Summer 2001 |
Notes on Sula |
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[additional commentaries on Sula] Mike Rios 4 Jun 01 Eng 7757 Dr. R. Nordquist Notes on Sula What does the epigraph mean? What is its relation to the novel? Why does Morrison choose to include it? The rose tattoo clearly refers to the birthmark on Sula’s face, but why is it linked with glory? The voice feels that "they" do not know her. Who are "they"? The town people in the novel seem to choose how they view Sula. Not everyone thinks the birthmark is simply a birthmark. And not everyone thinks it resembles a rose, for that matter. Instead of a rose, Shadrack sees a "tadpole over [Sula’s] eye" on page 156. Why? The next sentence states that the birthmark was "the mark of the fish he loved" (156). So does he see a tadpole because he sees a tadpole? Or does he see a tadpole because he wants to see a tadpole? Does he see Sula, therefore, in his own terms? As a shell-shocked veteran, Shadrack is lonely and seemingly seeks a way to achieve peace throughout the novel (although not in any conventional manner). Does the fish represent the peace he longs for? Fish = Christianity? = Peace? If so, is Shadrack justified in somewhat defining Sula? Is it harmless? If so, does it make a difference in how the reader views him? The rest of the town seems to define Sula as well. They choose to see the birthmark as a sign of evil (115). Everyone attempts to define Sula. Do they then contribute to her death in a way? (More on this later.) Can we see the "they" in the epigraph as the people in Sula’s life? Can we then see the voice as Sula? Nobody in the novel seems to have known her "rose" or her self. Almost everyone in the town sees her as something other than what she truly is. She clearly is not evil incarnate. The ironic tone of the passages in which the town develops this theory of Sula tells the reader as much. So do the following sentences: "Their evidence against Sula was contrived, but their conclusions about her were not. Sula was distinctly different" (118). But, nevertheless, Teapot’s Mamma makes the leap from "different" to "evil," as do Dessie and most of the other women. Why? Returning to the epigraph, the voice implies that "they" did not know or understand her because she "had too much glory." The voice also says "they don’t want glory like that in nobody’s heart." Do the town people feel similarly? Do they not want glory like that? And what exactly is that? Perhaps it’s a glory that they cannot define and therefore one to be feared. Perhaps it’s a glory equal to God’s and therefore sacrilegious. Perhaps it’s a glory they can never attain. Does Sula have such glory? Does she have any glory? Hardly. I don’t see any evidence of glory in Sula. If anything, there is some evidence of evil in her. I am not disagreeing with the narrator’s claim that the town people manufactured their evidence against Sula. Clearly they did. What I am saying is that the town people may be correct anyway. Sula has sex with every man she can. Most are married. Sula has her grandmother committed. Sula watches her mother burn. Sula kills a boy. Hmmm, Sula may not be evil, but she sure ain’t no saint. So what is she? Which brings us back to the issue of how Sula is constantly defined in others’ terms. What most of the town thinks of Sula has been discussed somewhat. What about Eva? How does she attempt to define Sula? On the day of Sula’s return to the Bottom, Eva asks her, "When you gonna get married?" She adds, "You need to have some babies" (92). Is Eva defining Sula based on reproductive ability? Is Sula facing a stereotype: Motherhood? Eva is a mother. Perhaps she thinks that all women should have children. Perhaps she, as well as the town, feels all girls should grow up to be mothers. The problem here (besides Eva not accepting Sula for who she is) is that Eva wants Sula to have children despite having witnessed Sula years before "standing on the back porch just looking" at Hannah burn (78). Eva remains "convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed," as Eva’s friends believe, "but because she was interested" (78). (And how do we know Eva is correct? Are we supposed to agree with her?) So why would Eva want Sula to have children of her own? Does she think that Sula would benefit somehow by having children? Would motherhood calm Sula down? Perhaps if Sula had children, then Eva, and the rest of the town, would be better able to deal with her. They would be able to point to Sula and say, "Sula is a mother." They would feel they knew her. Motherhood may be a category in which Sula can be safely placed. Of course, Sula disagrees. "I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself" (92). The last five words of this statement are among the most important in the novel. Here we learn that Sula resists definition consciously. She is fighting against being labeled not just a mother, but anything else as well. She will do the defining around here, she seems to say. What about the reader? Is the reader guilty of defining Sula despite not truly understanding her? A few instances where the reader may
define Sula: The reader, may—justifiably—view Sula in a number of ways—none of them positive—ranging from adulteress to murderess. Time after time, Sula trumps expectations. She does not behave like a loving daughter. She does not behave like a loving granddaughter. She does not behave like a caring loyal friend. She does not behave like a law-abiding citizen. She does not behave like a moral individual. Are her words ("I want to make myself") good enough reason for doing so? Is she trying to convince Eva, the reader, or herself? What about Nel’s estimation that "when fear struck her, [Sula] did unbelievable things" (101)? Is Sula acting out of fear, out of self-preservation? What does she have to fear? Some possible things to fear: 1. Oppressive ideologies 2. Societal constraints 3. Societal expectations If an individual is trying to define herself, does she have the right to withhold aid from a dying individual? Does she have the right to betray a friend’s trust? Does she have the right to kill? Do other individuals have the right to judge her? What are other individuals left to do? How are they supposed to go about understanding her? The novel’s first sentence is a loaded one, rhetorically packed. Nightshade and blackberry patches … Darkness, Blacks, misfortune. Tore … Blacks being uprooted, violence done to Blacks, foreshadowing violence in novel, murder. Roots … origins, history. Medallion City Golf course … White men, wealth, luxury. Last word in the sentence is "neighborhood." As if it’s been forgotten. The reader has to overcome and pass through all these things, these verbs, these nouns, these actions, these ideologies in order to get to the "real" place: the neighborhood. The Bottom. The Bottom is where the Blacks live, at the bottom of society, regarded as inferior and oppressed. But the Bottom is located atop the hills. Ironically, this town upon the hill is not the light of the world. Instead it is dark, full of misery and poverty. They physically live where they can see around them. They have a view of everything. But they cannot do anything about it. They see the riches and wealth that they cannot attain. They see those who oppress them, the whites living in the fertile land below. By the end of the novel’s fourth page, the narrator has introduced various elements: 1. The tricked Negro (Farmer duping slave into accepting miserable land) 2. Misfortune passed down through generations (Present town people forced to live in the Bottom because first slave was tricked) 3. Religion (References to God and heaven) 4. Optimism or Resignation (The town making something good out of their bad situation) 5. Sex (Sula’s description) 6. A link between town and Sula Getting back to Shadrack, is he a Christ figure? He is linked with fish. On page 15 the narrator tells us Shadrack sold fish on Tuesdays and Fridays. He thinks Sula’s birthmark looks like a tadpole. "On the third day of the new year," Shadrack walks through down "Carpenter’s Road" (14). Is Shadrack resurrected in a sense? By inventing Suicide Day, is he trying to resurrect the Bottom’s people, who in a way have been dead for a long time because they only watch themselves suffer? He certainly tries to help Sula on the day she kills Chicken Little. Like Jesus he shows no hatred towards the sinner. Shadrack tries to offer Sula some form of hope, although he knows what she has done. He says one word—"always"—"so she would not have to be afraid of the change … to convince her, assure her, of permanency" (157). The change he speaks of is death, "the falling away of skin, the drip and slide of blood" (157). The permanency, then, seems to be eternity, the afterlife, although he does not elaborate. So what is the reader to make of Shadrack’s state of crisis in the end, which seems to be triggered by the memory of having seen Sula on her back lying in wait for yet another man in yet another cellar? Why "had he been terribly wrong" (157-158)? Does he make a distinction between murder and adultery? On page 143, Sula says the following: "I know what every colored woman in this country is doing." Nel asks, "What’s that?" Sula answers, "Dying. Just like me." This is a powerful statement. It opens up the door for discussing black women and the double forces they face, racism and sexism. Sula is definitely subject to both, but to what extent? Are her actions influenced by racism or sexism or something different altogether? Eva is a better example of a woman who has
suffered from racism and sexism. So why is Sula the title character? The narrator says
that Sula has "no center, no speck around which to grow" (119). Is this a
statement that can be said of the town as well? Is Sula the title character
because in a sense she is the center of the town? She does command a lot of the
town’s attention. She does affect nearly the entire town in one way or another. |
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