Community and Survival in Sula
Sula by Toni Morrison is a very complex novel with many underlying themes. Some of the themes that exist are good and evil, friendship and love, survival and community, and death. In Marie Nigro's article, "In Search of Self: Frustration and Denial in Toni Morrison's Sula" Nigro deals with the themes of survival and community. According to Nigro, "Sula celebrates many lives: It is the story of the friendship of two African-American women; it is the story of growing up black and female; but most of all, it is the story of a community" (1). Sula contains so many important themes that it is hard to say which one is the most important. I agree with Marie Nigro when she says that Sula is a story about community. I believe that community and how the community of Bottom survives is an important theme of the story. But I do not believe that it is a central theme of the story. When I think back on the novel Sula in twenty years, I will remember the relationship and friendship between Nel and Sula. I will not remember the dynamics of the community.
One of Nigro's main points of her article is how Morrison shows how important work is to the community of Bottom in order to survive. Nigro believes that work is important in Sula because it helps define or not define such as in Sula's case, who the characters are. Nigro argues that the people of Bottom take survival serious because they live in a white male, world. The residents of Bottom do their best by working odd jobs and scrimping and helping each other when in need (2). But they know that they will always have to remain within the boundaries of the hostile white world (2). According to Nigro, survival is also very important for Eva and Hannah. They know they do not have much opportunity being black and female, so they prepare for the winter by canning food in the summer (2). Eva definitely knows how serious survival is because she goes to the extreme of cutting off her own leg (2). Jude is another character, Nigro points out, that needs work.
Many people at one time or another will face some-sort of economic hardship; however it is safe to say that many people do not really know what extreme poverty is like. The Treviño family knows first hand what it is like to work in tedious, mind-numbing jobs for a very little paycheck. The life of a migrant worker is not anything to be desired. Simple things that most would take for granted like food variety, baths, clean clothes, and beds are things that Elva learned to live with. “We couldn’t have a bath every day, since it was such a big production. But [mom] made us wash our feet every night” (125). A simple task to any normal person is a large production for a migrant family that doesn’t have any indoor plumbing. People living in poverty do not often have a large wardrobe to speak of which means that the few clothes they own often remain dirty because washing clothes is a production too. “Ama scrubbed clothes on the washboard while the rest of us bathed. She took a bath last while the rest of us rinsed and hung up the clothes she had washed. This was the only oppor...
..., p.6). She assures herself that she will not become malnourished nor without transportation (2001), and thus will never truly experience real fear for survival, or the possibility of being overwhelmed with the impossibility of her situation. She, unlike her coworkers, will always have a way to escape, a life to go back to. The life that awaits her is likely one that those she is working with fantasize about without any hope to attain it. This is the only real weakness in a harrowing window into the lives of those living below the poverty line, that she cannot truly feel what it is like to truly not get by in America.
Indicating the conflict between the individual and society was one of the most prevalent themes that both McCarthy and Collins focused on through their literature. They both established the common themes such as survival and violation in literature to discover unreal and unstable future for the region. Life is incredibly difficult for those who living in the society; therefore, they require managing a great strength of spirit to survive. There is a big connection between fiction and environmental discourse, which developing an argument in contemporary Ecocriticism. The novels are undoubtedly thematically focused on life and survival, but
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
Toni Morrison’s novel Sula is rich with paradox and contradiction from the name of a community on top of a hill called "Bottom" to a family full of discord named "Peace." There are no clear distinctions in the novel, and this is most apparent in the meaning of the relationship between the two main characters, Sula and Nel. Although they are characterized differently, they also have many similarities. Literary critics have interpreted the girls in several different ways: as lesbians (Smith 8), as the two halves of a single person (Coleman 145), and as representations of the dichotomy between good and evil (Bergenholtz 4 of 9). The ambiguity of these two characters allows for infinite speculation, but regardless of how the reader interprets the relationship their bond is undeniable. The most striking example of their connection occurs right before the accidental death of Chicken Little. In the passage preceding his death, Nel and Sula conduct an almost ceremonial commitment to one another that is sealed permanently when "the water darkened and closed quickly over the place where Chicken Little sank" (Morrison 61):
The management of knowledge within the context of organizational processes is a determining factor of its effectiveness and level of performance. Hislop (2013) stated, "One of the key distinctions in the knowledge management literature relates to epistemology" (p. 8). In an attempt to acquire an in-depth understanding of key aspects of knowledge management I will analyze a key organizational job position that possesses valuable experience and traits of fulfilling responsibilities. My analysis will include a description of the organization and position, a review of the perspectives and types of knowledge, as described by Hislop (2013), as they relate to the job position, and the challenges encountered in transferring
Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak had been friends since high school, and they both were very interested in electronics. After they both dropped of school, both of them end up in a profession related to electronics. Jobs got a job at Atari, and Wozniak at HP. Wozniak had been the initial designer for the very first Apple computer. Jobs had an eye for the future and convinced Wozniak that they should sell the computer. Soon enough on April 1, 1976, Apple had begun. In the beginning people did not take Apple very seriously. In 1977 however Apple introduced the Apple II, that when the company took off. The introduction of the Apple II opened doors for the company. It was the first computer with a hard plastic outer shell, it also was the first computer that had color graphics. The Apple II was basically the start of the company. Another thing that boosted the company in 1978 was the Apple Disk II, which was just an easy, inexpensive floppy drive. With all the sales rising, the companies numbers began to rise as well. In 1980 Apple had a few thousand employees. 1980 was also the year Apple released its latest computer the Apple III. It was in 1979 when Jobs and a few engineers began working on ...
...al stereotypes to allow the readers to make their own assumptions based on their personal thoughts and beliefs. Many of the stereotypes that Morrison chose to use portray more of a socioeconomic class and not discriminating by race. As the setting or environment changed, it will be seen as a symbol of transformation of both Roberta and Twyla friendship. Each circumstance that they went through was distinctive. It tested the strength of their relationship with one another and exemplified their struggles they were facing in society. They had to adjust their beliefs to match the changing phases in the United States as many blacks and whites today still face problems in society about racial stereotypes and segregation. Toni Morrison portrayed racial identity not by black and white, but as irrelevant to relationships but rather by means of distinguishing between people.
Because of this, she needed to protect her owns as she need to lie in the court or her family will no longer be protected nor respected. This related to one of the social issue, violence, when Eva decided to tell the truth, but had to pay the consequence, beaten up by her own gang. All she had time to worry about was her safety and survival, and nothing else which the rest of her classmates felt. Another social issue would be poverty as most of Gruwell’s students either live in the project or the parents kick them out or any type of situation that can happen. This film also contrasts poverty and middle class by placing a white student among gang affiliated students. In the beginning of the film, the white student sat in the front of the class as it was a sense of safety being in front of the teacher as she is also white. But when Gruwell arranged the classroom for all her students to get along and not to get violent with one another, the gang affiliated students resent him because he is white and does not live a harsh life. In a way, poverty is connected to gang life because they want to feel protected, and
...rch 5, 1975, in a carport in Menlo Park. Wozniak had been fiddling in workstation plan for quite a while when, in 1976, he outlined what might turn into the Apple I. Hobbyists finished not consider the Apple I exceptionally important, and Apple completed not start to take off until 1977, when the Apple II appeared at a nearby workstation exchange show. With the increment in deals, on the other hand, came an expansion in organization size, and by 1980, when the Apple III was discharged. In 1981, things got a bit more troublesome, Because of the plane accident that Wozniak got into. In promptly 1983, Jobs started to court John Sculley, then president of Pepsi-Cola. In April, he was fruitful, and Scully got to be president and CEO of Apple. In spite of the fact that a fruitful business person, it soon got clear that Sculley finished not know much about the PC business.
Urban industrial workers were bombarded with many problems, a major one being long working hours. They not only had to endure endless hours of labor and turmoil, but received scarcely any pay at all. To make things worse, they were struggling to exist in the late 19th century where industrialization was flustering and depressions were part of the norm. An average American worker earned a measly $500 per year and a woman only half as much as the men. People were not making enough money to purchase the necessities of life and thus, lived a hard, struggling life. A woman stated she didn’t "live" , but merely "existed".. she didn’t live that you could call living."
They began to lose touch with each other. Nel got married and Sula left because she claimed there was nothing left for her in the Bottom, since Nel is a devoted mother and wife. Sula felt as if Nel was putting her on the sidetrack instead of the main road, which hurt her a little. According to society every woman’s main desire should be toward creating life and building a family. This is a true statement in many cases; however, when it comes to Sula it is far from it. Nel is the definition of the ideal woman while Sula is not. Sula doesn’t desire to have children or get married, her main concern is her and Nel’s friendship. When Sula loses her relationship with Nel because Nel builds a symbiotic relationship with someone else Sula is now willing to leave and find a new life somewhere else. Ten years later she returns to the Bottom because she didn’t find what she was looking for. Sula comes back a little upset to find out that her best friend is just as boring as all the other women in town. She is now doing the same exact thing as everyone, she “had given herself over to them” (Morrison, 118). Nel’s promise she made when she was child was broken the day she married Jude Green. She promised that she was going to become herself. He is the exact same as Wiley Wright, Nel’s father, both of them are more concerned with economic success rather than family
The book was made into a movie starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. The book takes you to South Africa, where the land itself is the essence of a man. It as if the mountains, soaring high above the clouds, are the high moments in life, and the valleys are those low and suffering times. Next, you will take a journey to a place called Johannesburg. While reading the pages, the reader begins to envision Johannesburg being a polluted, very unkind, and rushed city. The setting is more of an emotional setting than a physical setting. As I stated, it takes place in South Africa, 1946. This is a time where racial discrimination is at an all time high. The black community of this land is trying to break free from the white people, but having little success. It is this so called racism that is essential to the setting of the story. Without it, the book would not have as much of an impact as it does. This film, the second adaptation of the book, has little room for hatred or anger. Instead, its underlying tone is one of a profound grief that the title hints at. Taken as a whole, Paton's novel promotes healing and understanding, and it speaks as powerfully to audiences today as it did when it was first published, fifty years ago. The book ends with a tone of ...
The history of apple is not shy of turbulence with large periods of its early stages met with instability and downturn. Apple Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and was established on April 1, 1976 and incorporated the company on January 3rd 1977. The first two decades of its inception Apple was predominately in the business of manufacturing personal computers however as alluded to it faced rocky sales and low market shares during the 90’s. Steve Jobs, one of the original founders of the enterprise who had been dismissed in the mid 80’s following differences in vision for the companies future, returned to Apple in 1986 after Apple had acquired his then company NeXT (Apple Inc., 1...
To many children, TV can be appealing because they find the colorful cartoons interesting and instantly catches their attention. But, as entertaining and fun Television can be, spending too much time looking at your big fifty inch flat screen TV can eventually impact your life. It seems like if you just spend all your time sitting on the couch, you may find yourself preparing fast meals, such as a ham sandwich thrown with some potato chips on a plate or just driving to buying something from McDonald’s. But this can eventually affect your health. If we give Television too much attention it can also affect relationships with parents, siblings or a partner. It can slowly become an easy addiction to come home to, sit on the couch and spend the rest of the day watching all the shows we like. Lastly, too much Television can affect our mood which can lead to certain thinking and