PM said by Professor Montgomery IOW In Other Words African American Literature Toni Morrison s Sula The unresolved ending re ects inconsistency of life Sula evolves out of a number of sources of which one is The Bible another is folktale another is storytelling another is classical mythology and another is history It is a very circular novel as it begins with the ironic start and Nel goes through her psychological circle in realizing her identity in relationship to Sula not Jude intertextual relationship to Eyes This is relationship to the past circular existence The characters of the novel have an idea of an existence even before slavery This exists in contrast to Western Linear History both Sula s and Plum s death are references to circular existence Sula becomes a child again sucking her thumb fetal position She is aware of her death like when she talks about it Similar to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge but different because Morrison says that time is in continuum It s psychological dualism This is potentially conversation with W E B DuBois double consciousness the dual western and african identities on American blacks Contrasting DuBois Morrison says the dualism is reconcilable but she brings it to a gender identity issue saying heterosexual is harmful and homosexual is bene cial Remember Morrison reconciles while DuBois does not Sula is more than esh and blood because she has an in uence postmortem Many ironies slave gets opposite of what he expects to receive character nomenclature for example Shadrack is crazy unlike his biblical counterpart Nat l Suicide day is a release for the characters fear of death in the bottom that s why they accept him Not many ppl actually off themselves on NSD but instead many people die on other days which makes the day more of a symbol for sanity containment in the bottom Taking two girls from diff backgrounds and making them compatible They are halves of the same whole In other words they are a commentary on women in America and their limited roles This forces us to question stereotypes of black women s roles Eva is a very dynamic character ful lling both natural and supernatural roles She is Morrison s ancestral trope There s something about life in the bottom the prevents the characters from ful lling their full potential This is evident in the IRONIC nomenclature Shadrack is the biblical character from the rry furnace In Sula his venture in WWII re ects Ajax in Sula in contrast to his character in Mythology is very non heroic The Right and Peace families are and are not what their names signify The Dewey boys all receive the same name Eva Eve Peace is willing to take her son s life rather than have him emasculated We have to abandon out notions and enter Morrison s world Morrison wants us to abandon that objective empirical perspective and enter into the part of the slave this is the descent trope the Bottom is its own unique reality It seems that nothing is the way it should be even the Bottom is on a hill Sula was written within the contemporary period post 1970 to present many women making their appearance The end of the novel is actually at the beginning while the beginning is at the beginning in other words she puts preference on memory over order This is a storytelling convention Inter textual relationship there arises the idea that the african american reality is apart from the western reality this arises from almost all the novels we ve read Two important indebted elements of Morrison s writing 1 storytelling oral language similar to Hurston s Eyes Principal storyteller is Nel Wright 2 memory recollection of past events Plum s Death very important in Eva s characterization a scene of infanticide Plum is emasculated because he is PTSD stricken and a heroine addict this is potentially a death rebirth scene he returns to another realm to gain his fuller true self This belief in a continuum of life in temporal life or another is an African Cosmological belief It is circular Zamani as opposed to Western linearity Eva is crucial to this process Eva is also responsible for Nell s revelation She compares Sula s ambivalence to Hannah s death is the same as Nell s ambivalence to Chicken Little s death Sula becomes a scapegoat because she left the bottom She is an outlet just like NSD She is a major sacri cer for the community She is almost a hero She is just as in uential postmortem as pre A man can t do everything a woman does and still be called a man a woman can t do everything a man does and still be called woman The novel rst and foremost addresses gender roles evidenced by Nel and Sula s diametrically split paths comments on women s identities Nel want to jump out and be her own person in response to her repressive mother but her marriage to Jude causes her to lose her identity Morrison says heterosexual relationships result in a loss of female identity However at the end of the novel Nel learns most about herself when compared to and in relationship with Sula chicken little drown and Sula s mother s burning death Social Commentary there is a healing power in women women relationships nobody can be in a heterosexual relationship before nding him herself which can be done in relationships with same gender friendships