What Does Stamp Paid Mean In A Jungle?

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During the mid-19th century, whites considered African Americans as animals. Especially southerners who worried about their slave laborers, they knew that the Fugitive Slave Law was the key to obtain control over black lives. Morrison use of symbolism, imagery, and third-person limited point of view conveys the message that the inhumane practices of slavery affects both slaves and even slave owners (whites).
Symbolism helps portray what whites think of slaves. According to the quote, whites or slave owners define blacks’ skin as an experience in a jungle. A jungle represents danger or even mystery. A jungle is filled with surprises and one may not know what to expect. Specifically in this novel, white people created this scenario to describe …show more content…

Stamp Paid said the quote after leaving 124. The idea of slavery clicked in his brain. He felt slavery caused many fatalities and problems to blacks. He even believes whites are affected in this nonsense but whites are the ones who are fine with slavery. Stamp Paid knows what he is saying because of what he experienced when he found out that his wife, Vashti, slept with a white man. “Vashti and me was in the fields together in the day and every now and then she be gone all night. I never touched her and damn me if I spoke three words to her a day” (Morrison 274). While he knows it is his wife’s fault for sleeping with the man, he knows that slaves are always taken advantage of and that they are used as animals or toys. He felt he lost someone valuable in his life. This problem has even occurred to Sethe. She had to kill her daughter, Beloved, because of labor conditions and practices of slavery. “Inside, two boys bled in the sawdust and dirt at the feet of a nigger woman holding a blood-soaked child to her chest” (Morrison 175). The goal was not to go to Sweet Home and work. It is such a shame to see a mother kill her daughter but with these conditions, many felt death was the only solution. Ultimately, whites and slave owners were responsible for what has happened to Sethe, Beloved, and Stamp

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