Essay On The Harlem Renaissance In Sula

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The "New Negro," the Black writers in 1920/30, tried to get out of the dominant white assimilation and practice their own tradition and identity in autonomous and active attitude. In virtue of their activities, the Harlem Renaissance became the time of sprouting the blackness. It offered the life of the black as the criterion to judge how well the democracy practices in America and to weigh the measure of the dream of America. Their vitality and artistic spirit, and dreams were so impressive that the Harlem of the 1920s has never been eluded out from the memory of American (Helbling 2). Sula, the second and the only chronicled novel of Morrison, describes how the Harlem Renaissance influenced the common blacks in a little community of Medallion. They keep the black tradition of "the ancient properties", taking care of the orphans, the old, and accept even the prostitutes as their neighbors. The protagonist, Sula, enjoys her free life without marrying and concentrates on her own pleasure unlike the other villagers to criticize the community spirit of her village. As a result, they turn their backs on Sula and exclude her from all relationships, accusing her a devil. …show more content…

The first type, Eva, the preserver of traditional community spirit, just follows the old custom without any particular criticism. The second type, Sula represents the new value of the New Negro, while her grandmother Eva does the established value of traditional community based on the white supremacy, and another character, Shadrack stands in the middle of these two, the awakening of the black identity. Sula notices the miserable status of her race in the society and practices her new value in daily life but her arrogant intelligence makes people turn their backs on her, so she dies alone being

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