Gender Issue in Sula

In Sula, the story mostly revolves around the women of Medallion. The role of women in this town seems to be very mundane and insignificant. For Sula, it was hard to live in a place where the men were a step above and had more freedom and rights to do as they pleased. She recalls how "Every man I ever knew left his children" (143). When she begins having sexual affairs with many of the men, she is looked down upon everyone and gets a horrible reputation. She doesn't want to work and be bossed around by anyone, but is reminded by Nel that "You can't do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can't act like a man. You can't be walking around all independent-like, doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don't" (142). Sula doesn't want to be like the rest of the woman who are "Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I'm going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world. (143). It almost seems that to Sula, being a woman is a burden. She feels hindered by being a woman, because she doesn't have as much freedom to be accepted the way she is.

Vocabulary II

Solicitous
A. Careful, particular, anxious or concerned (Adjective)
B. "...kept them solicitous of white people's children..." (160)
C. She was very solicitous about her mothers health ever since the accident.
D.

Malevolence

A. Hatred or malice (Noun)

B. "...the slurred remarks and the staggering childish malevolence of their employers." (161)

C. The evil boss had a look of malevolence on his face. 

D.

Fastidious
A. Excessively particular, critical or demanding. (Adjective)
B. "She had neither iron nor clothes but did not stop her fastidious lining up of pleats or pressing out of wrinkles even when she acknowledged Nel's greeting." (167)
C. That man is very fastidious when cutting his grass.
D.

Dirge

A. A funeral song or tune, or one expressing mourning in commemoration of the dead. (Noun)

B. "On January third the sun came out-and so did Shadrack with his rope, his bell and his childish dirge." (155)

C. After his tragic death, his wife wrote a very moving dirge in honor of him. 

D. 

Unassailable

A. Not subject to denial or dispute (Adjective)

B. "The sealed window soothed her with its sturdy termination, its unassailable finality." (148) 

C. The proof of the murder was unassailable and so he was arrested. 

D. 

Timbre

A. The characteristic quality of a sound, independent of pitch and loudness, from which its source or manner of production can be inferred. (Noun)

B. "..it gave her voice the timbre she wanted it to have..." (139)

C. The timbre of the drums was loud and grand.

D. 

Ornate

A. Elaborately or sumptuously adorned, often excessively or showily so (Adjective)

B. "An absence so decorative, so ornate, it was difficult for her to understand how she had ever endured..." (134)

C. They bought an old ornate piece of furniture. 

D. 

Mercurial

A. Animated, lively or erratic. (Adjective)

B. "...she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end." (12)

C. Teenagers usually have mercurial tempers, and are controlled by raging hormones. 

Trepidation

A. Tremulous fear, alarm, or agitation (Noun)

B. "Linda, hearing Willy outside the bedroom, calls with some trepidation: 'Willy!'" (12)

C. He walked on the murder's door with trepidation for what was to come. 

D. 

Imbue

A. To inspire, charge or infect (Verb)

B. "'Thats just the spirit I want to imbue them with!'"

C. A sunset usually imbues many with its beauty. 

D. 

Sula's Family Tree

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Vocabulary

Repugnance

A. Strong distaste, aversion or objection (Noun)

B. “All their repugnance was contained in the neat balance of triangles…” (8)

C. The boy showed great repugnance towards the spinach.
D.

Abate

A. To suspend, extinguish or put an end to (Verb)

B. “By the time the police drove up, Shadrack was suffering from a blinding headache, which was not abated by the comfort he felt when the policemen pulled his hands away from what he thought was a permanent entanglement with his shoelaces.” (13)

C. They finally decided to abate the tax. 

D. 

Unequivocal

A. Absolute, clear or having only one possible meaning or interpretation (Adjective)

B. “A black so definite, so unequivocal, it astonished him.” (13)

C. The answer he gave was an unequivocal yes.

D.

Quell

A. To vanquish, subdue or suppress (Verb)

B. “If this tall, proud woman, this woman who was very particular about her friends, who slipped into church with unequaled elegance, who could quell a roustabout with a look, if she were really custard, there was a chance that Nel was too.” (22)

C. The man was able to quell the fire quickly.

D. 

Guile

A. Trickery, fraud, or artful deception (Noun)

B.  “Her flirting was sweet, low and guileless.” (42)

C. He used his wits and guile to escape from the enemy.

D.

Fastidious

A. Excessively particular, critical or demanding (Adjective)

B. “She like the last place least, not because Sula slept in the room with her but because her love mate’s tendency was always to fall asleep afterward and Hannah was fastidious about whom she slept with.” (43)

C. She was a very fastidious eater and sometimes didn’t eat at all.

D. 

Vitriol

A. Bitter criticism or extreme hatred towards somebody. (Noun)

B. “She was unquestionably a kind and generous woman and that, coupled with her extraordinary beauty and funky elegance of manner, made them defend her and protect her from any vitriol that newcomers or their wives might spill.” (45)

C. The vitriol that the boss of the company gave to one of his employees made him quit.

D.  

Insouciant

A. Free from concern, worry or anxiety (Adjective)

B. “…and Nel’s grimy intractable children looked like three wild things happily insouciant in the May shine.” (96)

C. Laying on the beach, the man felt insouciant and far away from everything stressful.

D.

Contrive

A. To invent, devise or design (Verb)

B. “Their evidence against Sula was contrived, but their conclusions about her were not.” (118)

C. He began to contrive the route he would take for his cross-country drive.

D.

Pariah

A. An outcast, someone or something that is generally despised or avoided (Noun)

B. “She was pariah, then, and knew it.” (122)

C. He was pariah, and was forced to stand apart from the rest of the group.

D. 

 Dictionary.com

Literary Devices in Sula

1. Allusion
"The grandmother took Helene away from the soft lights and flowered carpets of the Sundown House and raised her under the dolesome eyes of the mutlicolored Virgin Mary, counseling her to be constantly on guard for any sign of her mother's wild blood." (17)

2. Symbolism
When Eva soaks Plum in kerosene to later set him on fire, he thinks that he is going through "...some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing." (49)

3. Repetition
They had looked at the world and back at their children, back at the world and back again at the children..."(122)

4. Allegory
Birds come up a lot in the book, like when Rochelle is first introduced wearing a "canary-yellow dress". Another time when birds come into the story is when Sula comes back to Medallion and a plague of dead robins accompanies her homecoming.

Slideshow of Hannah's Death

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Mimicking the writing device used by Morrison on page 70

It was a day so blistering that you could crack an egg open and scramble it on the sidewalk, a day so blistering that two scoops of vanilla ice-cream in a sugar cone melted after the first lick and made the children's hands wet and sticky, a day so horribly blistering that the black pavement glistened and sparkled like starts in a black sky, a day for spraying your neighbors with the freezing cold water from the hose, so blistering that it was a perfect day for chilled, sweet watermelon and frozen grapes.