kindly, Schoolteacher, who replaced Mr. Garner at
Sweet Home plantation after Mr. Garner’s death,
was determined to emasculate Paul D, whose in-
teraction with a plantation rooster named “Mister”
reminded Paul D that, as slave, he was anything
but a man. Paul D becomes a fugitive in response
to Schoolteacher’s determination to break him and
make him aware of his status as chattel. However,
Paul D is captured and returned to Sweet Home.
Shackled to a buckboard with a bit in his mouth
that causes his fiery red tongue to hang out, Paul
D resembles, in form if not in fact, the wild man
Schoolteacher defines him to be. Paul D is left with
the painful memory of his experiences, which he
sometimes sings in the BLUES that are central to his
legacy. Until he is reunited with Sethe, however, he
never talks about them. He keeps his pain locked
in a “tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red
heart used to be. Its lid rusted shut” (Morrison,
71–72), much like Sethe, who symbolically carries
the scars of her pain in the form of a chokecherry
tree inscribed on her back.
When Paul D attempts to kill Brandywine, his
new owner, he is again shackled; however, this time
he is placed on a chain gang with 46 men in Alfred,
Georgia, where he spends 86 days. At the end of
each day Paul D and his fellow prisoners are sym-
bolically entombed in a wooden prison in a ditch.
During a torrential rain that converts their prison
into a muddy grave as the ditch caves in, the men
escape, “simply duck[ing] down and push[ing]
out, fighting up, reaching for air” (110).
Paul D, who desperately yearns for a family and
personal history, spends the next 25 years search-
ing for the only surrogate family he had known at
Sweet Home, which included Sethe, her husband
Halle, and her mother-in-law, Baby SUGGS. When
he finally finds Sethe, he immediately embraces the
opportunity to fulfill his dream, which is immedi-
ately affected and deferred by Sethe’s ghost child,
Beloved. Wanting no interference with her effort
to seek revenge on her mother for murdering her,
Beloved aggressively confronts Paul D and tries to
drive him away. When her efforts fail, Beloved at-
tempts to seduce him sexually. Determined to be
patriarch, provider, and protector, Paul D remains
relentless in his territorial battle to drive Beloved
from the family home at 124 Bluestone Road, only
to be rebuffed by Sethe, for whom motherhood
and children are priorities.
However, Paul D leaves on his own after Stamp
Paid reveals Sethe’s heinous crime to him as a way
of explaining Beloved’s spiteful and venomous
behavior. Paul D is unsympathetic and unforgiv-
ing. After verbally abusing Sethe—“You got two
feet, Sethe, not four” (163)—Paul D, who was
known for his sensitivity and compassion, walks
out. He finds temporary sanctuary in the cellar of
the local church, which, in the end, he comes to
view as oppressive as was slavery and his experi-
ence on the chain gang in Georgia. In conversa-
tions with Stamp Paid, Paul D discovers the path
to his own rebirth and redemption and returns
to Sethe and Bluestone Road. He gives the “good
news” Sethe needed to hear—that she is her own
“best thing”—and, in a gesture of humility, offers
to wash Sethe’s feet. With Paul D, Morrison creates
a Christ-like character who, as a result of his own
symbolic death and rebirth, is able to suggest that,
ultimately, each individual is responsible for his or
her own salvation.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: A. Knopf, 1987.
Wilfred D. SamuelsPawley, Thomas W., Jr. (1917– )
Although his reputation remained primarily within
the HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY cir-
cuit, Thomas Pawley was also a successful dramatist.
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Pawley was educated
at Virginia State College and Iowa State Univer-
sity. He began his career as the director of drama
at Prairie View State University in Texas. He served
on the staff of the Atlanta University Summer The-
atre before becoming director of drama at Lincoln
University (Missouri). Pawley’s many one-act plays
include Jedgement Day (1938), Smokey (1938), and
Freedom in My Soul (1938). Son of Liberty (1938) is
among his better-known longer works.Pawley, Thomas W., Jr. 409