A Forest Between Sethe and Paul D, Rosamond and Lydgate (Landres)

 May 16

“[R]ight then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet.” (194)


What is this forest that springs up between Sethe and Paul D. after he tells her that what she did was wrong, yet she maintains her conviction in her actions? The paradigm of their relationship in this moment reminds me of that of Rosamond’s and Lydgate’s in Middlemarch. There, communication between Rosamond and Lydgate is impossible. They have fundamentally different views of the world, so, even after countless conversations and arguments, they never find a common ground on which they may finally begin to build a common understanding regarding their priorities as a couple.

This didn’t seem to be the case between Sethe and Paul D; they are sweet together, immensely enjoy each other's company, and compromise well. Then Sethe tells Paul D about the her murder of her child and defends her actions as necessary, and Paul D responds that they weren’t necessary, that they were in fact wrong. So the forest springs up between them: the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between one person’s conviction and the opposed conviction of another. It calls to mind, for example when Lydgate and Rosamond are in bankrupting debt. Rosamond stopped the sale of their house that Lydgate had begun, without speaking to Lydgate about it, because she thought the house was necessary to maintain their status and luxury (her priorities). Either side of complete conviction can never talk to the other, both being on opposite sides of a vast forest, trackless and quiet.

Comments

  1. Duong TrinhMay 17, 2021 at 8:21 PM

    Your question makes me wonder why Paul D is so harsh on Sethe, given that he has loved her very much since when they were slaves on the Garners’ farm. Isn’t it that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? In other words, as long as he has tremendous affection for her, he is supposed to judge her more gently than anybody else. However, he is entirely the opposite. Actively convicting her and running away, he creates the “trackless and quiet” forest between himself and her. Why is it so?

    We discussed the significance of Paul D’s arrival at 124 and probably concluded that having been oppressed inhumanely, Paul D is concerned about manhood. Then, to prove that he is a man, Paul D almost immediately acted to protect Sethe from her ghost daughter, no matter how unbelievable the haunting is. Meeting Sethe again and unintentionally getting involved in the leftovers of her past, Paul D also suffers from the severe effect of enslavement. He avoids Sethe when Beloved somehow overpowers him with her sexual seduction. It is unreasonable to think that such an old-aged man as Paul D is scared of Beloved, simply a child in the body of an adult. Remarkably, challenging Beloved’s oppression is a stage for him to perform the greatness of his love for Sethe.

    Nevertheless, being insecure about his eligibility of being a man, as a result of his slave life, Paul D naturally lets Beloved frighten him. She reminds him of how much below a human he used to be. He cannot resist her invite in the same way as he couldn’t manage to escape from the schoolteacher when running away with Sixo.

    In like manner, Paul D is scared of Sethe, although Stamp Paid tries to persuade that she kills her children only since she loves them. Being insecure about himself, he certainly has trouble thinking highly of anyone other than himself. In his runaway from Sethe, he recalls his inferiority to her when she still maintained the intention of leaving the farm for freedom. Meanwhile, having been caught and tortured by the schoolteacher, Paul D almost left that idea behind. Therefore, with his harsh judgment of Sethe, Paul D seems to deem her as a role model who is too good to commit a murder.

    On the other hand, feeling ashamed of himself before Sethe’s nobility of liberating her children out of inescapable slave life, he disapproves of Sethe’s murderous actions to conceal his self-shame. Maybe he desires to be that manly and noble like her to end his obsession with manhood. Unfortunately, the memories of being a slave are still part of him, haunt him unnoticed, and distance him from the love of his life, tracklessly and quietly.

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