āPaul D convinced me there was a world out there and that I could live in it. Should have known better. Did you better. Whatever is going on outside my door aināt for me. The world is in this room. This hereās all there is and all there needs to be.ā(page 215)
We see throughout this telling of history how Slaves are trying to free themselves from the prison of the white people. The white people put them in shackles or close them into cold sheds to stay. Making them stay there until they see fit to bring them out into the light. This light on to be used for them to see all the work the white people want them to do. Ā They rip everything away from them. Yet Paul D finds his way back to Sethe, trying to make a free life. But when his eyes are opened to a worse horror than slavery has been to him, he runs scared. Perhaps he is haunted by the fear that Sethe would do the same to him or worse to a child they may have together. This quote shows how Sethe is a prisoner to her own mind, casting away any hope Paul D tried to give her and Denver. Like with the slavery there were things she knew better than to do. As in this part of her story she feels she should have known better than to hope for the future. Believing there is no future outside the locked house she is in with Denver and Beloved. Sethe would rather be trapped in 124 and in her mind than go out into the world and be imprisoned by someone elseās slavery. If anyone is going to enslave her, it will be herself.
