The communication between Stamp Paid and Paul D reveals that they both continue to struggle with the emotional upheaval caused by slavery. We've seen how Paul D is haunted by his slave experience, and here Stamp Paid shares the pain of the demoralizing humiliation of his wife's sexual enslavement to a white master who adorned her with a cameo and ribbon. Just as Paul D is unable to accept Sethe's murder of her daughter, Stamp Paid describes how he could not forgive his wife for her relationship with their white master. Additionally, like Paul D, Stamp Paid escaped slavery through a long journey. With a symbolic name and the determination to break for the North, he walked out of slavery and headed toward Memphis and ultimately Cumberland.
When Paul D questions the reason for human suffering and the extent to which a man must bear the burden, Stamp Paid, the stoic sage, remarks that humanity must suffer all it can tolerate.
