Death In Sula Death Theme

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Recommended: Theme of life and death in literature

Aaliyah Hutton
Professor Rudy
Introduction to Literature
April 30, 2017
Word Count:960
Death by Fire and Water
Death is something that is hard to deal with. Death takes a toll on a person’s mind, body, and soul. The many characters in the novel have some connection with death one way or another. In Sula by Toni Morrison, the theme of death is present throughout the book. Death is presented in either fire or water.
The theme of death is something that is talked about from the prologue and so on throughout the book. The audience can say that the theme of death starts with Shadrack creating the holiday of National Suicide Day. And him walking around the town with a “hangman’s rope” (Gyetvai 10) and a cowbell that he would ring on January 3rd …show more content…

It all starts from when she came back to the Bottom after leaving for ten years. Sula went to talk to Eva after all these years about Plum and Hannah’s death. Sula knew everything about how Plum died even though she wasn’t even there for it. Sula threatens Eva by saying, “maybe I’ll just tip-on up here with some kerosene and-who knows-you may make the brightest flame of them all.” Then Sula went over to visit her best friend at the time Nel. While visiting, Sula asks for a drink with lots of ice because she was “burning up.” This is a way of Sula foreshadowing her death because she dies from a fever that was soon described as “kind of burning” (148). However, before Sula dies, it is said that she awakes from a dream, where she is “gagging and overwhelmed with the smell of smoke” (Morrison 148). Whereas there is nothing on fire in her house but when she dies she says that she was experiencing “liquid pain” (148).
In conclusion, the novel Sula by Toni Morrison, death comes in two forms; fire and water. However, traditionally death by fire is a masculine element but the women in Sula died by fire or something like fire. Whereas the men in the novel died by water which is a feminine element. So, this book speaks about the tradition of women being the stay at home wife/mother and they take care of things around the house even though they have a masculine death. Whereas for the men who are the head of the household and do all the work for the family they are sought a female way of

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