February12012

Secrets

In Sula, Nel and Sula’s secret, their accidental killing of Chicken Little, allows them to maintain their friendship despite the various hardships they face throughout their lives. Nel and Sula’s secret is the ultimate bond in their friendship. When Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband, the ultimate act of betrayal, even in her anger, Nel never discloses the secret to anyone. Similar to the show Pretty Little Liars, Spencer, the four main girls, Aria, Emily and Hannah share the secret about the murder of their best friend and the fact that the killer has never been caught and is still haunting each of them. Despite the various scandals that they encounter throughout the search for their best friends killer, the secret they share keeps their friendship together, through it all. Just like in Sula, Sula and Nel’s friendship is extremely complex, but there is no denying the fact that their secret keeps them bonded until their dying day. 

—Courtney

pretty little liars sula secrets Nel murder aria spencer hannah emily toni morrison 

January292012

Name Meanings in Sula

So I love learning about the etymology of names and I thought it would be really entertaining to look up names from Sula because Toni Morrison chooses such peculiar names for her characters. So i googled the name Sula and found this, Sula \s(u)-la\ as a girl’s name is a variant of Shulamith (Hebrew) and Ursula (Scandinavian, Latin), and the meaning of Sula is “peace; little she-bear”. (source: http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Sula) 

I thought it was interesting how Sula’s name means peace when she causes so much uproar in the town. I personally can’t see a connection in Sula’s name meaning and her actions throughout the novel. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. 

-Paige

toni morrison Sula Name etymology question book english 

January242012

“His visitor, his company, his guest, his social life, his woman, his daughter, his friend-they all hung there on a nail near his bed.” (157)

In this particular quote Shadrack is describing the belt Sula left behind when she came to “visit him.” Although we as reader know the only reason Sula went into Shadrack’s home was to try to get his help when she threw Chicken Little into the river. The way he cherishes that belt reveals the profound loneliness he experiences as a social outcast of society. For him, that belt, which represents Sula, is his only vestige of companionship. Sula was needed by everyone in the Bottom in some way or another and in this quote we see how Shadrack needed her. Arguably, Shadrack needed Sula more than anyone else in the novel needed her. What’s interesting about this is that Shadrack is the only character that seems to have an awareness of that need for her and because of this awareness he is able to love her. The rest of society on the other hand fails to see in what way they need her so instead they hate her. In addition the fact that she is loved by another outcast helps to further demonstrate her position in society and make us almost wish we could see more interaction between Shadrack and Sula.

-Ashley

quotes toni morrison sula lonliness :( 

January232012

Music in Sula

Attached is a timeline of modern music starting in the late 1890’s leading all the way up to the present.  Of all the books, Sula has the largest time span as we look at the growth through aging of characters.  

Taking place between the 1920’s through the mid 1960’s, the characters in Sula change just as the music does.  Jazz and Blues are leaders in musical culture from the 1920’s all the way through the mid 1940’s when Pop starts to hit the airwaves.  From the 1920’s to the 1940’s, Sula is growing into the ideas and values that she will orient her whole life with.  The Pop music is Sula’s life is her initiative to leave Bottom and pursue the lifestyle she wants.

With the 1950’s emerges Rock-n-Roll.  Now, Sula has become rebellious as a form of self expression to contradict all that is going on around her.

Jazz, Pop, and Rock-n-Roll music all merge together after this through the 1960’s where all genres are complimenting and feeding off of each other.  Sula is quickly realizing the merging of all aspects of her life and how they compliment and feed off each other.  Whether within her relationship with Nel or the questions she asks herself, all aspects of Sula’s life are coming together.

Though Rock has taken the main stage, it wouldn’t be where it is today without Jazz just like Sula wouldn’t be the same had she not picked up the ideals and values she learned as a child in her “jazz” phase.

-Rachel F.

Music Sula Toni Morrison Jazz Rock Pop fusion 

9PM
“She was pariah, then, and knew it. Knew that they despised her and believed that they framed their hatred as disgust for the easy way she lay with men. -Sula pg. 122”

Throughout Sula we have found many connections to the previous novels read in our class. When Sula refers to herself as a “pariah” a parallel to The Scarlet Letter and Hester forms. Both characters were seen as immoral women who rebelled against the norms of the society “for the easy way [they] lay with men.” The town punishes Hester for sleeping with a man to whom she was not betrothed while the people of Medallion criticize Sula for sleeping around with white men. Both acts are defiantly against the community norms and create an image as a social pariah for each woman.

-Christine

Sula toni morrison pariah sex the scarlet letter nathaniel hawethorne parallel quotes quote 

January222012

War & its long-term effects on the Youth

In Sula, the characters Plum, Tar Baby and Shadrack all go to war then return completely changed and psychologically altered for the worst, whether it be alcohol, drugs or simply paranoia. All of these war veterans are young men who end up spending the bulk of their life dealing with the negative effects which the war has left them with. Also, each of these men becomes an outcaste upon his return to Medallion. What do you feel Toni Morrison is trying to tell us about war and its effects on the young generation? Has the war experience/the life of veterans upon their return from war improved since the times of World War I? Is it still prodominantely young people who go to war and come back completely changed? -courtney

toni morrison sula war 

7PM

Both Plum and Sula return to a state of infancy prior to their deaths. Reverting back to very childish ways, Plum, “opened his eyes and saw what he imagined was the great wind of an eagle pouring the wet lightness over him. “Some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing, he thought.” Plum’s naive description and observation of Eva pouring kerosene over his body represents the thinking of an infant. Similarly, Sula assumes the fetal position prior to her decease, “that she might draw her legs up to her chest, close her eyes, put her thumb in her mouth and float over and down the tunnels.” The images of Plum swaddled by his mother, and Sula curled up in the fetal position, illustrate how Plum and Sula approach death in positions associated with birth. What is the author’s intent in doing this? Is Toni Morrison emphasizing the theory of rebirth?

KELSEY 

toni morrison rebirth sula death birth 

3PM

Friendship

“I was good to you, Sula, why don’t that matter?” (year: 1940. paragraph: 70).

Sula and Nel had always been inseparable, but one thing split them apart for the rest of their lives. Sula has an affair with Nel’s husband, doing the most unforgivable of all deeds. Sula not only split the marriage, but split the friendship, the more important of the two, as well. Nel asks Sula why she would ever betray her in such a way, to take away one of the men they never shared, a man who was her possession. Nel wonders if their friendship ever mattered and confronts the ill Sula to ask her why she’d be her husband’s mistress. She scolds Sula, but Sula realized that Nel had changed from the girl she was before and does not give Nel a straight as to why she did what she had an affair with Jude. Their friendship is never mended and neither friend understands why the other did what they did. 

-Kai

Sula Toni Morrison friendship love argue Art picture silohuette 

January182012
I was listening to “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel as I read Sula yesterday, and the serendipity of it all got me thinking about some of the themes and motifs we see in Sula - oxymorons, silence, loneliness, water - and how they are all interconnected. The Sound of Silence is a blatant oxymoron. It is prevalent in Toni Morrison’s Sula; and it is the title of a Simon and Garfunkel song - a song which appears in the classic 1967 film, The Graduate.  The lyrics of the song at one point relate to water - “silent raindrops fell/ and echoed in the wells of silence.” In The Graduate, these words play periodically throughout; as Dustin Hoffman stares blankly ahead, enveloped by a fish tank in the background; as he sinks to the bottom of the pool clad in scuba gear. There is a clear motif of water in the song and film, which, when paired with the constant repetition of “silence” in the song, implies the film character’s isolation, loneliness, and confinement.  Direct correlations between silence, water, and loneliness are harder to come by in Sula. They all appear in instances with only a shadow of over-cross, but a few intances to name are: when Sula reflects on the loneliness she experiences during sex - “in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound” (123) - she objectifies silence, which is oxymoronic because silence is often regarded as an absence, not an incarnation. after Chicken Little drowns - “The water was so peaceful now. There was nothing but the baking sun and something newly missing” (61) - Nel and Sula admire the silence - in this case, the peace - with which the water swallows someone whole. The particular word choice here - “peaceful” - is at first an eerie, then depressing, then soothing look at death.  The second passage in particular is what reminded me of those water scenes from The Graduate - when Dustin Hoffman appears to find the bliss in solitude as well as the burden; so close to drowning, so near to death, and yet so near to the end of suffering. Lastly, this concept of death as bliss made me consider the larger themes in Sula. The town where the novel takes place is in the hills  - “near heaven.” Sula’s surname - Peace. Shadrack’s promise to Sula of “a sleep of water always.” Death has constantly loomed around every corner in this novel, though never ominously - only jokingly, peacefully, and silently. _Mikhaila

I was listening to “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel as I read Sula yesterday, and the serendipity of it all got me thinking about some of the themes and motifs we see in Sula - oxymorons, silence, loneliness, water - and how they are all interconnected.

The Sound of Silence is a blatant oxymoron. It is prevalent in Toni Morrison’s Sula; and it is the title of a Simon and Garfunkel song - a song which appears in the classic 1967 film, The Graduate. 

The lyrics of the song at one point relate to water - “silent raindrops fell/ and echoed in the wells of silence.” In The Graduate, these words play periodically throughout; as Dustin Hoffman stares blankly ahead, enveloped by a fish tank in the background; as he sinks to the bottom of the pool clad in scuba gear. There is a clear motif of water in the song and film, which, when paired with the constant repetition of “silence” in the song, implies the film character’s isolation, loneliness, and confinement. 

Direct correlations between silence, water, and loneliness are harder to come by in Sula. They all appear in instances with only a shadow of over-cross, but a few intances to name are:

  • when Sula reflects on the loneliness she experiences during sex - “in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound” (123) - she objectifies silence, which is oxymoronic because silence is often regarded as an absence, not an incarnation.
  • after Chicken Little drowns - “The water was so peaceful now. There was nothing but the baking sun and something newly missing” (61) - Nel and Sula admire the silence - in this case, the peace - with which the water swallows someone whole. The particular word choice here - “peaceful” - is at first an eerie, then depressing, then soothing look at death. 

The second passage in particular is what reminded me of those water scenes from The Graduate - when Dustin Hoffman appears to find the bliss in solitude as well as the burden; so close to drowning, so near to death, and yet so near to the end of suffering.

Lastly, this concept of death as bliss made me consider the larger themes in Sula. The town where the novel takes place is in the hills  - “near heaven.” Sula’s surname - Peace. Shadrack’s promise to Sula of “a sleep of water always.” Death has constantly loomed around every corner in this novel, though never ominously - only jokingly, peacefully, and silently.

_Mikhaila

The Graduate (1967) The Sound of Silence SImon and Garfunkel Sula Toni Morrison Music 

January162012

“In spite of fear, they reacted to an oppressive oddity, or what they called evil days, with an acceptance that bordered on welcome” (89).

We talked about and noticed that the citizens of Medallion also accepted National Suicide Day with ease. Even though the holiday is celebrating death. In this quote it says that these particular days are considered, “evil days” and the town still accepts them even to the point of seeming that their acceptance is welcoming. I think this adds to the twisted mentality of the characters that live in this town, like we were talking about in class. But why does this town accept such disturbing holidays and days, such as National Suicide Day and these “evil days”, without so much as questioning the reasoning behind them? What does that show about the people who live in Medallion?

-Gabby 

quotes sula toni morrison evil days 

January132012
Sex is one of the major themes in the novel Sula. This is accentuated by the fact that the novel is set in the 1920s. In the beginning of the novel, the fashion would still be in the transitional phase between the 1910s to the 1920s. In the 1910s, the style was to have a nice “s” shaped curve to your body; ie big chest and big bottom. This style really enhanced the natural sexual shape of a woman and the style celebrated the sexual appeal of women. As time went on, fashion evolved into the 1920s flapper style where hemlines came just above or below the knees!! Oh my!!!! This fashion rebellion really enhanced the sexual freedom of women. How fitting of Toni Morrison to set Sula in the 1920s when the book is all about rebellion. Stay Fabulous Paige

Sex is one of the major themes in the novel Sula. This is accentuated by the fact that the novel is set in the 1920s. In the beginning of the novel, the fashion would still be in the transitional phase between the 1910s to the 1920s. In the 1910s, the style was to have a nice “s” shaped curve to your body; ie big chest and big bottom. This style really enhanced the natural sexual shape of a woman and the style celebrated the sexual appeal of women. As time went on, fashion evolved into the 1920s flapper style where hemlines came just above or below the knees!! Oh my!!!! This fashion rebellion really enhanced the sexual freedom of women. How fitting of Toni Morrison to set Sula in the 1920s when the book is all about rebellion.

Stay Fabulous

Paige

art fashion sula sex toni morrison 1920s flapper 

January122012
“She remembered the wedding dream and recalled that weddings always meant death. And the red gown, well that was the fire, as she should have known.”

As we know, Eva is a dream interpreter. So when she discovers this revelation about Hannah’s red wedding dress dream, the image gains a stronger relevance to Eva. We also see Sula, when Nel gets married, connect the wedding to death, when the reception is equated to a funeral. Weddings have now emerged as an extended metaphor throughout the book. By relating a wedding to death, first by the dream interpretation by Eva and then Nel’s wedding by Sula, the ceremony creates a repressive image of destruction of freedom and death. The dicotomy of death and martial bondage also seems to be another contradiction, just like the neighborhood of “Bottom” which is located at the highest elevation in the town of Medallion.

-Christine

sula toni morrison wedding dream dream interpretation 

9PM

“Hellfire don’t need lighting and it’s already burning in you…” (Morrison 93).

In class, we discussed the growing “darkness” in Sula over time. We related compared the darkening of the birthmark on Sula’s eyelid to the growing metaphorical darkness within Sula’s mind.  In this quote, Sula has just returned home from college after ten years and she and Eva are in the midst of an argument about Sula’s independence.  The word “hellfire” represents the darkness in Sula’s mind and the fact that it “don’t need lighting” implies that the darkness has always been present in Sula, as shown through her self-mutilation earlier on in the book.  As we have observed through her actions, Sula was not exactly “normal” to begin with, and the many circumstances that she’s encountered (i.e. self-mutilation, death of Chicken Little, Hannah’s death, etc) have only nourished the darkness that she held within herself, creating a strong willed and independent woman. However, it is obvious that her moral compass doesn’t exactly point due North. How do you guys think this darkness will influence her actions in the future? Will the jeopardize the strong bond that she has with Nel?  

-Megan

darkness quotes sula toni morrison 

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