Sula Literary Analysis

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Recommended: Techniques in Toni Morrison's sula

Rachael Amede
Mrs. Greco
AP Literature and Composition
7/15/16
Sula
Historical information: African American were fighting in World war 1, but none of the black veterans were treated with respect.The Chicago race riots were also ensue
Biographical information: She won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved. In 1993, Morrison became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sula is also her second novel.
Characteristic of the genre: Sula is a novel. The novel genre include a long, fictional story comprised of characters, events and actions that have a definite beginning and an eventual end.
Plot summary: The book follows a friendship of two black women Sula and Nel over almost 45 years. The friendship …show more content…

It is a paradox because the Bottom is on a hill. Although it being on a hill it is described as a terrible place to live more like a hole the something prestige of that belongs on a hill.
Personification
"A ball of muddy strings, but without weight, fluffy but terrible in its malevolence"(109). Malevolence is to wish evil on to others, but a ball of muddy string can not think let alone wish
"Pain took hold"(203). Sula describes pain to that of a person who is holding her down. That is impossible seeing pain is just a feeling.
"...pain bored her and there was nothing to do, for it was joined by fatigue..."(203). Even though fatigue can't be felt along with other feeling, it cannot join in because that is giving it a human characteristic.
"...and wash her tired flesh always"(205). Flesh can't be tired. A person can feel tired.
"a crease of fear touched her breast..."(205). Fear is also an emotion it cannot physically touch a person
"The rumor that the tunnel spanning the river would use Negro workers beacame an announcement"(207). A tunnel made out of cement cannot use anyone for anything but ca nbe used by human …show more content…

She compares the pain she is feeling to relatable thing people know of
"for any second there was sure to be a violent explosion in her brain..."(205). She compares the pain in her head to an explosion to create a visual of what her pain was like
Foreshadow
"Sula would come by of an afternoon, walking along with her fluid stride, wearing a plain yellow dress the same way her mother, Hannah, had worn those too-big house dresses - with a distance, an absence of a relationship to clothes which emphasized everything the fabric covered." This foreshadows how Sula becomes like Hannah. By the end of the book she would be sleeping with married men, and have a fleeting attitude.
Imagery
“Sula was a heavy brown with large quiet eyes, one of which featured a birthmark that spread form the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed rose” (52). This creates a visual of the character Sula.
Simile
"First fluttering as of doves in her stomach..."(203). She compares the flutter using as to doves who

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