Tin Tobacco Box Analysis

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The past haunts, the future taunts. Unwilling to let go of the horrors of then, former slave, Seth has dragged the weight of her past with her all through her life, experiencing things unimaginable to us. In her attempts to let go and love we see things inside characters that have not yet been discovered.

A tin tobacco box, rusted shut, enclosing something precious, something sacred. Rested deep within, it traps the feelings and memories from long ago back to a time of slavery. This rusted tin tobacco box symbolizes the very heart of Paul D. Through traumatizing experiences at sweet home and at the prison camp, he is unable to let go and there for locks away his feelings and memories in this box, a box that is not meant to be a heart.“Paul D never worried about his little tobacco tin anymore. It was rusted shut.” This symbol reflects in all the characters and their troubling pasts that they are overcome by. …show more content…
Sethe is a victim of her past, throughout the book Sethe begins to regain her life by discovering that she has a future with Paul D “ Sethe... me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.” Through Paul D, Denver and the black community, love can heal and teach her to let go of the terrible history and once again live. The rusted tin tobacco box represents a heart of trapped feelings and memories from long ago entrapping the people from their future.

A rusted tin tobacco box, can mean so much more than what it really is, it can define a human and who they stand for, how they love, and how they move on from the past. This concept can relate to anyone in the today and how the past can keep you from the

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