Morrison, drawing parallels with epic journeys of classical literature, presents a sharp contrast between Paul D’s and Sethe's breaks with slavery. Recall that Sethe, her body impelling her toward a nursing baby, moved directly through the forest, crawling to spare her sore, swollen feet, pausing to give birth in a canoe, and ignoring cold, damp, and hunger in her obsessive urge to reunite with Beloved and her boys. Focused solely on her family, Sethe lacked Paul D's drive to put the past behind him, including "Halle, his brothers, Sethe", and the other reminders of Sweet Home.
After his sale to Brandywine and incarceration on a chain gang for attempted murder, Paul D follows the examples of Odysseus, Aeneas, and Jason from Greek mythology by making a meandering tour of escape. The threat of his burial in a mudslide is reminiscent of the forays that Odysseus, Aeneas, and Orpheus made into the underworld. Paul D is rejuvenated by his brief sojourn with Native Americans, who suffered their own share of the white man's hell. Then—like Odysseus's Circe, Jason's Medea, and Aeneas's Dido—an accommodating female weaver took Paul D to bed.
While Sethe enjoyed 28 days of freedom with her family, Paul D, supported by the brotherhood of the pox-ridden Cherokee, had no responsibility, no direction, and no blood ties calling to him. Whereas Sethe was welcomed to freedom by armfuls of babies, kisses, tender strokes on her boys' flesh, and Baby Suggs's healing baths, Paul D had no salve for his lingering psychic pain. The masculine image of the tobacco tin, which he carries in a shirt pocket, becomes the hardened heart that wards off feelings and permanent attachments. Like the box that nearly became his tomb in the convict camp, the tobacco tin entombs his emotions.
Morrison's hasty but touching gesture toward Cherokee sufferings underscores the careful network of details that underlie the story. The history of the Cherokee, replicated throughout white–Indian relations, delineates European greed and racism. The Cherokee, like their black brothers, knew the suffering generated by contact with whites and willingly shared mush, tools, and information about the trail of blossoms that led Paul D to freedom.
