Summary: Chapter 24
Paul D, who has been sleeping in the basement of the local
church, is filled with despair. He reflects on his past and notes
that his two half brothers, Paul A and Paul F, are the only family
he has ever known. He does not remember his mother and never saw
his father. Throughout his life, whenever he met large black families
living together, he loved to hear them describe to him how they
were related. Paul D’s thoughts turn to Mr. Garner, who always said
that he treated his slaves as real men. In his mind, Paul D has
contrasted schoolteacher’s emasculating and dehumanizing treatment
of him and his fellow slaves with the more humane treatment of Mr.
Garner. Now Paul D begins to follow Halle in questioning whether there
was any difference in the slaves’ condition under the two men.
Paul D partially blames his despair on his previous belief
that he could build a life with Sethe. He believes that he set his
goals too high and has consequently suffered a great fall. Yet he
locates the beginning of his downfall far in the past, in the tragic
outcome of the slaves’ escape plan. Halle and Paul A failed to appear
at the appointed meeting time, and in their places stood schoolteacher,
his nephews, and other white men, waiting for Paul D and Sixo. Sixo’s lover,
the Thirty-Mile Woman, had escaped, and after he was captured Sixo
behaved so maniacally that schoolteacher became convinced he would
never again be a suitable slave. While schoolteacher tried to burn
him alive, Sixo only laughed—the first time Paul D ever heard him do
so. He shouted “Seven-O!” over and over, referring to the baby the Thirty-Mile
Woman escaped with inside her.
Schoolteacher and the other men dragged Paul
D back home, where he encountered Sethe. Despite the recent disaster,
she still intended to run. That was the last time the two saw each
other, and Paul D concludes that Sethe’s rape and the theft of her
milk must have taken place directly afterward. It was in the aftermath
of the failed escape that Paul D first learned the price he fetched:
nine hundred dollars. The knowledge forever affected his understanding
of himself. He wonders what Paul F’s price was and what Sethe’s
would be. He questions whether his life since his aborted escape
has been worth it, whether he should have thrown himself into the
fire with Sixo.
Summary: Chapter 25
Stamp Paid visits Paul D in the church and finds that
Paul D has been drinking his troubles away. A white man stops by
to ask if the men know Judy of Plank Road. Though Stamp knows her,
he feigns ignorance. The white man reprimands Paul D for drinking
on church grounds and then rides away. Stamp Paid tells Paul D that during
the year that his young master slept with Vashti, Stamp’s wife,
Stamp Paid did not touch her. When Vashti came to him one night
to tell him that she had returned for good, he felt the terrible urge
to break her neck. Instead, he changed his name. The conversation
turns to 124, and Stamp Paid tells Paul D
that he was present when Sethe tried to kill her children. He defends
Sethe’s actions, saying she only wanted to “outhurt the hurter.”
Paul D replies that Sethe scares him but that Beloved scares him
more. Stamp Paid asks if Paul D left 124 because
of Beloved, but Paul D does not answer.
Analysis: Chapters 24–25
Although Stamp’s act of renaming himself signals a kind
of spiritual rebirth and reclamation, his new name also testifies
to the trauma he has endured under slavery. There is an element
of loss in what is otherwise a gesture of strength and self-affirmation.
Indeed, in many ways the renaming might be seen as a metaphorical
suicide: Stamp had initially wanted to kill one of the masters rather
than surrender Vashti, but Vashti had insisted that this would lead
only to Stamp’s own death and begged him not to undertake the murder.
Thus, although Stamp preserved himself out of respect for Vashti’s
wishes, he denied his natural feelings of rage and assumed a new
identity free of emotional ties or bonds. Stamp estranges himself
emotionally from Vashti and devotes the rest of his life to helping
others pay off “whatever they owed in misery.” While Stamp’s new
identity is assuredly a positive one, it is still born at the expense
of the old.
Like Stamp Paid, Paul D is estranged from himself. Since
slavery, Paul D has developed emotional coping mechanisms—such as
the “tin heart”—that discourage him from loving too passionately
and require him to keep his feelings and memories locked away. The novel
is full of evidence of Paul D’s self-alienation. For example, on one
occasion in Georgia, Paul D was unable to tell whether the screaming
he heard was coming from himself or from someone else. He often
questions his worth, as he does in Chapter 24,
and he frequently seems unsure of why he does certain things. For
example, he cannot explain why he succumbs to Beloved’s seductions,
or why he suddenly suggests that he and Sethe have a baby together.
