Hide n' Seek

This girl Beloved, homeless and without people, beat all, though he couldn’t say exactly why, considering the colored-people he had run into during the last twenty years. During, before and after the War he had seen Negroes so stunned, or hungry, or tired or bereft it was a wonder they recalled or said anything. Who, like him, had hidden in caves and fought owls for food; who, like him, stole from pigs; who, like him, slept in the trees in the day and walked by night; who, like him, buried themselves in slope and jumped in wells to avoid regulators , raiders, patrollers…

In this passage Paul D explains the conditions Beloved is in and how he doesn't like or approve of her appearance. At one point in the book “Beloved was shining and Paul D didn't like it” I think Paul D didn't like that Beloved was shining because he knows whats its like to suffer and live in fear, and by Beloved’s appearance it seems like she didn't go through anything terrible.  During the time when Paul D was a slave he was treated terribly. Paul D had trouble knowing what it means or is to become a man because the person who owned him made him do things that would make a man doubt himself as a man.

This passage reveals slavery during the mid-1800s by Paul D’s description of what African slaves had to go through and what they had to go through when they tried running away, and their lifestyles after wards. During this time period slavery and colored-people were treated differently than white people. The only thing African Americans knew what to do at the time was “Move. Walk. Run. Hide. Steal and move on”. Africans were traumatized by the way they were treated during their slavery that when they were free the best way they knew how to survive was keep running and make sure they didn't get caught so they had to steal and hide out in places they wouldn't be found in.