Select 1 specific image from Part I of Sula, and discuss its significance.
16 thoughts on “Sula Response”
An image that stood out to me in part one of “Sula” by Toni Morrison was the moment where Eva, Sula’s grandmother, describes Sula watching her mother, Hannah, burn. In this disturbing and tragic scene, Sula’s mother Hannah burns herself alive and Sula just stood and watched her mother melt beneath the flames, not moving a muscle. Eva believes that Sula “watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested” (78). This sentence is fascinating because it illuminates so much about the character of Sula. It is already established that Sula’s relationship with her now deceased mother was not stereotypical. Earlier in the book Sula overheard her mother gossiping with friends and saying that she doesn’t love Sula as a mother should. Sula’s relationship and view of the world has already been tainted by her unusual childhood. She is stripped of motherly love, a vital part of human nature, so it is understandable how she could be lacking the emotions that a normal daughter would experience when watching her mother burn alive. I think the scene of Sula just watching her mother burns shows the reader how Sula is such a unique character who doesn’t follow societal norms whatsoever. This image hooked me into seeing what Sula will become and how she will act in future situations. Overall, this scene shows the effects that having a life so different and almost against modern societal norms can have on an individual.
The most striking image to me was watching Eva holding Plum in her arms and rocking him like a baby right before she kills him. Though she treasures her baby Plum, she believes a grown man must never show vulnerability like he has been doing. She explains to her daughter Hannah that she had to kill him, as she couldn’t let him continue “being helpless and thinking baby thoughts and dreaming baby dreams and messing up his pants again and smiling all the time” (72). Eva, and the Peace women, “simply loved maleness (41), and in their world, there is no time for feminine vulnerability. Masculinity and toughness is most prized. Eva has not let herself be soft ever since her husband left her. She had to “postpone” her emotions, make sure her children survived and grew up. And if they couldn’t grow up…if they were stuck in a place of softness, or childlikeness she disapproved of, they had to go. Eva explains: “I done everything I could to make him leave me and go on and live and be a man but he wouldn’t…so I just thought of a way he could die like a man not all scrunched up inside my womb, but like a man” (71-72). But before she says goodbye, she holds and rocks that baby in her arms, rocks a child who she once loved, and a child she cannot let herself love anymore.
One of the first images in Sula is also one of the most powerful. The Bottom is the perfect representation of African Americans’ separation from their society. First of all, the name is a counterintuitive paradox. It is called the bottom, but it is literally the highest point. Morrison even notes that the inhabitants found some consolation as they literally looked down on their better off white neighbors. But despite the literal height, it is still called the bottom. Morrison tells us that this neighborhood was created when white landowners lied and tricked their way out of already unfair deals. On one level, the idea that trickery and lies have put African Americans at “The Bottom” is a powerful allegory to explain the novel’s setting. Even outside of the Bottom, many southern African Americans were only a generation or two removed from slavery. This gave them countless disadvantages compared to their white neighbors. Morrison uses the story of The Bottom to introduce the reader to this brutal context. The story provides a literal example of deception and fraud and it also serves as an allegory for African Americans in general.
One of the most striking images identified in Part 1 is the concept of the “Deweys”. The book, up to this point, does not seem to directly address race, but instead references it in the scope of other occurrences, such as in the segregation of the black community into the “Bottom”. But the image of the “Deweys,” I believe, is put in place to represent the black community and minority images as a whole. The three boys which make up the “Deweys” are notably different as described in the book, with their only common thread existing in their non-white heritage. This appears to represent the way in which stereotypes and generalizations are formed, such as when a development or concept stemming from one singular event is extended to encompass an entire race or community. This can be seen in the case of the “Deweys” on page 38, when Morrison writes “When the handle from the icebox fell off, all the Deweys got whipped, and in dry-eyed silence watched their own feet as they turned their behinds high up into the air for the stroke.” In being characterized as a singular being, the “Deweys” are all punished for the actions of one of them alone. This draws obvious parallels to the nature of race-based stereotypes, demonstrating that the actions of one are extended blindly as actions of a group. Such as when a single black student in a school achieves sub-passing grades, likely in relation to extraneous distractions in their home life, and then the common belief becomes the idea that black families as a whole give lesser value to education and are a thus a factor in their own continual lack of success.
In the case of the “Deweys”, we see this image as it evolves into an even more appropriate representation of the effects of these generalizations. Occurring on page 84, Morrison explains “everybody realized for the first time that except for their magnificent teeth, the deweys would never grow… The realization was based on the fact that they remained boys in mind.” This is again a parallel to the black, or simply non-white, community as a whole. Following their compartmentalization, the “Deweys” fall off and are unable to grow as individuals, trapped in their youth. This is akin to the way in which the rejection of minorities by white society perpetuates their lack of social mobility as a part of a cyclical process of oppression. The image of the “Deweys” stands a representation of the minority community as a whole as it relates to the white-dominated society in which we live.
In Part 1 of Sula, the image of burning is reoccurring. The first time that it arrives, striking and unexpected, is with Plum, Eva’s son. Plum is burned alone after a sweet moment of care and affection between Eva and him. The laughter of their moment together and the rocking of their bodies is rhythmic and eases into the next event. Eva pours kerosene over Plum’s body, “some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing”, which enhances the idea of death as rebirth, or as an escape from the world he is trapped within.
This event is uniquely foreshadowed previously when talking about the guests in the bottom of the house; Eva does not venture to the bottom often and “didn’t willingly set foot on the stairs but once and that was to light a fire, the smoke of which was in her hair for years.” The way that the house is separated by those who live in the bottom, and those above, is similar to the way in which the bottom of heaven was described earlier in the text. In this case, Eva is in the heavens, the in who reigns above in the upper house and looks down on those in the bottom. She is in control, a creator, and in turn, capable of destroying all that she has made. Burning represents the power that Eva has over her child to decide what is the best life for him to life. As Plum is emotionally distressed and carrying trauma after the war, his habits have shifted dramatically and he is living in pain. TAs Eva burns him, it symbolizes the sacrifice of ending the suffering of another, however, she does this selfishly, with no opinion taken into consideration besides her own. This selfish act is framed in the light selflessness; the flames that surround his body were created by one out of care.
The image from this scene that is most prominent is watching Eva, “as the whoosh of flames engulfed him, she shut the door and made her slow and painful journey back to the top of the house.” Through the dragged out manner that Eva hobbles back up the stairs: long, with one leg, and agonizing, it aligns with the reflection of her actions. The stairs represent purgatory as they are the space between life and death, between the bottom and heaven. By moving up the stairs slowly, Eva is reflecting on her actions and atoning for her sins before making her way back to heaven. By virtue of this steady purifying travel, the image of Eva staggering up the stairs becomes stained as one of paying respect for her actions, and a transformation into acceptance of this act as it was out of love.
“Twenty-two years old, weak, hot, frightened, not daring to acknowledge the fact that he didn’t even know who or what he was…with no past, no language, no tribe, no source, no address book, no comb, no pencil, no clock, no pocket handkerchief, no rug, no bed, no can opener, no faded postcard, no soap, no key, no tobacco pouch, no soiled underwear and nothing nothing nothing to do…”
I found the scene where Shadrack is introduced to be very powerful. This scene is significant because it shows us just how torn apart and lost Shadrack is from going to war, and to a large degree symbolizes how other young men were left after the horrendous events that ensued. Morrison shows us just how lost he is through the quote above; it is made evident that when he went to war, he lost everything he was before. The stark dichotomy between intrinsic items such as his past and his ‘tribe’, which are all fundamental to who he is as an individual, as well as materialistic items such as a bed or a handkerchief, highlight to us just how damaged Shadrack finds himself after returning from war. He even comes back forgetting what he looked like, as made evident through his surprise from looking at himself in the mirror. Through Shadrack’s loss of identity, Morrison explores the aftermath of war and the physical and mental toll it has on an individual.
I was struck by the arguably the most dramatic scene in Part One, in which Hannah gets set on fire and Eva jumps out the window to save her. The image that I found most compelling were the cuts on Eva’s face that she contracted by jumping out of the window to save her daughter. The chapter, 1923, begins with Hannah entering the kitchen and asking Eva, “Mamma, did you ever love us?” Eva first says, “No. I don’t reckon I did. Not the way you thinking,’” and then proceeds to chew Hannah out for not appreciating everything that Eva did to help her grow up alive and healthy.
This scene sets up Eva as a tough love type of parent, as someone who would definitely prioritize putting food on the table over the children’s happiness. It reminded me of when one of the girls overhears her mother saying that she loves her daughter, she just doesn’t like her very much. However, Eva’s choice to jump out of the window suggests that she didn’t want to just protect Hannah as she had all her life. The cuts that she suffered on behalf of her daughter represent the pain that Eva has suffered every day to make sure that Hannah was alive and well and the sacrifices that she was willing to make to make the happen. I don’t think the texts suggests that Eva loved Hannah all along like a typical mother would, but it demonstrates that Eva loved Hannah enough to sacrifice herself in order to save her.
Early into the reading, a particular scene stood out to me as incredibly similar to a personal anecdote of mine; one of those odds things you remember from your childhood. When I was in third grade, my teacher told us this story (I don’t know for sure, but I presume it to be true) of a black teacher who was loved by his students. One day, the kids were doing a project called “Who am I?”, and a little one goes straight up to the teacher and says “I know! You’re a boy!”
Lovingly, the teacher corrects the boy, “I am a man.”
Now, I by no means want to imply that this third grade child had anything but the sweetest of intentions; to even argue there was implicit racism involved feels like a stretch of such a minute detail. However, when reading the passage between the conductor and Helene on pages 20-21, it was this weird memory that instantly sprung up into my mind. Would a white teacher have the same need to clarify his position of authority? I believe he would not, and the comment “You’re a boy!” would go on unnoticed. However, “You’re a boy!” to a black teacher carries a different connotation which stretches back to the discrimination that plagues United States history, and it is for the reason that the specific distinction between boy and man is necessary.
All of these thoughts are nice, but they are only in part related to our assigned reading, nor do they discuss details from Sula itself. On pages 20-21, Helene and her daughter are confronted by a conductor for not sitting in the proper colored section. In the short altercation, the conductor calls Helene “gal,” and the young woman is instantly condemned because of her race. The term “gal” carries two meanings. Firstly, gal is the name of a child, one who is dependent on others, immature, unworthy of trust, second-class. Tying into the second-class citizen idea, “gal” is also a term associated with the objectification of women, belittling them to the same status of an eight year old.
When considering both the race and the gender perspective, the best judgment of the term’s effect is Helene’s reaction. Morrison is so deliberate in describing Helene’s beauty in a way that also carries her confidence, and yet the simple name “gal” is enough to dampen Helene’s spirits. During the Jim Crow era, this subtle form of racism prevailed because, unlike gestures which were more clearly wrong (lynching), it could lead black people themselves to question their own validity as human beings, which is showed by the insecurity Helene expresses. It is for this reason that a black teacher would feel the need make the clear distinction: “I am a man.”
Part one of Toni Morrison’s Sula delves into the complex interpersonal relationships of the residents in a small town referred to as the “Bottom,” specifically focusing on the Peace family. Throughout part one, the significance of death—and its accompanying effects: grief, inquisition, guilt—are thematically subdued. Morrison substantiates this motif on page 70, where Hannah Peace asks her mother, Eva, why she killed her brother, Plum. Eva’s response is so heartfelt, so genuine, it leads the reader to believe that a mother unfeignedly killed her son because he was demonstrating helpless behavior. In the most loving way, Eva describes that she set her only son on fire because she had reached her capacity as a mother and couldn’t bear the idea of Plum needing more. In fact, Hannah’s motivation to ask her mother why she killed Plum in the first place is nearly as abnormal as the actual murder itself. The characters we meet in Sula simply do not regard death with the same fear or respect as people in contemporary society do. While Eva’s rebuttal also represents the immense effort she expended in raising her three children, it mainly serves as a keen glimpse into her perspective of death and its impact.
The conversation exemplifies how, due to racism and harsh living conditions, Bottom’s residents’ skewed perception of death manifests itself as both a normal of occurrence and a part of life that doesn’t hold ethical weight. This is supported by the many other instances in which death rears its head and little guilt or grief is felt—like Sula’s lack of guilt after accidentally killing Chicken Little. Morrison highlights the insignificant role of death as a way to indicate the terrible discrimination of black residents in Bottom and the way it impacts, and augments, the entire community’s perception of death and its implications.
Shadrack is introduced as a character in Sula even before Sula herself. As his body transports his damaged brain around after being released from the hospital, passersby’s think him a helpless drunk. Toni Morrison gives us an image of “Passengers in dark, square cars” (12) that ignore him and even avert their eyes at someone who can’t even bear to look at himself. The “square cars” are ridden in, not even driven, by “passengers” that are square themselves. Morrison, throughout the first part of the novel, highlights the lives of people that aren’t square. She focuses on the people who are in the spotlight and heavily judged for their provoking differences. Both Hannah and Eva are marveled at by men and use this to get what they want. They, unlike the “dark” cars, are not anonymous. Shadrack, in a way, is also a driver, not a passenger. He’s out of his element on the road, but once he finds his way back home he can build something for himself. His holiday starts to gain more traction in Medallion; he is not one of the flat “paper people” (11).
The end of “1927,” marks a dark transition into the progression of age throughout the rest of Toni Morrison’s Sula. The chapter ends with Hannah’s horrible death, housing graphic descriptions of burns and the emotional trauma of a shocking end wrapping wrapping itself around Morrison’s prose. The last image of the chapter is the most significant and churning, though. Eva recalls the reaction of her granddaughter, Sula, as she watched her mother burn. Eva remembers, “Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested. (78)” Even Eva, the staple of confidence and fervor in Part 1 of the novel, is unnerved by the sight of Sula. In some sense, she senses the disconnect within Sula, the damage.
Even more important about this scene is the contrast of Eva and Hannah with Sula as a bystander to the drama of their struggle. Sula sits front and center to not only her mother’s brutal death, but to a gruesome metaphor of the female struggle of the women of her family. In some sense, the image of Eva (handicapped, aging, slow, and bloody) hurrying to Hannah (burning, aloof, young, and beautiful) represents what death to youth does to a woman, but also what knowledge and hardship can do. Eva can’t quite reach her daughter as the image of her and the essence of her burns in front of her eyes. It’s also almost as though the murder of Pearl and the burden of the sacrifice of her role as a conventional mother is what really keeps her from saving her daughter and what inevitably influences Sula to flee so that she can escape the horrible cycle of burning bodies in her family.
Upon returning from her trip on the train to New Orleans with her mother, Nel experiences a turning point in her life and sense of identity: an important coming of age moment in Toni Morrison’s “Sula”. The experiences of her adventure, particularly the interaction with the bold woman in yellow with her ashy eyebrows, prompt Nel to look in the mirror, contemplate the face that stared back, and whisper, “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me.” (28) Morrison writes, “Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear.” This image shows a crucial discovery in Nel’s sense of self as she sees herself as a disparate entity from all the things that currently composed her, like her family and her name.
Settling into her bed, she then says “I want… I want to be… wonderful. Oh Jesus, make me wonderful.” (29) This desire to be wonderful implies that she does not view her current state as such, and the introduction of Sula as having the chaotic, free life that Nel encountered on the train and now desires is an answer to her prayer. This friendship makes her wonderful, replacing the desires to travel as she never leaves Medallion again, and allows Nel to create an identity independent of her family and home. She is able to refine what it means to be “me” and make it something wonderful, a proud face reflected in the mirror. This image of Nel contemplating and dialoguing with herself, within the context of the pleasant recount of the train before and the foreshadowing of Sula after is significant to the character development and plot of Toni Morrison’s Sula.
Arthur Romero da Veiga Martins
March 18, 2019
Response on Sula, “Part One”
In her 1974 novel Sula, Toni Morrison instils a sense that certain lives and narratives are worth more than others. Throughout the descriptions of the lives of Sula and Nel, as well as their encounters with people other than their families, Morrison introduces certain characters through animalistic or generic epithets and, by not awarding them any name, connotes the disposability of their lives. The story of the death of ‘Chicken’ is particularly relevant in this context. On a hot summer afternoon, Sula and Nel encounter a young boy who they name ‘Chicken’. Sula invites him to climb trees and play, but the boy falls into the river and drowns as both girls watch.
The introduction of this character as an animal has a double effect on how his narrative is understood. First, his being equated to a chicken and referred to as one establishes a hierarchical difference between him and Sula. Whereas she has a proper name, he is addressed either provocatively as ‘Chicken’, or condescendingly as ‘Chicken Little’. This latter name also conjures a sense of innocence to his character, which is further corroborated by the way Sula accompanies him during the game. Then, the girl’s indifferent reaction to his death elicits an understanding that his humanity is irrelevant; in fact, there is little to be mourned about a dead chicken. Eventually, Nel consoles Sula and dismisses any real concerns about the implications of their actions.
This ‘name-calling’ is also used to connote how the white population regards their black counterparts. Morrison narrates an exchange between a bargemen and a sheriff, concerning the salvage of ‘Chicken’’s dead body. This report is full of racial slurs and outright justifications that the body would not be rescued had it not been a child. Indeed, the bargeman states that ‘these people’, referring to the black community, are, in essence, ‘animals’. Here, it becomes evident that the boy being named ‘Chicken’ is a metaphor for how people of color were construed as animals by their white counterparts, and how violence and contempt against them were therein justified.
Toni Morrison often writes about love and portrays its different expressions through various characters in Sula. For example, Hannah asks Eva whether or not she loved her, to which Eva responded defensively and demonstrated how her love was unconditional. A love based on necessity and survival not compassion and empathy. This scene continues and Hannah finally confronts Eva about killing her only son Plum. Eva begins by describing how “boys is hard to bear” (71) immediately attempting to disperse blame from herself, as if it was not her fault he was such a troubled individual. This focus on birth and the womb continues as Eva describes how “when he came back from that war he wanted to git back in [her womb] (71). This metaphorical re-entering of Eva’s womb demonstrates Plum’s inability to face adulthood and responsibility. Equally, it may demonstrate the trauma he faced in World War I, unable to cope with his memories, reverting instead to drugs and the refuge of his mother. Eva reflects this consensus as she describes Plum as “helpless”, “dreaming baby dreams”, and “smiling all the time” (71). These descriptors illustrate her admiration for her son but the loss of hope and faith she has in him. To further exemplify this claim, Eva reflects, “I had room enough in my heart, but not in my womb, not no more” (71). This blunt yet emotional statement by Eva reflect her love for Plum, but it also portrays her age and inability to have to care for a child’s every needs.
Though this act appears of one rooted in malice not love, Morrison portrays Eva’s desire for Plum to succeed, but her realization that he will not because he has no faith in himself. Eva continues her justification of Plum’s murder by describing how “a big man can’t be a baby all wrapped up inside his mama no more; he suffocate” (72). By describing how Plum’s actions will lead to his own suffocation, or demise, Morrison shows how Eva believes that Plum understands his self-deprecating action so she has accepted him for what he is, helpless and hopeless. In a converse reading, Morrison also plays with the role of the patriarchy in the 1920s. She tells of how a “big man can’t…be wrapped up inside his mama” because a man should be out working, searching for a suitor, and establishing himself. For this reason, Eva burns Plum, so he “could die like a man.” A death that would be prolonged, full of pain, and the opposite of the peaceful nurturing environment of the womb. This unconditional love for her children had given out on Plum because he no longer should have needed Eva’s support to survive. She expressed great care and compassionate love for Plum as she held him tight before burning him down, but could not withstand the draining nature of Plum’s needs. Either she could end his life “like a man” or he could rot at his own bedside with a needle in his arm.
I have chosen to look at the image of Helene Sabat’s velvet dress. This image occurs early in the novel during a description of Helene’s character as she prepares for a journey back to where she grew up. Helene is described as a severe and conservative woman who for her whole life has tried to escape from her unknown mother’s profession as a prostitute. Helene’s severity is reflected in Morrison’s description of the dress she sews as “heavy but elegant” (19). Heavy and elegant mirror Helene’s general disposition and are representative of her mannerisms. Morrison spends time describing the dress in detail because through the construction of the dress and Helene’s meticulous process during its construction the reader is able to more truly understand Helene’s character, so as the novel progresses the reader can understand her relationship with Nel.
It is her mother’s severity that throughout part one of the novel causes Nel to turn to Sula and her less conventional household for liberation. Helene is the sharp contrast to Hannah, yet this contrast does not prevent a connection between their daughters, rather their deeply opposed upbringings is what brings the two girls together in friendship, each finding what they cannot at home, in the households of the other. In order to understand this contrast, and how it has pulled Sula and Nel together, the reader must first understand their respective upbringings. The image of Helene’s dress represents the kind of upbringing Nel has and will experience in the novel. The heaviness of the fabric, and the very material it is constructed from, deep brown velvet and wool, are reflective of the way Helene raises Nel. Everything in their home is clean and proper, red velvet sofa and white lace curtains.
The significance of the handmade velvet dress does not lie in what it is, rather what it represents. This dress represents Helene in an object, and as Nel looks at the dress as the pair rides south on the train. Nel imagines the dress coming undone at the seams, and thus she imagines escaping her mother’s constricting parenting style. This dress represents both Nels struggle to escape her mother’s severity, and the very severity she hates.
As a child, Nel dreamt of languishing on a bed of flowers, floral cushion beneath her, awaiting her prince. And too, she wished for a companion to share in her longing. Elsewhere, Sula crouched behind a linoleum roll in her attic, attempting to escape the activity of her household. She closed her eyes and conjured a gray-and-white horse to carry her through the world, “tasting sugar and smelling roses in full view of a someone who shared both the taste and the speed.” Nel and Sula alike yearned for an accomplice. When they found each other, they found sisterhood. However, their dreams proved too disparate to coexist in adulthood: Nel craved passivity and Sula action.
Nel remained content to wait for a man and settle. But Sula demanded movement in her life. As adults, they no longer dreamt of fantasy but of hell. Sula tells Nel that hell is stagnation, to do one thing for the rest of eternity. Nel disagrees, “‘Hell ain’t things lasting forever. Hell is change.’” This major difference of philosophy tears the once inseparable apart. To Nel, Sula bore the scent of unripe green things with robins in her wake, the colour and bird both historically symbolizing new beginnings, and thus by definition, change. The scar above her eye resembled similar emblems: a stemmed rose (thorns included), a rattlesnake, the ashes of her mother, and a tadpole. She carried the spirit of rebirth in all its sweetness and bitterness. It takes Sula’s death for Nel to understand the precious nature of their friendship despite their differences. Sula’s killer was possession itself, her all encompassing feelings for Ajax. That sudden desire for constancy ripped her of life, leaving Nel to face the ultimate change of all: the passing of her “sister,” soulmate, and friend.
An image that stood out to me in part one of “Sula” by Toni Morrison was the moment where Eva, Sula’s grandmother, describes Sula watching her mother, Hannah, burn. In this disturbing and tragic scene, Sula’s mother Hannah burns herself alive and Sula just stood and watched her mother melt beneath the flames, not moving a muscle. Eva believes that Sula “watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested” (78). This sentence is fascinating because it illuminates so much about the character of Sula. It is already established that Sula’s relationship with her now deceased mother was not stereotypical. Earlier in the book Sula overheard her mother gossiping with friends and saying that she doesn’t love Sula as a mother should. Sula’s relationship and view of the world has already been tainted by her unusual childhood. She is stripped of motherly love, a vital part of human nature, so it is understandable how she could be lacking the emotions that a normal daughter would experience when watching her mother burn alive. I think the scene of Sula just watching her mother burns shows the reader how Sula is such a unique character who doesn’t follow societal norms whatsoever. This image hooked me into seeing what Sula will become and how she will act in future situations. Overall, this scene shows the effects that having a life so different and almost against modern societal norms can have on an individual.
The most striking image to me was watching Eva holding Plum in her arms and rocking him like a baby right before she kills him. Though she treasures her baby Plum, she believes a grown man must never show vulnerability like he has been doing. She explains to her daughter Hannah that she had to kill him, as she couldn’t let him continue “being helpless and thinking baby thoughts and dreaming baby dreams and messing up his pants again and smiling all the time” (72). Eva, and the Peace women, “simply loved maleness (41), and in their world, there is no time for feminine vulnerability. Masculinity and toughness is most prized. Eva has not let herself be soft ever since her husband left her. She had to “postpone” her emotions, make sure her children survived and grew up. And if they couldn’t grow up…if they were stuck in a place of softness, or childlikeness she disapproved of, they had to go. Eva explains: “I done everything I could to make him leave me and go on and live and be a man but he wouldn’t…so I just thought of a way he could die like a man not all scrunched up inside my womb, but like a man” (71-72). But before she says goodbye, she holds and rocks that baby in her arms, rocks a child who she once loved, and a child she cannot let herself love anymore.
One of the first images in Sula is also one of the most powerful. The Bottom is the perfect representation of African Americans’ separation from their society. First of all, the name is a counterintuitive paradox. It is called the bottom, but it is literally the highest point. Morrison even notes that the inhabitants found some consolation as they literally looked down on their better off white neighbors. But despite the literal height, it is still called the bottom. Morrison tells us that this neighborhood was created when white landowners lied and tricked their way out of already unfair deals. On one level, the idea that trickery and lies have put African Americans at “The Bottom” is a powerful allegory to explain the novel’s setting. Even outside of the Bottom, many southern African Americans were only a generation or two removed from slavery. This gave them countless disadvantages compared to their white neighbors. Morrison uses the story of The Bottom to introduce the reader to this brutal context. The story provides a literal example of deception and fraud and it also serves as an allegory for African Americans in general.
Dan Frazo
3/19/2019
Sula Response
One of the most striking images identified in Part 1 is the concept of the “Deweys”. The book, up to this point, does not seem to directly address race, but instead references it in the scope of other occurrences, such as in the segregation of the black community into the “Bottom”. But the image of the “Deweys,” I believe, is put in place to represent the black community and minority images as a whole. The three boys which make up the “Deweys” are notably different as described in the book, with their only common thread existing in their non-white heritage. This appears to represent the way in which stereotypes and generalizations are formed, such as when a development or concept stemming from one singular event is extended to encompass an entire race or community. This can be seen in the case of the “Deweys” on page 38, when Morrison writes “When the handle from the icebox fell off, all the Deweys got whipped, and in dry-eyed silence watched their own feet as they turned their behinds high up into the air for the stroke.” In being characterized as a singular being, the “Deweys” are all punished for the actions of one of them alone. This draws obvious parallels to the nature of race-based stereotypes, demonstrating that the actions of one are extended blindly as actions of a group. Such as when a single black student in a school achieves sub-passing grades, likely in relation to extraneous distractions in their home life, and then the common belief becomes the idea that black families as a whole give lesser value to education and are a thus a factor in their own continual lack of success.
In the case of the “Deweys”, we see this image as it evolves into an even more appropriate representation of the effects of these generalizations. Occurring on page 84, Morrison explains “everybody realized for the first time that except for their magnificent teeth, the deweys would never grow… The realization was based on the fact that they remained boys in mind.” This is again a parallel to the black, or simply non-white, community as a whole. Following their compartmentalization, the “Deweys” fall off and are unable to grow as individuals, trapped in their youth. This is akin to the way in which the rejection of minorities by white society perpetuates their lack of social mobility as a part of a cyclical process of oppression. The image of the “Deweys” stands a representation of the minority community as a whole as it relates to the white-dominated society in which we live.
In Part 1 of Sula, the image of burning is reoccurring. The first time that it arrives, striking and unexpected, is with Plum, Eva’s son. Plum is burned alone after a sweet moment of care and affection between Eva and him. The laughter of their moment together and the rocking of their bodies is rhythmic and eases into the next event. Eva pours kerosene over Plum’s body, “some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing”, which enhances the idea of death as rebirth, or as an escape from the world he is trapped within.
This event is uniquely foreshadowed previously when talking about the guests in the bottom of the house; Eva does not venture to the bottom often and “didn’t willingly set foot on the stairs but once and that was to light a fire, the smoke of which was in her hair for years.” The way that the house is separated by those who live in the bottom, and those above, is similar to the way in which the bottom of heaven was described earlier in the text. In this case, Eva is in the heavens, the in who reigns above in the upper house and looks down on those in the bottom. She is in control, a creator, and in turn, capable of destroying all that she has made. Burning represents the power that Eva has over her child to decide what is the best life for him to life. As Plum is emotionally distressed and carrying trauma after the war, his habits have shifted dramatically and he is living in pain. TAs Eva burns him, it symbolizes the sacrifice of ending the suffering of another, however, she does this selfishly, with no opinion taken into consideration besides her own. This selfish act is framed in the light selflessness; the flames that surround his body were created by one out of care.
The image from this scene that is most prominent is watching Eva, “as the whoosh of flames engulfed him, she shut the door and made her slow and painful journey back to the top of the house.” Through the dragged out manner that Eva hobbles back up the stairs: long, with one leg, and agonizing, it aligns with the reflection of her actions. The stairs represent purgatory as they are the space between life and death, between the bottom and heaven. By moving up the stairs slowly, Eva is reflecting on her actions and atoning for her sins before making her way back to heaven. By virtue of this steady purifying travel, the image of Eva staggering up the stairs becomes stained as one of paying respect for her actions, and a transformation into acceptance of this act as it was out of love.
Fahmid Rashid
March 18, 2019
‘Sula’ Response
“Twenty-two years old, weak, hot, frightened, not daring to acknowledge the fact that he didn’t even know who or what he was…with no past, no language, no tribe, no source, no address book, no comb, no pencil, no clock, no pocket handkerchief, no rug, no bed, no can opener, no faded postcard, no soap, no key, no tobacco pouch, no soiled underwear and nothing nothing nothing to do…”
I found the scene where Shadrack is introduced to be very powerful. This scene is significant because it shows us just how torn apart and lost Shadrack is from going to war, and to a large degree symbolizes how other young men were left after the horrendous events that ensued. Morrison shows us just how lost he is through the quote above; it is made evident that when he went to war, he lost everything he was before. The stark dichotomy between intrinsic items such as his past and his ‘tribe’, which are all fundamental to who he is as an individual, as well as materialistic items such as a bed or a handkerchief, highlight to us just how damaged Shadrack finds himself after returning from war. He even comes back forgetting what he looked like, as made evident through his surprise from looking at himself in the mirror. Through Shadrack’s loss of identity, Morrison explores the aftermath of war and the physical and mental toll it has on an individual.
I was struck by the arguably the most dramatic scene in Part One, in which Hannah gets set on fire and Eva jumps out the window to save her. The image that I found most compelling were the cuts on Eva’s face that she contracted by jumping out of the window to save her daughter. The chapter, 1923, begins with Hannah entering the kitchen and asking Eva, “Mamma, did you ever love us?” Eva first says, “No. I don’t reckon I did. Not the way you thinking,’” and then proceeds to chew Hannah out for not appreciating everything that Eva did to help her grow up alive and healthy.
This scene sets up Eva as a tough love type of parent, as someone who would definitely prioritize putting food on the table over the children’s happiness. It reminded me of when one of the girls overhears her mother saying that she loves her daughter, she just doesn’t like her very much. However, Eva’s choice to jump out of the window suggests that she didn’t want to just protect Hannah as she had all her life. The cuts that she suffered on behalf of her daughter represent the pain that Eva has suffered every day to make sure that Hannah was alive and well and the sacrifices that she was willing to make to make the happen. I don’t think the texts suggests that Eva loved Hannah all along like a typical mother would, but it demonstrates that Eva loved Hannah enough to sacrifice herself in order to save her.
Early into the reading, a particular scene stood out to me as incredibly similar to a personal anecdote of mine; one of those odds things you remember from your childhood. When I was in third grade, my teacher told us this story (I don’t know for sure, but I presume it to be true) of a black teacher who was loved by his students. One day, the kids were doing a project called “Who am I?”, and a little one goes straight up to the teacher and says “I know! You’re a boy!”
Lovingly, the teacher corrects the boy, “I am a man.”
Now, I by no means want to imply that this third grade child had anything but the sweetest of intentions; to even argue there was implicit racism involved feels like a stretch of such a minute detail. However, when reading the passage between the conductor and Helene on pages 20-21, it was this weird memory that instantly sprung up into my mind. Would a white teacher have the same need to clarify his position of authority? I believe he would not, and the comment “You’re a boy!” would go on unnoticed. However, “You’re a boy!” to a black teacher carries a different connotation which stretches back to the discrimination that plagues United States history, and it is for the reason that the specific distinction between boy and man is necessary.
All of these thoughts are nice, but they are only in part related to our assigned reading, nor do they discuss details from Sula itself. On pages 20-21, Helene and her daughter are confronted by a conductor for not sitting in the proper colored section. In the short altercation, the conductor calls Helene “gal,” and the young woman is instantly condemned because of her race. The term “gal” carries two meanings. Firstly, gal is the name of a child, one who is dependent on others, immature, unworthy of trust, second-class. Tying into the second-class citizen idea, “gal” is also a term associated with the objectification of women, belittling them to the same status of an eight year old.
When considering both the race and the gender perspective, the best judgment of the term’s effect is Helene’s reaction. Morrison is so deliberate in describing Helene’s beauty in a way that also carries her confidence, and yet the simple name “gal” is enough to dampen Helene’s spirits. During the Jim Crow era, this subtle form of racism prevailed because, unlike gestures which were more clearly wrong (lynching), it could lead black people themselves to question their own validity as human beings, which is showed by the insecurity Helene expresses. It is for this reason that a black teacher would feel the need make the clear distinction: “I am a man.”
Augie Schultz
Prof. Cassarino
3/18/19
Part one of Toni Morrison’s Sula delves into the complex interpersonal relationships of the residents in a small town referred to as the “Bottom,” specifically focusing on the Peace family. Throughout part one, the significance of death—and its accompanying effects: grief, inquisition, guilt—are thematically subdued. Morrison substantiates this motif on page 70, where Hannah Peace asks her mother, Eva, why she killed her brother, Plum. Eva’s response is so heartfelt, so genuine, it leads the reader to believe that a mother unfeignedly killed her son because he was demonstrating helpless behavior. In the most loving way, Eva describes that she set her only son on fire because she had reached her capacity as a mother and couldn’t bear the idea of Plum needing more. In fact, Hannah’s motivation to ask her mother why she killed Plum in the first place is nearly as abnormal as the actual murder itself. The characters we meet in Sula simply do not regard death with the same fear or respect as people in contemporary society do. While Eva’s rebuttal also represents the immense effort she expended in raising her three children, it mainly serves as a keen glimpse into her perspective of death and its impact.
The conversation exemplifies how, due to racism and harsh living conditions, Bottom’s residents’ skewed perception of death manifests itself as both a normal of occurrence and a part of life that doesn’t hold ethical weight. This is supported by the many other instances in which death rears its head and little guilt or grief is felt—like Sula’s lack of guilt after accidentally killing Chicken Little. Morrison highlights the insignificant role of death as a way to indicate the terrible discrimination of black residents in Bottom and the way it impacts, and augments, the entire community’s perception of death and its implications.
Shadrack is introduced as a character in Sula even before Sula herself. As his body transports his damaged brain around after being released from the hospital, passersby’s think him a helpless drunk. Toni Morrison gives us an image of “Passengers in dark, square cars” (12) that ignore him and even avert their eyes at someone who can’t even bear to look at himself. The “square cars” are ridden in, not even driven, by “passengers” that are square themselves. Morrison, throughout the first part of the novel, highlights the lives of people that aren’t square. She focuses on the people who are in the spotlight and heavily judged for their provoking differences. Both Hannah and Eva are marveled at by men and use this to get what they want. They, unlike the “dark” cars, are not anonymous. Shadrack, in a way, is also a driver, not a passenger. He’s out of his element on the road, but once he finds his way back home he can build something for himself. His holiday starts to gain more traction in Medallion; he is not one of the flat “paper people” (11).
The end of “1927,” marks a dark transition into the progression of age throughout the rest of Toni Morrison’s Sula. The chapter ends with Hannah’s horrible death, housing graphic descriptions of burns and the emotional trauma of a shocking end wrapping wrapping itself around Morrison’s prose. The last image of the chapter is the most significant and churning, though. Eva recalls the reaction of her granddaughter, Sula, as she watched her mother burn. Eva remembers, “Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested. (78)” Even Eva, the staple of confidence and fervor in Part 1 of the novel, is unnerved by the sight of Sula. In some sense, she senses the disconnect within Sula, the damage.
Even more important about this scene is the contrast of Eva and Hannah with Sula as a bystander to the drama of their struggle. Sula sits front and center to not only her mother’s brutal death, but to a gruesome metaphor of the female struggle of the women of her family. In some sense, the image of Eva (handicapped, aging, slow, and bloody) hurrying to Hannah (burning, aloof, young, and beautiful) represents what death to youth does to a woman, but also what knowledge and hardship can do. Eva can’t quite reach her daughter as the image of her and the essence of her burns in front of her eyes. It’s also almost as though the murder of Pearl and the burden of the sacrifice of her role as a conventional mother is what really keeps her from saving her daughter and what inevitably influences Sula to flee so that she can escape the horrible cycle of burning bodies in her family.
Cecilia Needham
March 18, 2019
Sula Response
Upon returning from her trip on the train to New Orleans with her mother, Nel experiences a turning point in her life and sense of identity: an important coming of age moment in Toni Morrison’s “Sula”. The experiences of her adventure, particularly the interaction with the bold woman in yellow with her ashy eyebrows, prompt Nel to look in the mirror, contemplate the face that stared back, and whisper, “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me.” (28) Morrison writes, “Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear.” This image shows a crucial discovery in Nel’s sense of self as she sees herself as a disparate entity from all the things that currently composed her, like her family and her name.
Settling into her bed, she then says “I want… I want to be… wonderful. Oh Jesus, make me wonderful.” (29) This desire to be wonderful implies that she does not view her current state as such, and the introduction of Sula as having the chaotic, free life that Nel encountered on the train and now desires is an answer to her prayer. This friendship makes her wonderful, replacing the desires to travel as she never leaves Medallion again, and allows Nel to create an identity independent of her family and home. She is able to refine what it means to be “me” and make it something wonderful, a proud face reflected in the mirror. This image of Nel contemplating and dialoguing with herself, within the context of the pleasant recount of the train before and the foreshadowing of Sula after is significant to the character development and plot of Toni Morrison’s Sula.
Arthur Romero da Veiga Martins
March 18, 2019
Response on Sula, “Part One”
In her 1974 novel Sula, Toni Morrison instils a sense that certain lives and narratives are worth more than others. Throughout the descriptions of the lives of Sula and Nel, as well as their encounters with people other than their families, Morrison introduces certain characters through animalistic or generic epithets and, by not awarding them any name, connotes the disposability of their lives. The story of the death of ‘Chicken’ is particularly relevant in this context. On a hot summer afternoon, Sula and Nel encounter a young boy who they name ‘Chicken’. Sula invites him to climb trees and play, but the boy falls into the river and drowns as both girls watch.
The introduction of this character as an animal has a double effect on how his narrative is understood. First, his being equated to a chicken and referred to as one establishes a hierarchical difference between him and Sula. Whereas she has a proper name, he is addressed either provocatively as ‘Chicken’, or condescendingly as ‘Chicken Little’. This latter name also conjures a sense of innocence to his character, which is further corroborated by the way Sula accompanies him during the game. Then, the girl’s indifferent reaction to his death elicits an understanding that his humanity is irrelevant; in fact, there is little to be mourned about a dead chicken. Eventually, Nel consoles Sula and dismisses any real concerns about the implications of their actions.
This ‘name-calling’ is also used to connote how the white population regards their black counterparts. Morrison narrates an exchange between a bargemen and a sheriff, concerning the salvage of ‘Chicken’’s dead body. This report is full of racial slurs and outright justifications that the body would not be rescued had it not been a child. Indeed, the bargeman states that ‘these people’, referring to the black community, are, in essence, ‘animals’. Here, it becomes evident that the boy being named ‘Chicken’ is a metaphor for how people of color were construed as animals by their white counterparts, and how violence and contempt against them were therein justified.
Toni Morrison often writes about love and portrays its different expressions through various characters in Sula. For example, Hannah asks Eva whether or not she loved her, to which Eva responded defensively and demonstrated how her love was unconditional. A love based on necessity and survival not compassion and empathy. This scene continues and Hannah finally confronts Eva about killing her only son Plum. Eva begins by describing how “boys is hard to bear” (71) immediately attempting to disperse blame from herself, as if it was not her fault he was such a troubled individual. This focus on birth and the womb continues as Eva describes how “when he came back from that war he wanted to git back in [her womb] (71). This metaphorical re-entering of Eva’s womb demonstrates Plum’s inability to face adulthood and responsibility. Equally, it may demonstrate the trauma he faced in World War I, unable to cope with his memories, reverting instead to drugs and the refuge of his mother. Eva reflects this consensus as she describes Plum as “helpless”, “dreaming baby dreams”, and “smiling all the time” (71). These descriptors illustrate her admiration for her son but the loss of hope and faith she has in him. To further exemplify this claim, Eva reflects, “I had room enough in my heart, but not in my womb, not no more” (71). This blunt yet emotional statement by Eva reflect her love for Plum, but it also portrays her age and inability to have to care for a child’s every needs.
Though this act appears of one rooted in malice not love, Morrison portrays Eva’s desire for Plum to succeed, but her realization that he will not because he has no faith in himself. Eva continues her justification of Plum’s murder by describing how “a big man can’t be a baby all wrapped up inside his mama no more; he suffocate” (72). By describing how Plum’s actions will lead to his own suffocation, or demise, Morrison shows how Eva believes that Plum understands his self-deprecating action so she has accepted him for what he is, helpless and hopeless. In a converse reading, Morrison also plays with the role of the patriarchy in the 1920s. She tells of how a “big man can’t…be wrapped up inside his mama” because a man should be out working, searching for a suitor, and establishing himself. For this reason, Eva burns Plum, so he “could die like a man.” A death that would be prolonged, full of pain, and the opposite of the peaceful nurturing environment of the womb. This unconditional love for her children had given out on Plum because he no longer should have needed Eva’s support to survive. She expressed great care and compassionate love for Plum as she held him tight before burning him down, but could not withstand the draining nature of Plum’s needs. Either she could end his life “like a man” or he could rot at his own bedside with a needle in his arm.
“Sula” Response
William Blastos
I have chosen to look at the image of Helene Sabat’s velvet dress. This image occurs early in the novel during a description of Helene’s character as she prepares for a journey back to where she grew up. Helene is described as a severe and conservative woman who for her whole life has tried to escape from her unknown mother’s profession as a prostitute. Helene’s severity is reflected in Morrison’s description of the dress she sews as “heavy but elegant” (19). Heavy and elegant mirror Helene’s general disposition and are representative of her mannerisms. Morrison spends time describing the dress in detail because through the construction of the dress and Helene’s meticulous process during its construction the reader is able to more truly understand Helene’s character, so as the novel progresses the reader can understand her relationship with Nel.
It is her mother’s severity that throughout part one of the novel causes Nel to turn to Sula and her less conventional household for liberation. Helene is the sharp contrast to Hannah, yet this contrast does not prevent a connection between their daughters, rather their deeply opposed upbringings is what brings the two girls together in friendship, each finding what they cannot at home, in the households of the other. In order to understand this contrast, and how it has pulled Sula and Nel together, the reader must first understand their respective upbringings. The image of Helene’s dress represents the kind of upbringing Nel has and will experience in the novel. The heaviness of the fabric, and the very material it is constructed from, deep brown velvet and wool, are reflective of the way Helene raises Nel. Everything in their home is clean and proper, red velvet sofa and white lace curtains.
The significance of the handmade velvet dress does not lie in what it is, rather what it represents. This dress represents Helene in an object, and as Nel looks at the dress as the pair rides south on the train. Nel imagines the dress coming undone at the seams, and thus she imagines escaping her mother’s constricting parenting style. This dress represents both Nels struggle to escape her mother’s severity, and the very severity she hates.
***PART 2 SPOILERS AHEAD***
Madison Middleton
March 17, 2019
Sula Response
As a child, Nel dreamt of languishing on a bed of flowers, floral cushion beneath her, awaiting her prince. And too, she wished for a companion to share in her longing. Elsewhere, Sula crouched behind a linoleum roll in her attic, attempting to escape the activity of her household. She closed her eyes and conjured a gray-and-white horse to carry her through the world, “tasting sugar and smelling roses in full view of a someone who shared both the taste and the speed.” Nel and Sula alike yearned for an accomplice. When they found each other, they found sisterhood. However, their dreams proved too disparate to coexist in adulthood: Nel craved passivity and Sula action.
Nel remained content to wait for a man and settle. But Sula demanded movement in her life. As adults, they no longer dreamt of fantasy but of hell. Sula tells Nel that hell is stagnation, to do one thing for the rest of eternity. Nel disagrees, “‘Hell ain’t things lasting forever. Hell is change.’” This major difference of philosophy tears the once inseparable apart. To Nel, Sula bore the scent of unripe green things with robins in her wake, the colour and bird both historically symbolizing new beginnings, and thus by definition, change. The scar above her eye resembled similar emblems: a stemmed rose (thorns included), a rattlesnake, the ashes of her mother, and a tadpole. She carried the spirit of rebirth in all its sweetness and bitterness. It takes Sula’s death for Nel to understand the precious nature of their friendship despite their differences. Sula’s killer was possession itself, her all encompassing feelings for Ajax. That sudden desire for constancy ripped her of life, leaving Nel to face the ultimate change of all: the passing of her “sister,” soulmate, and friend.