Toni Morrison's Sula
In the book Sula by Toni Morrison, Morrison’s ambiguous link between good, evil, and guilt, she is able to show that these terms are relative to each other and often occur mutually. In her comparison of good and evil, Sula states that "Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it" (145). Good and evil are being compared as if they are equal and that is how the book is structured. For instance, Eva's burning of Plum is a complex conjunction of motherly love and practicality and cannot be described as simply being a good act or a bad one. The killing of Chicken Little is a similarly ambiguous situation from which Sula and Nel's feelings are unclear. Lastly Sula, upon her death bed, questions what it means to be good and suggests that it what may be considered bad could in reality be good. Both in the syncopated style of Morrison's writing and the morally ambiguous portrayal of characters, cause the reader to question morals and think about them on a larger scale.
Although on the surface, Eva's burning of Plum appears as a ghastly and un-motherly act (not to say that it isn't ghastly), with more analysis becomes a more perplexing question. When Eva pours kerosene on Plum, it is described as a sort of baptism, "He opened his eyes and saw what he imagined was the great wing of an eagle pouring a wet lightness over him. Some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing he thought" (47). Eva believes that she is liberating Plum from his depressed, drugged life and saving his soul. The eagle that plum imagines seeing is a symbol of liberty and the wing is a symbol for maternal love as a bird may nestle its chicks with its wing. Even when Nel later visits Eva in the nursing home, Eva approves of her liberation of Plum. She disapproves of Nel and Sula's throwing Chicken Little in the water, yet justifies killing Plum by saying, "It's awful cold in the water. Fire is warm. How did you get him in?" (168).
Sula and Nel are both guilty for Chicken Little’s death, one for throwing him into the river and the other for watching it. No one is going to defend their actions, however whether Nel is guilty or not is a far more difficult question.
In examining the two distinct characters of Nel (Wright) Greene and Sula Peace from Toni Morrison's Sula, a unique individual soul emerges from the two women. This soul takes into account good, bad, and gray area qualities. They gray area qualities are needed because, while Nel exhibits more of the stereotypical "good" qualities than Sula, the stereotypes of good and bad don't fit the definition completely. Nel and Sula combined create a type of ying and yang soul, each half including some of the other half. While at times the two women are polar opposites of one another in point of view, they arrive at their opinions with the help of the other. The two characters need each other in order to exist to the extent that they become "two throats and one eye" (Morrison 2167). A physical example of how connected the two girls are is seen when they line up head to head forming a straight, continuous, and complete line (2124).
The language, the imagery, the themes, the characters, everything in Toni Morrison's Sula, touches my heart. I want these people to win, to know goodness in their lives, to stop being small. I want the loud and long cry of rage which has no bottom or top with "circles and circles of sorrow" to end (Sula 174). Morrison embraces the political aspects of her work without apology and freely admits to desiring to emote a reader response. She maintains, "the best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time" ("Rootedness" 345). Without question, Morrison is able to do both. In her analogy, comparing our place as readers of her writing to that of the congregation of the Black preacher, our response to her writing should be "to stand up and to weep and to cry and to accede or to change and to modify-to expand" on what is given (341). We are not to read passively but should feel compelled to respond. Morrison says there are things worth fighting for in this life, regardless of the outcome. The response to an injustice system needs to be rage and the claiming of true value.
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):
In the novel Sula, there were other important characters besides Sula. The character in this book I would like to focus on most is Eva Peace. Eva is a woman who has a disability but remains strong, and this will be the focus of this paper since it wasn’t focused on so much in the book.
In the story, “Recitatif,” Toni Morrison uses vague signs and traits to create Roberta and Twyla’s racial identity to show how the characters relationship is shaped by their racial difference. Morrison wants the reader’s to face their racial preconceptions and stereotypical assumptions. Racial identity in “Recitatif,” is most clear through the author’s use of traits that are linked to vague stereotypes, views on racial tension, intelligence, or ones physical appearance. Toni Morrison provides specific social and historical descriptions of the two girls to make readers question the way that stereotypes affect our understanding of a character. The uncertainties about racial identity of the characters causes the reader to become pre-occupied with assigning a race to a specific character based merely upon the associations and stereotypes that the reader creates based on the clues given by Morrison throughout the story. Morrison accomplishes this through the relationship between Twyla and Roberta, the role of Maggie, and questioning race and racial stereotypes of the characters. Throughout the story, Roberta and Twyla meet throughout five distinct moments that shapes their friendship by racial differences.
Toni Morrison is an accomplished and renowned author. Her writing has earned her many accolades including the Noble Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Numerous styles of writing are incorporated into her literary work such as fantasy and her poetic style. Significant historical references are just one of the many different techniques that are the most occurring within her writing. This allows her works to be easily read and understood by the reader. Her upbringing around a culturally strong family and the world of literature allowed for her love of writing arising. Significant history references, unmatched use of language and unorthodox comparisons are all factors that contribute to Toni Morrison's unique, yet recognizable writing style.
In Toni Morrison’s books, she goes through multiple themes including slavery, magical realism, and love. Some people believe her themes are very conservertional and dark but Toni believes that it is important to show what really happened during slavery.
Toni Morrison, a former Nobel prize recipient, is known for her amply detailed novels involving African American culture and experiences. Today she is acknowledged as one of the best American Authors in the world.
Toni Morrison, named Chloe Anthony Wofford, was born on February 18, 1931. Toni has a rich history and highly valuable academic experiences. Throughout her life, Toni has earned several prestigious awards and has won nearly all possible prizes for her novels. Starting to write as soon as she could read, Toni Morrison has “entered America’s heart.”
The idea of self-harm resonates through Toni Morrison’s novel Sula. Morrison utilizes marginalized characters and the concept of a pariah serve as essential components in promoting and intensifying the overtone of self-affliction that runs through the novel. This is best exemplified through Sula’s and Shadrack’s character, both of whom are outcasts of society and dismissed by the residents of the Bottom. Being pariahs generate conditions from which they can then exhibit the empowerment of self affliction (so are all the pariahs in this book ultimately self-created?), which make all the pariahs in the book ultimately self-created.
There are many aspects of story that come together to create a complete narrative. A lot of the tools used by writers are intentional and serve the purpose of driving home certain aspects of the story or creating and engaging, and entertaining narrative. Toni Morrison—the author of Sula—is no different. Morrison employs many writing techniques and tools in her narrative Sula. It is important for the reader to be aware of and understand some of these narrative tools that the author uses because it allows the reader to gain a better understanding and appreciation for the narrative. In Sula a few narrative techniques that allow for the argument of women experiences to shine through are the use of a third person narrator, and gaps; throughout the story these tools allow the reader to become interested in and focus in on women experiences.
Toni Morrison, born Chloe Anthony Wofford, is an American novelist, editor, literary critic, and professor. Before her birth, her parents, George and Ramah Wofford, moved to the North to escape the problems of southern racism. Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio as the second of four children. Spending her childhood in the Midwest, she read eagerly from the works of Jane Austen to Tolstoy. Morrison's father was a welder who told her folktales of the black community, transferring his African-American heritage to her, which she transferred to her writings later on. She grew up in an integrated neighborhood but her parents ensured that she was aware of racism and its effects by the time she was a teenager (Leondis).
First there is the presence of the old stereotypical woman character, a woman split between the conventional and nontraditional roles of women. No differences are apparent initially between Morrison's Sula and any other women's literature in the past. Women are depicted either as docile servants to men, like Nel, or ball-busting feminist monsters like Sula. The hidden aspect of the novel lies underneath these stereotypical surface roles, in the incomprehensible and almost inappropriate bond of the two women. In the final scene of Sula, Nel comes to the realization that the emptiness inside her is due to the loss of Sula, not Jude (Morrison 174). Her friendship with Sula is all that matters.
In the novel, Beloved, written by Toni Morrison, the scene starts on a former slave, Sethe. Sethe has to make the tragic decision to kill her own child in fear of her being caught by the slave catchers, and becoming a slave. Being a former slave, Sethe had experienced first-hand just how bad this lifestyle was, and would never want that for her daughter. Sethe can give us a glance into the life of a slave when she says, “Men and women were moved around like checkers...What Baby Suggs called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children” (Morrison 28). This comparison helps us to see how slaves were treated like property