he tries to bury in his metaphorical tobacco tin to try and protect himself. “Paul D doesn’t tell Sethe anything more about the experience of having the bit. He keeps the rest of the story in “that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be.” He resolves to keep the pain of his past locked up there and not let Sethe know that he has lost his heart.”

For my project, I decided to create Paul D’s real tobacco tin heart. I used an old Amazon tin to represent the tin box and proceeded to fill the box with textual information and quotes used throughout the novel discussing the tobacco tin heart. I included many quotes and sayings from the story that refer to his heart and used some that indirectly mention it. 

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535 Responses to Tobacco Tin Heart

  1. 23paderewskij says:
    May 19, 2022 at 7:06 pm

    I didn’t read the book, but looking into each little detail, in this case, the tin, and finding its meaning is super fascinating.

  2. 23beauchesnel says:
    May 20, 2022 at 10:54 am

    This piece was a very different type of writing. I was able to put my own twist on what I thought the tin meant and how it was represented.

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