Toni Morrison’s Sula Toni Morrison’s Sula · Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Hybrid Novel of Africa and America 陳榮旗 1. INTRODUCTION In the history of America, people’s demand

Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Hybrid Novel of Africa and America 陳榮旗

Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Hybrid Novel of Africa and America

Ron-Ki Chen

A Student Studying in the Doctoral Program Department of English

National Kaohsiung Normal University

Abstract

In Toni Morrison’s Sula, Shadrack’s madness, an African American soldier, symbolizes the indelible African presence that denies the absorption of America. Conversely, Nel’s bringing-up shows her volition to be absorbed into the main stream of American culture by denying her African character. Their interrelation with Sula has a definite influence on the formation of her personality. Sula, a hybrid novel of African and American cultures and literatures, is a blues song. With readers’ various experiences in life, multiple interpretations respond to this novel to give it a subtle and exquisite cadence. Keywords: Sula, Nel, Shadrack, Toni Morrison, hybrid

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Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Hybrid Novel of Africa and America

Ron-Ki Chen

A Student Studying in the Doctoral Program Department of English

National Kaohsiung Normal University

Abstract

In Toni Morrison’s Sula, Shadrack’s madness, an African American soldier, symbolizes the indelible African presence that denies the absorption of America. Conversely, Nel’s bringing-up shows her volition to be absorbed into the main stream of American culture by denying her African character. Their interrelation with Sula has a definite influence on the formation of her personality. Sula, a hybrid novel of African and American cultures and literatures, is a blues song. With readers’ various experiences in life, multiple interpretations respond to this novel to give it a subtle and exquisite cadence. Keywords: Sula, Nel, Shadrack, Toni Morrison, hybrid

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朝陽人文社會學刊第十卷第一期

湯妮‧摩里森的《蘇拉》：

一本非、美混合體小說

陳榮旗

高雄師範大學英語學系博士生

摘要

在湯妮‧摩里森的小說《蘇拉》，非裔美人士兵薛瑞克的精神錯

亂可以說，象徵著拒絕融入美國而無法被抹滅的非洲文化存在。相

反地，奈兒否定非洲特性的家庭成長教育，卻又表達出融入美國主

流文化的意願。他們與蘇拉的互動關係，對於蘇拉的人格養成有著

明確的影響。這本融合了非、美文化和文學混合的小說《蘇拉》，宛

如一曲藍調，隨著讀者不同的人生經驗，對這本小說回應了眾多看

法詮釋，合奏出這本小說微妙精緻的節奏韻律。

關鍵字：蘇拉、奈兒、薛瑞克、湯妮‧摩里森、混合體

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湯妮‧摩里森的《蘇拉》：

一本非、美混合體小說

陳榮旗

高雄師範大學英語學系博士生

摘要

在湯妮‧摩里森的小說《蘇拉》，非裔美人士兵薛瑞克的精神錯

亂可以說，象徵著拒絕融入美國而無法被抹滅的非洲文化存在。相

反地，奈兒否定非洲特性的家庭成長教育，卻又表達出融入美國主

流文化的意願。他們與蘇拉的互動關係，對於蘇拉的人格養成有著

明確的影響。這本融合了非、美文化和文學混合的小說《蘇拉》，宛

如一曲藍調，隨著讀者不同的人生經驗，對這本小說回應了眾多看

法詮釋，合奏出這本小說微妙精緻的節奏韻律。

關鍵字：蘇拉、奈兒、薛瑞克、湯妮‧摩里森、混合體

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1. INTRODUCTION

In the history of America, people’s demand for freedom and democracy usually becomes national significant events. Pursuing religious freedom, Puritans leave the Old World to settle in America. In order to have political and economic liberty, Americans fight to be independent of England. Because of Uncle Tom’s cry, the North battles with the South to free those Americans in slavery. With a view to overthrow racial discrimination and segregation, the Civil Rights Movement aims at restoring voting rights, displaying racial dignity, and campaigning for many nonviolent protests of civil resistance and civil disobedience.

This democratic spirit is delineated and illustrated well in Walt Whitman’s poetry. In “Preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass,” Whitman (1998, pp. 451-452) expresses that poets who are “the voice and exposition of liberty” should cheer up slaves and horrify despots, and urges that everyone should “learn the faithful American lesson” because “I and you walk abroad upon the earth stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship and calling no one man master.” He proceeds to claim that liberty is the “true American character” and until “all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth—then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth” (Whitman, 1998, p. 453). It is in this American earth that all kinds of plants—vegetables, fruits, grasses, flowers, trees and so forth—can bud, grow, and bloom. Whether the seeds are imported from Africa on purpose or by chance, they take roots in this fertile soil. Some die, others survive, and still others have intercourse with other seeds of many species in America. In the long run, a new hybrid one belongs to and differs from those of America. It is a miracle in the earth because this one flourishes well, produces flowers with unusual beauty, spreads its special fragrance far and wide, and bears sweet, juicy fruits in all parts of America—art, music, sport, politics, literature, etc.

In a creative way, Morrison and many talented African Americans have attempted to free their souls by elucidating and exhibiting the

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1. INTRODUCTION

In the history of America, people’s demand for freedom and democracy usually becomes national significant events. Pursuing religious freedom, Puritans leave the Old World to settle in America. In order to have political and economic liberty, Americans fight to be independent of England. Because of Uncle Tom’s cry, the North battles with the South to free those Americans in slavery. With a view to overthrow racial discrimination and segregation, the Civil Rights Movement aims at restoring voting rights, displaying racial dignity, and campaigning for many nonviolent protests of civil resistance and civil disobedience.

This democratic spirit is delineated and illustrated well in Walt Whitman’s poetry. In “Preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass,” Whitman (1998, pp. 451-452) expresses that poets who are “the voice and exposition of liberty” should cheer up slaves and horrify despots, and urges that everyone should “learn the faithful American lesson” because “I and you walk abroad upon the earth stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship and calling no one man master.” He proceeds to claim that liberty is the “true American character” and until “all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth—then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth” (Whitman, 1998, p. 453). It is in this American earth that all kinds of plants—vegetables, fruits, grasses, flowers, trees and so forth—can bud, grow, and bloom. Whether the seeds are imported from Africa on purpose or by chance, they take roots in this fertile soil. Some die, others survive, and still others have intercourse with other seeds of many species in America. In the long run, a new hybrid one belongs to and differs from those of America. It is a miracle in the earth because this one flourishes well, produces flowers with unusual beauty, spreads its special fragrance far and wide, and bears sweet, juicy fruits in all parts of America—art, music, sport, politics, literature, etc.

In a creative way, Morrison and many talented African Americans have attempted to free their souls by elucidating and exhibiting the

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development and formation of this hybrid, unique Afro-American culture. The core of this culture is the oral tradition. Through telling the folktales and through the particular ways to chant them, the ancestors’ wisdom is passed down from generation to generation, and one’s soul is set free by singing out in gospels, spirituals, blues, jazzes and so on.

In The Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims that black literature, like black music, acquires its resonance not from the origination of new themes but from the skillful revision of formal tropes. As Susan R. Bowers (2009, p. 43) explicates, the “vernacular is a complex oral discourse characterized by such tropes as call and response1 and signifying (a means of repetition and revision).”2 In the perusal of songs in Beloved as the key to narrative revision, Joanna Wolfe (2004, p. 265) denotes that

[Morrison’s narrative] techniques include black music’s openness to repetition and modification, its ability to accommodate and gain new meaning from the dialogic interplay of multiple traditions and texts, and its intimate and productive relationship between audience and musician.3

From this point of view, it may say that African Americans also hum a song of myself, but they, in a revision of the same song, murmur a hidden, silenced aspect of America with a distinct, significant melody. When Linda W. Wagner (1986, p. 1) chooses Morrison’s novels to teach students in class, she also discovers that The Bluest Eye is wonderfully versatile: it fits remarkably well

1 G. Smitherman (1977, p. 104) defines it as “spontaneous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which all the statements (‘calls’) are punctuated by expressions (‘responses’ from the listener).” 2 Gates (2002, p. 907) expounds that “signifying depends upon the signifier repeating what someone else has said about a third person, in order to reverse the status of a relationship heretofore harmonious [. . .]. This use of repetition and reversal (chiasmus) constitutes an implicit parody of a subject’s own complicity in illusion.” 3 In her interview with Nellie McKay (1994, p. 429), Morrison explains: “Classical music satisfies and closes. [. . .] Jazz always keeps you on the edge. There is no final chord. [. . .] Spirituals agitate you, no matter what they are saying about how it is all going to be. There is something underneath them that is incomplete. [. . .] I want my books to be like that—because I want that feeling of something held in reserve and the sense that there is more.”

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development and formation of this hybrid, unique Afro-American culture. The core of this culture is the oral tradition. Through telling the folktales and through the particular ways to chant them, the ancestors’ wisdom is passed down from generation to generation, and one’s soul is set free by singing out in gospels, spirituals, blues, jazzes and so on.

In The Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims that black literature, like black music, acquires its resonance not from the origination of new themes but from the skillful revision of formal tropes. As Susan R. Bowers (2009, p. 43) explicates, the “vernacular is a complex oral discourse characterized by such tropes as call and response1 and signifying (a means of repetition and revision).”2 In the perusal of songs in Beloved as the key to narrative revision, Joanna Wolfe (2004, p. 265) denotes that

[Morrison’s narrative] techniques include black music’s openness to repetition and modification, its ability to accommodate and gain new meaning from the dialogic interplay of multiple traditions and texts, and its intimate and productive relationship between audience and musician.3

From this point of view, it may say that African Americans also hum a song of myself, but they, in a revision of the same song, murmur a hidden, silenced aspect of America with a distinct, significant melody. When Linda W. Wagner (1986, p. 1) chooses Morrison’s novels to teach students in class, she also discovers that The Bluest Eye is wonderfully versatile: it fits remarkably well

1 G. Smitherman (1977, p. 104) defines it as “spontaneous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which all the statements (‘calls’) are punctuated by expressions (‘responses’ from the listener).” 2 Gates (2002, p. 907) expounds that “signifying depends upon the signifier repeating what someone else has said about a third person, in order to reverse the status of a relationship heretofore harmonious [. . .]. This use of repetition and reversal (chiasmus) constitutes an implicit parody of a subject’s own complicity in illusion.” 3 In her interview with Nellie McKay (1994, p. 429), Morrison explains: “Classical music satisfies and closes. [. . .] Jazz always keeps you on the edge. There is no final chord. [. . .] Spirituals agitate you, no matter what they are saying about how it is all going to be. There is something underneath them that is incomplete. [. . .] I want my books to be like that—because I want that feeling of something held in reserve and the sense that there is more.”

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into my American Modernism class, into Contemporary Literature, into Introduction to Fiction or Literature, and into Women’s Literature. One reason it does so is that it is itself a wonderful work—rich, comic, deftly imaged, sophisticated, and important.

It is proper to describe that Morrison’s novels are versatile, but Wagner’s comment does not articulate the reason for the versatility. The Bluest Eye is a blues song to call for readers’ responses. The improvisatorial responses for the call not only veil the color of versatility for Morrison’s novels but also delve into the unspoken and hidden side of American culture—African folktale. Although the title “Song of Solomon” reminds the reader of the Bible, the flying is not about Icarus’ in Western Mythology. It is about African flying myth. When Cecil Brown (1995, pp. 463-465) asks many questions about the adoption and employment of myths, folktales, fairy tales, and so forth in her fiction, Morrison answers, I’d always heard that black people could fly before they came to

this country, and the spirituals and gospels are full of flying, and I decided not to treat them as some Western form of escape, and something more positive than escape. [. . .] In most folklore, there is a lot of hidden gold, a code that may not be easily read [. . .]. For me, [. . .] the strategist I employ is fed by that place, the repetition, a certain structure, the sense of color, the absences, the spaces around the words—all of this is like a call and response thing to me.

Morrison’s novels are both African and American in one sense, and neither African nor American in another sense. However, this hybridity of African and American literatures and cultures is no longer a hindrance 4 but an advantage that imparts a new form of cultural agency.

4 As Bernard W. Bell (2004, p. xvi) observes, African Americans “use [their] double consciousness to express either an Afrocentric or African Americentric type of modernism and postmodernism that acknowledges the limitations and possibilities of cultural relativism and provisional truths in the quest for personal and collective freedom, literacy, and wholeness.”

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into my American Modernism class, into Contemporary Literature, into Introduction to Fiction or Literature, and into Women’s Literature. One reason it does so is that it is itself a wonderful work—rich, comic, deftly imaged, sophisticated, and important.

It is proper to describe that Morrison’s novels are versatile, but Wagner’s comment does not articulate the reason for the versatility. The Bluest Eye is a blues song to call for readers’ responses. The improvisatorial responses for the call not only veil the color of versatility for Morrison’s novels but also delve into the unspoken and hidden side of American culture—African folktale. Although the title “Song of Solomon” reminds the reader of the Bible, the flying is not about Icarus’ in Western Mythology. It is about African flying myth. When Cecil Brown (1995, pp. 463-465) asks many questions about the adoption and employment of myths, folktales, fairy tales, and so forth in her fiction, Morrison answers, I’d always heard that black people could fly before they came to

this country, and the spirituals and gospels are full of flying, and I decided not to treat them as some Western form of escape, and something more positive than escape. [. . .] In most folklore, there is a lot of hidden gold, a code that may not be easily read [. . .]. For me, [. . .] the strategist I employ is fed by that place, the repetition, a certain structure, the sense of color, the absences, the spaces around the words—all of this is like a call and response thing to me.

Morrison’s novels are both African and American in one sense, and neither African nor American in another sense. However, this hybridity of African and American literatures and cultures is no longer a hindrance 4 but an advantage that imparts a new form of cultural agency.

4 As Bernard W. Bell (2004, p. xvi) observes, African Americans “use [their] double consciousness to express either an Afrocentric or African Americentric type of modernism and postmodernism that acknowledges the limitations and possibilities of cultural relativism and provisional truths in the quest for personal and collective freedom, literacy, and wholeness.”

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Gloria Anzaldúa has developed the idea that the space between two cultures can be a zone of innovation. As Anzaldúa (1999, p. 19) describes,

[l]iving on borders and in margins [. . .] is like trying to swim in a new element, an “alien” element. There is an exhilaration in being a participant in the further evolution of humankind, [. . .] dormant areas of consciousness are being activated, awakened.

Similarly, Homi Bhabha (1990, p. 211) calls the zone in between two cultures Third Space and claims that this zone “gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation.” In The Location of Culture, Bhabha (1994, pp. 1-2) also explains,

[these] “in-between” spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself.

Morrison expresses similar ideas in her fiction. Its hybridity, African Americanness or American Africanness, exhibits in plot elements, themes, intertextual references and stylistic techniques such as the combination of orality and literacy.

In the study of Morrison’s modification of the biblical text, Bärbel Höttges (2010, p. 152) notices that

the biblical text is still present and discernable, but at the same time, it has been incorporated into the system of African American culture. [. . .] Morrison’s quotation does thus not imply a competition between biblical and African traditions, but rather describes and highlights the development of a modified and updated version of Christianity that acknowledges and caters to the needs of an African American community.

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Gloria Anzaldúa has developed the idea that the space between two cultures can be a zone of innovation. As Anzaldúa (1999, p. 19) describes,

[l]iving on borders and in margins [. . .] is like trying to swim in a new element, an “alien” element. There is an exhilaration in being a participant in the further evolution of humankind, [. . .] dormant areas of consciousness are being activated, awakened.

Similarly, Homi Bhabha (1990, p. 211) calls the zone in between two cultures Third Space and claims that this zone “gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation.” In The Location of Culture, Bhabha (1994, pp. 1-2) also explains,

[these] “in-between” spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself.

Morrison expresses similar ideas in her fiction. Its hybridity, African Americanness or American Africanness, exhibits in plot elements, themes, intertextual references and stylistic techniques such as the combination of orality and literacy.

In the study of Morrison’s modification of the biblical text, Bärbel Höttges (2010, p. 152) notices that

the biblical text is still present and discernable, but at the same time, it has been incorporated into the system of African American culture. [. . .] Morrison’s quotation does thus not imply a competition between biblical and African traditions, but rather describes and highlights the development of a modified and updated version of Christianity that acknowledges and caters to the needs of an African American community.

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As an African American writer, Morrison is able to blend, negotiate and redefine cultural, literary, and linguistic perspectives of Africa and America, and the coalescence of African and American traditions is a recurring motif in her works. Apparently, a cautious study of the oral tradition in Sula can render a comprehensive survey of valuable and insightful information,5 but it may need much space to be discussed. Therefore, this concise paper will only try to examine and analyze some selected significant episodes with relation to the three main characters, Nel, Sula, and Shadrack, in order to discern and explain the cultural and literary elements of Africa and America in this novel.

2. ABSORPTION INTO AMERICA

Sula principally contains the fragments of Shadrack’s, Sula’s, and Nel’s personal stories. There are ten chapters, each located in a specific year—1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1927, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1965. Although this chronological order gives readers an illusion of coherence, as the balance of the tray with three triangular areas—“the white, the red and the brown would stay where they were—would not explode or burst forth from their restricted zones” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2100), an emblem of the Western philosophical system of ordering, dividing and classifying, soothes and consoles Shadrack, the interrelation among Shadrack, Sula, and Nel may account for the correlation of the triangular—African, African American, and American—perspectives.

At the first glance, the introductory narrative sketches Shadrack as a lunatic because of the horror of war experience, witnessing a blasted comrade’s head fly off. However, this sketch signifies the general image of Western people for Africans, cannibals. As Shadrack’s speech and behavior cannot be measured logically, the barbarian customs and traditions cannot be comprehended in terms of the Western culture. For readers’ first reading, Morrison’s insertion of Shadrack in Sula that seems

5 Cheryl Hall (1994, p. 89) points out that Morrison tries to achieve “an effortlessness and an artlessness, and a non-book quality, so that they would have a sound [. . .]. And the closest I came, I think, to finding it was in some books written by Africans, novels that were loose [. . .] the kind that people could call unstructured because they were circular, and because they sounded like somebody was telling you a story. [. . .] I wanted the sound to be something I felt was spoken and more oral and less print.”

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As an African American writer, Morrison is able to blend, negotiate and redefine cultural, literary, and linguistic perspectives of Africa and America, and the coalescence of African and American traditions is a recurring motif in her works. Apparently, a cautious study of the oral tradition in Sula can render a comprehensive survey of valuable and insightful information,5 but it may need much space to be discussed. Therefore, this concise paper will only try to examine and analyze some selected significant episodes with relation to the three main characters, Nel, Sula, and Shadrack, in order to discern and explain the cultural and literary elements of Africa and America in this novel.

2. ABSORPTION INTO AMERICA

Sula principally contains the fragments of Shadrack’s, Sula’s, and Nel’s personal stories. There are ten chapters, each located in a specific year—1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1927, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1965. Although this chronological order gives readers an illusion of coherence, as the balance of the tray with three triangular areas—“the white, the red and the brown would stay where they were—would not explode or burst forth from their restricted zones” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2100), an emblem of the Western philosophical system of ordering, dividing and classifying, soothes and consoles Shadrack, the interrelation among Shadrack, Sula, and Nel may account for the correlation of the triangular—African, African American, and American—perspectives.

At the first glance, the introductory narrative sketches Shadrack as a lunatic because of the horror of war experience, witnessing a blasted comrade’s head fly off. However, this sketch signifies the general image of Western people for Africans, cannibals. As Shadrack’s speech and behavior cannot be measured logically, the barbarian customs and traditions cannot be comprehended in terms of the Western culture. For readers’ first reading, Morrison’s insertion of Shadrack in Sula that seems

5 Cheryl Hall (1994, p. 89) points out that Morrison tries to achieve “an effortlessness and an artlessness, and a non-book quality, so that they would have a sound [. . .]. And the closest I came, I think, to finding it was in some books written by Africans, novels that were loose [. . .] the kind that people could call unstructured because they were circular, and because they sounded like somebody was telling you a story. [. . .] I wanted the sound to be something I felt was spoken and more oral and less print.”

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unnecessary to the friendship between Nel and Sula troubles and worries them. For critics, it is a difficult task to make sense of the Shadrack episode with reference to Sula.

Actually, Shadrack represents the African presence in America. As Vashti Crutcher Lewis (1987, p. 92) claims, Shardrack, a lunatic, will be “treated with awed respect” in view of the West African culture because “it was believed that [he is] nearest in contact with the unseen spiritual world, and that the ancestral spirits spoke through [him].”6 It is no wonder that the displaced African people in the Bottom can fit him “into the scheme of things” once they consciously or unconsciously understand “the boundaries and nature of his madness” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2104). Moreover, as a victim of African American solider (culture) in World War I, Shadrack’s madness shows not only the indelible African presence in America but also a denial to be absorbed into America.

Conversely, the introduction of Nel and her mother, Helene Wright, shows their volition to be absorbed into the main stream of American culture by denying their Africanness. The pronunciation of Wright suggests not only conformity to the Western binary thinking, right or wrong, but also conformity to white values and norms if the “r” is replaced by “h”. In this respect, Helene Wright’s image is a good woman who keeps her house neat, resembling the description in the Dick-Jane story in The Bluest Eye. Because Rochelle, Helene’s mother, is a Creole prostitute, Helene, as Helen Hendaria Kamandhari (2001, p. 19) observes, endeavors to “bury deeply all those past fears” and “drives every sign of wildness [. . .] lest this character of her [mother . . .] descends on Nel.” Like Shadrack’s madness, Rochelle’s Creole wildness, a symbol of Africanness, is not welcomed and understood in the eyes of Helene Wright and white people.

When she witnesses Helene’s humiliation in the train episode, Nel once resists this absorption into white values and norms and tries to

6 As Lewis (1987, p. 91) explains, “in the Babangi language, [Sula the name] means any one of or a combination of the following: (1) to be afraid, (2) to run away, (3) to poke, (4) to alter from a proper condition to a worse one, (5) to be blighted, (6) to fail in spirit, (7) to be overcome, (8) to be paralyzed with fear, or (9) to be stunned.” Lewis (1987, p. 95) also supposes that “Shadrack is a displaced African—out of time and out of place. His Old Testament namesake in biblical Hebrew history refuses to worship the alien gods of Babylon.”

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unnecessary to the friendship between Nel and Sula troubles and worries them. For critics, it is a difficult task to make sense of the Shadrack episode with reference to Sula.

Actually, Shadrack represents the African presence in America. As Vashti Crutcher Lewis (1987, p. 92) claims, Shardrack, a lunatic, will be “treated with awed respect” in view of the West African culture because “it was believed that [he is] nearest in contact with the unseen spiritual world, and that the ancestral spirits spoke through [him].”6 It is no wonder that the displaced African people in the Bottom can fit him “into the scheme of things” once they consciously or unconsciously understand “the boundaries and nature of his madness” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2104). Moreover, as a victim of African American solider (culture) in World War I, Shadrack’s madness shows not only the indelible African presence in America but also a denial to be absorbed into America.

Conversely, the introduction of Nel and her mother, Helene Wright, shows their volition to be absorbed into the main stream of American culture by denying their Africanness. The pronunciation of Wright suggests not only conformity to the Western binary thinking, right or wrong, but also conformity to white values and norms if the “r” is replaced by “h”. In this respect, Helene Wright’s image is a good woman who keeps her house neat, resembling the description in the Dick-Jane story in The Bluest Eye. Because Rochelle, Helene’s mother, is a Creole prostitute, Helene, as Helen Hendaria Kamandhari (2001, p. 19) observes, endeavors to “bury deeply all those past fears” and “drives every sign of wildness [. . .] lest this character of her [mother . . .] descends on Nel.” Like Shadrack’s madness, Rochelle’s Creole wildness, a symbol of Africanness, is not welcomed and understood in the eyes of Helene Wright and white people.

When she witnesses Helene’s humiliation in the train episode, Nel once resists this absorption into white values and norms and tries to

6 As Lewis (1987, p. 91) explains, “in the Babangi language, [Sula the name] means any one of or a combination of the following: (1) to be afraid, (2) to run away, (3) to poke, (4) to alter from a proper condition to a worse one, (5) to be blighted, (6) to fail in spirit, (7) to be overcome, (8) to be paralyzed with fear, or (9) to be stunned.” Lewis (1987, p. 95) also supposes that “Shadrack is a displaced African—out of time and out of place. His Old Testament namesake in biblical Hebrew history refuses to worship the alien gods of Babylon.”

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develop her “me-ness” by being wild with Sula.7 Nevertheless, the interrelation between Nel and Shadrack foreshadows her failure of recognizing and recovering her indelible Africanness.

3. THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN NEL AND SHADRACK

Though both of Nel and Shadrack never talk to each other, they

appear simultaneously twice in Sula. First, when Sula accidentally drowns Chicken, she and Nel perceive Shadrack “on the opposite shore,” and Nel quites Sula, “Was he there? Did he see?” (Morrison, 1997, pp. 2126-2127). The fear of being discovered may imply Nel’s anxiety of her wildness being acknowledged. In addition, Nel’s marriage to Jude is an effort “to bury deeply all those past fears” by cutting down her wildness with Sula.

Secondly, after Nel visits Eva, Sula’s grandmother, in the final scene, the narrator describes, “Shadrack and Nel moved in opposite directions, each thinking separate thoughts about the past. The distance between them increased as they both remembered gone things” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2180). Symbolically, it may say that African and American cultures meet in America but they are united to be neither African nor American. African Americans who deny either Africanness or Americanness walk on the same road but in opposite directions. The illustration of this double consciousness, contradicting and conflicting against each other, has “just circles and circles of sorrow” with “no bottom” and “no top” and Nel can only cries out, “Sula?” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2180) whom both Shadrack and Nel treasure in their remembrance.

4. NO RESPONSE TO SULA’S CALL

Sula, representing those African Americans who suffer the double

consciousness, is unable to elude from her African character and

7 Steven J. Gold (2004, pp. 953-954) indicates that race “is seen a social construction, but one that has very real implications in shaping life chances and the distribution and denial of privileges to individuals and groups. [. . .] However, while acknowledging exceptions, many scholars maintain that those with European origins still enjoy more privileges than those without them.”

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develop her “me-ness” by being wild with Sula.7 Nevertheless, the interrelation between Nel and Shadrack foreshadows her failure of recognizing and recovering her indelible Africanness.

3. THE INTERRELATION BETWEEN NEL AND SHADRACK

Though both of Nel and Shadrack never talk to each other, they

appear simultaneously twice in Sula. First, when Sula accidentally drowns Chicken, she and Nel perceive Shadrack “on the opposite shore,” and Nel quites Sula, “Was he there? Did he see?” (Morrison, 1997, pp. 2126-2127). The fear of being discovered may imply Nel’s anxiety of her wildness being acknowledged. In addition, Nel’s marriage to Jude is an effort “to bury deeply all those past fears” by cutting down her wildness with Sula.

Secondly, after Nel visits Eva, Sula’s grandmother, in the final scene, the narrator describes, “Shadrack and Nel moved in opposite directions, each thinking separate thoughts about the past. The distance between them increased as they both remembered gone things” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2180). Symbolically, it may say that African and American cultures meet in America but they are united to be neither African nor American. African Americans who deny either Africanness or Americanness walk on the same road but in opposite directions. The illustration of this double consciousness, contradicting and conflicting against each other, has “just circles and circles of sorrow” with “no bottom” and “no top” and Nel can only cries out, “Sula?” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2180) whom both Shadrack and Nel treasure in their remembrance.

4. NO RESPONSE TO SULA’S CALL

Sula, representing those African Americans who suffer the double

consciousness, is unable to elude from her African character and

7 Steven J. Gold (2004, pp. 953-954) indicates that race “is seen a social construction, but one that has very real implications in shaping life chances and the distribution and denial of privileges to individuals and groups. [. . .] However, while acknowledging exceptions, many scholars maintain that those with European origins still enjoy more privileges than those without them.”

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disobedient to succumb to her American character. Although her birthmark, a symbol of the indelible African presence, is considered assertively for Nel who thinks that it gives Sula’s glance “a suggestion of startled pleasure” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2141) and Shadrack who thinks it as a tadpole, a sign of Sula’s developing self, it usually ends in negative interpretations: a scary thing, a copperhead, Hannah’s ashes, etc. In reference to the biblical text, it immediately reminds readers of Cain who, being called the mark, murders his brother Abel. As Carolyn M. Jones (1993, p. 626) denotes,

[Sula’s] mark as rose and snake signifies the beauty and danger of Sula’s kind of freedom. Ultimately, it symbolizes her absolute refusal to see life [. . .] from any perspective other than her own. This immense, unchecked power is destructive both for the self [. . .] and for the community [. . .].

Though readers can adopt the ways of the Western thinking to read and explain Sula, they cannot get a full understanding of Sula’s character. As the narrator of Sula indicates, “He was not the God of three faces they sang about. They knew quite well that He had four, and that the fourth explained Sula” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2152). In other words, Morrison encourages and challenges readers to try to understand Sula in the light of another (African American) interpretation.

Because the lyrics and the singing scenes are fragmentary and incomplete, it seems that this novel has little connection with the African oral tradition on the surface. However, Sula does call but her people do not response timely and positively. In her family, Pearl and Plum simply cannot hear her. For Hannah, Sula’s mother, it is a burden and a nuisance of taking care of Sula (her Africanness), and Eva is carried out due to Sula’s terror of her strong motherly love, burning Plum. Probably, there are only two persons, Shadrack and Nel, who once listen to Sula throughout her life though Sula is mistaken about the former’s response and the latter just ceases to respond to Sula after her marriage.

Leaving her “household of throbbing disorder” (Morrison, 1997,

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disobedient to succumb to her American character. Although her birthmark, a symbol of the indelible African presence, is considered assertively for Nel who thinks that it gives Sula’s glance “a suggestion of startled pleasure” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2141) and Shadrack who thinks it as a tadpole, a sign of Sula’s developing self, it usually ends in negative interpretations: a scary thing, a copperhead, Hannah’s ashes, etc. In reference to the biblical text, it immediately reminds readers of Cain who, being called the mark, murders his brother Abel. As Carolyn M. Jones (1993, p. 626) denotes,

[Sula’s] mark as rose and snake signifies the beauty and danger of Sula’s kind of freedom. Ultimately, it symbolizes her absolute refusal to see life [. . .] from any perspective other than her own. This immense, unchecked power is destructive both for the self [. . .] and for the community [. . .].

Though readers can adopt the ways of the Western thinking to read and explain Sula, they cannot get a full understanding of Sula’s character. As the narrator of Sula indicates, “He was not the God of three faces they sang about. They knew quite well that He had four, and that the fourth explained Sula” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2152). In other words, Morrison encourages and challenges readers to try to understand Sula in the light of another (African American) interpretation.

Because the lyrics and the singing scenes are fragmentary and incomplete, it seems that this novel has little connection with the African oral tradition on the surface. However, Sula does call but her people do not response timely and positively. In her family, Pearl and Plum simply cannot hear her. For Hannah, Sula’s mother, it is a burden and a nuisance of taking care of Sula (her Africanness), and Eva is carried out due to Sula’s terror of her strong motherly love, burning Plum. Probably, there are only two persons, Shadrack and Nel, who once listen to Sula throughout her life though Sula is mistaken about the former’s response and the latter just ceases to respond to Sula after her marriage.

Leaving her “household of throbbing disorder” (Morrison, 1997,

132


p. 2121), Nel who embodies a nurturing, self-sacrificing African American woman is a model for Sula. In her interaction with Chicken, Sula also seems to develop the idealized bearers of the nation’s children: “I’ll help you climb a tree. [. . .] Come on, Chicken, I’ll help you up” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2125) from the bottom of the social ladder. Nevertheless, Chicken’s drowning may plant the seeds of two distinctive contradictory personalities that develop later in Sula’s consciousness.

On one hand, the model of Nel’s cultivation, representing the absorption into American main culture, renounces a murderer, Sula, though it is an accident. On the other hand, Shadrack, representing the indelible African presence, recognizes Sula and comforts her by ascertaining the permanency of this presence though Shadrack’s “Always” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2127) becomes a nightmare for Sula when its meaning is misunderstood and misinterpreted: I am the witness who “always” testifies this murder. The negation of her American character and the dread of her African character are interconnected and interwoven into the child Sula.

When Sula grows up, this double consciousness is evident. Sula, one part that denies her Americanness, gives vituperation about Nel’s sense of right or wrong. “It will take time, but they’ll love me.” After “all the black men fuck all the white ones; when all the white women kiss all the black ones; [. . .] then there’ll be a little love left over for me” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2166). Sula, the other part that denies her Africanness, neglects the customs of the Bottom—“Sula acknowledged none of their attempts at counter-conjure or their gossip and seemed to need the services of nobody” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2150)—and tries to ignore and forget Shadrack—“When he tipped his hat she put her hand on her throat for a minute and cut out” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2152).

Moreover, Sula’s double consciousness, as Linden Peach (1995, p. 41) notes, discloses that “the difficulty that the black members of the community [. . .] are unable to deal with the adult Sula” is “indicative of their displacement.” In order to cope with the anxiety of their displacement, Michael Wilson (1996, p. 34) suggests that “the

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p. 2121), Nel who embodies a nurturing, self-sacrificing African American woman is a model for Sula. In her interaction with Chicken, Sula also seems to develop the idealized bearers of the nation’s children: “I’ll help you climb a tree. [. . .] Come on, Chicken, I’ll help you up” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2125) from the bottom of the social ladder. Nevertheless, Chicken’s drowning may plant the seeds of two distinctive contradictory personalities that develop later in Sula’s consciousness.

On one hand, the model of Nel’s cultivation, representing the absorption into American main culture, renounces a murderer, Sula, though it is an accident. On the other hand, Shadrack, representing the indelible African presence, recognizes Sula and comforts her by ascertaining the permanency of this presence though Shadrack’s “Always” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2127) becomes a nightmare for Sula when its meaning is misunderstood and misinterpreted: I am the witness who “always” testifies this murder. The negation of her American character and the dread of her African character are interconnected and interwoven into the child Sula.

When Sula grows up, this double consciousness is evident. Sula, one part that denies her Americanness, gives vituperation about Nel’s sense of right or wrong. “It will take time, but they’ll love me.” After “all the black men fuck all the white ones; when all the white women kiss all the black ones; [. . .] then there’ll be a little love left over for me” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2166). Sula, the other part that denies her Africanness, neglects the customs of the Bottom—“Sula acknowledged none of their attempts at counter-conjure or their gossip and seemed to need the services of nobody” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2150)—and tries to ignore and forget Shadrack—“When he tipped his hat she put her hand on her throat for a minute and cut out” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2152).

Moreover, Sula’s double consciousness, as Linden Peach (1995, p. 41) notes, discloses that “the difficulty that the black members of the community [. . .] are unable to deal with the adult Sula” is “indicative of their displacement.” In order to cope with the anxiety of their displacement, Michael Wilson (1996, p. 34) suggests that “the

133


community attempts to understand Sula by uncritically fitting her into the black/white dualism which was part and parcel of their lives.”8 From this standpoint, some inhabitants of the Bottom who deny Sula’s American character disapprove her American-style individualism9 and her “experimental life” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2153)10 and others who deny Sula’s African character identify her with a trickster figure,11 the representative of evil that brings plague and chaos.12 Although they sing “Shall We Gather at the River” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2179) to relieve their anxiety for a moment, the denial of their responses to Sula leads to the tragedy of their own destruction, and with no response from her last hope, Ajax, Sula makes up her final song and sings alone.

There aren’t any more new songs and I have sung all the ones there are. I have sung them all. I have sung all the songs there are [. . .] I have sung all the songs all the songs I have sung all the songs there are [. . .]. (Morrison, 1997, p. 2162)

8 As Matus (1998, p. 61) denotes, “[t]he question of the individual’s relationship to community is, as very many critics have noted, compelling in all Morrison’s works. Detachment and isolation versus connection and involvement is a subject that has long interested her and it was the topic of her MA thesis (Cornell 1953).” 9 In reference to individualism and escape from the community as a major theme in Black writing, Morrison (1981, p. 38) suggests that a “devotion to self-assertion can be a devotion to discovering distinctive ways of expressing community values, social purpose, mutual regard or [. . .] affirming a collective experience.” 10 Kamandhari (2001, p. 20) notices that at “the time when Sula stays outside Medallion (in the 1920’s to the 1940’s), there are many things happening among which are: feminism, modernism that permits sexual liberties, and the inventions to improve daily lives’ activities. All these values including her familial background bring a great impact on the shaping process of her personality.” 11 Peach (1995, p. 47) contends that “Lewis’s suggestion that Sula is a water spirit or priestess does not do justice to her volatility and to the challenge which she frequently presents in the way her association with the trickster figure would [. . .].” 12 According to M. M. Bakhtin (1984), the subjective, conflicting voices of others signify a unique site of ideology, personality, intellect, and everything else which makes up the total, yet incomprehensible effect of a subjective persona. Wilson (1996, p. 25) attempts to employ this viewpoint to indicate that the community of the Bottom is “a divided character, displaying tensions between its ‘fantastic variety’ of people and places, and, especially in relation to the character Sula, it is also a unified and oppressive ‘They,’ rising in one voice against Sula in response to her lawlessness—to the incomprehensibility of her character.”

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community attempts to understand Sula by uncritically fitting her into the black/white dualism which was part and parcel of their lives.”8 From this standpoint, some inhabitants of the Bottom who deny Sula’s American character disapprove her American-style individualism9 and her “experimental life” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2153)10 and others who deny Sula’s African character identify her with a trickster figure,11 the representative of evil that brings plague and chaos.12 Although they sing “Shall We Gather at the River” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2179) to relieve their anxiety for a moment, the denial of their responses to Sula leads to the tragedy of their own destruction, and with no response from her last hope, Ajax, Sula makes up her final song and sings alone.

There aren’t any more new songs and I have sung all the ones there are. I have sung them all. I have sung all the songs there are [. . .] I have sung all the songs all the songs I have sung all the songs there are [. . .]. (Morrison, 1997, p. 2162)

8 As Matus (1998, p. 61) denotes, “[t]he question of the individual’s relationship to community is, as very many critics have noted, compelling in all Morrison’s works. Detachment and isolation versus connection and involvement is a subject that has long interested her and it was the topic of her MA thesis (Cornell 1953).” 9 In reference to individualism and escape from the community as a major theme in Black writing, Morrison (1981, p. 38) suggests that a “devotion to self-assertion can be a devotion to discovering distinctive ways of expressing community values, social purpose, mutual regard or [. . .] affirming a collective experience.” 10 Kamandhari (2001, p. 20) notices that at “the time when Sula stays outside Medallion (in the 1920’s to the 1940’s), there are many things happening among which are: feminism, modernism that permits sexual liberties, and the inventions to improve daily lives’ activities. All these values including her familial background bring a great impact on the shaping process of her personality.” 11 Peach (1995, p. 47) contends that “Lewis’s suggestion that Sula is a water spirit or priestess does not do justice to her volatility and to the challenge which she frequently presents in the way her association with the trickster figure would [. . .].” 12 According to M. M. Bakhtin (1984), the subjective, conflicting voices of others signify a unique site of ideology, personality, intellect, and everything else which makes up the total, yet incomprehensible effect of a subjective persona. Wilson (1996, p. 25) attempts to employ this viewpoint to indicate that the community of the Bottom is “a divided character, displaying tensions between its ‘fantastic variety’ of people and places, and, especially in relation to the character Sula, it is also a unified and oppressive ‘They,’ rising in one voice against Sula in response to her lawlessness—to the incomprehensibility of her character.”

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As Vladimir Kleyman (2002, p. 2) points out, “Toni Morrison has said in interviews that she opposed desegregation in the early 1960s despite being aware of its terrible effects. She worried that the excellent historically black schools and universities would disappear. Morrison wondered if the treasures of folklore, art, music, and literature created by the relatively insular African-American community would disappear once that community became more porous.” In this regard, the death of Sula, the extinction of the Bottom, and the omission and oblivion of the lyrics and the singing scenes reflect and reveal Morrison’s worries of losing the hybrid and unique Afro-American culture.

5. CONCLUSION

Shadrack’s panic in the battlefield insinuates the culture shock of the Western invasion in Africa. The joke in the prologue divulges the vexation and helplessness of African Americans with the white’s invasion in the Bottom. As Jill Matus (1998, pp. 59-60) points out, the joke expresses

the pain and pathos of a history of victimi[z]ation that continues beyond slavery and the founding of the Bottom, [. . .]. Both the origin and the ending of the Bottom reflect the primacy of white interests and the concomitant marginali[z]ation of black ones.

Furthermore, the invasion of Chicken’s death in Sula’s life shocks her to be unable to come to terms with herself. In a symbolic sense, her African character withstands and opposes her American character, and her American character disregards and disclaims her African character. If African Americans do not consider affirmatively and earnestly the contradictions and conflicts of their double consciousness, if white people do not make response and pay respect to the values and conventions of the Bottom, and if readers can not detect, concern, and cherish Sula, Shadrack “with a cowbell and a hangman’s rope” will tell them that this is “their only chance to kill themselves or each other” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2103) on National Suicide Day.

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As Vladimir Kleyman (2002, p. 2) points out, “Toni Morrison has said in interviews that she opposed desegregation in the early 1960s despite being aware of its terrible effects. She worried that the excellent historically black schools and universities would disappear. Morrison wondered if the treasures of folklore, art, music, and literature created by the relatively insular African-American community would disappear once that community became more porous.” In this regard, the death of Sula, the extinction of the Bottom, and the omission and oblivion of the lyrics and the singing scenes reflect and reveal Morrison’s worries of losing the hybrid and unique Afro-American culture.

5. CONCLUSION

Shadrack’s panic in the battlefield insinuates the culture shock of the Western invasion in Africa. The joke in the prologue divulges the vexation and helplessness of African Americans with the white’s invasion in the Bottom. As Jill Matus (1998, pp. 59-60) points out, the joke expresses

the pain and pathos of a history of victimi[z]ation that continues beyond slavery and the founding of the Bottom, [. . .]. Both the origin and the ending of the Bottom reflect the primacy of white interests and the concomitant marginali[z]ation of black ones.

Furthermore, the invasion of Chicken’s death in Sula’s life shocks her to be unable to come to terms with herself. In a symbolic sense, her African character withstands and opposes her American character, and her American character disregards and disclaims her African character. If African Americans do not consider affirmatively and earnestly the contradictions and conflicts of their double consciousness, if white people do not make response and pay respect to the values and conventions of the Bottom, and if readers can not detect, concern, and cherish Sula, Shadrack “with a cowbell and a hangman’s rope” will tell them that this is “their only chance to kill themselves or each other” (Morrison, 1997, p. 2103) on National Suicide Day.

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With reference to natural elements, Éva Gyetvai (2006, pp. 9-10) claims that

Sula’s main element is water [. . .]. Nel is more down to earth [. . .]. Mud, the mix of water and earth [. . .] suggests that Sula and Nel together could have a chance of becoming.Their togetherness, however, would not mean a fusion and dissolution of their private selves.

Because one element is neither superior nor inferior to another and all are significant and necessary to make the whole America, the mud imagery may be the blue print which Morrison imagines for democratic and free America, and Sula is a blues song which Morrison sings the experiences of an African American in America. As Houston A. Baker Jr. (2001, p. 2233) elucidates,

blues and its sundry performers offer interpretations of the experiencing of experience. To experience the juncture’s ever-changing scenes [. . .] is to produce vibrantly polyvalent interpretations encoded as blues.

In response to Sula, an African American, in response to Sula with the ingredients of African and American traditions and literatures, in response to the Bottom in which African Americans, showing their denial or volition to be merged into America, live together, and in response to America that tolerates and tortures African Americans, multiple interpretations of Sula give it a subtle and exquisite cadence.

136


With reference to natural elements, Éva Gyetvai (2006, pp. 9-10) claims that

Sula’s main element is water [. . .]. Nel is more down to earth [. . .]. Mud, the mix of water and earth [. . .] suggests that Sula and Nel together could have a chance of becoming.Their togetherness, however, would not mean a fusion and dissolution of their private selves.

Because one element is neither superior nor inferior to another and all are significant and necessary to make the whole America, the mud imagery may be the blue print which Morrison imagines for democratic and free America, and Sula is a blues song which Morrison sings the experiences of an African American in America. As Houston A. Baker Jr. (2001, p. 2233) elucidates,

blues and its sundry performers offer interpretations of the experiencing of experience. To experience the juncture’s ever-changing scenes [. . .] is to produce vibrantly polyvalent interpretations encoded as blues.

In response to Sula, an African American, in response to Sula with the ingredients of African and American traditions and literatures, in response to the Bottom in which African Americans, showing their denial or volition to be merged into America, live together, and in response to America that tolerates and tortures African Americans, multiple interpretations of Sula give it a subtle and exquisite cadence.

136


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Bell, Bernard W. (2004). The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots and Modern Literary Branches. Boston: U of Massachusetts P.

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Baktin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.

Baker, Houston A., Jr. (2001). Blues, ideology, and Afro-American literature: A vernacular theory. In Vincent B. Leitch et al. (Eds.), The Norton of Anthology of Theory and Criticism (pp. 2223-2239). New York: Norton.

Bell, Bernard W. (2004). The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots and Modern Literary Branches. Boston: U of Massachusetts P.

Bhabha, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

---. (1990). The third space: Interview with Homi Bhabha. In Jonathan Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 207-221). London: Lawrence & Wisehart.

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Jones, Carolyn. (1993) Sula and Beloved: Images of Cain in the novels of Toni Morrison. African American Review, 27.4, 615-626.

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McKay, Nellie. (1994). Interview with Toni Morrison. In Danielle Taylor-Guthrie (Ed.), Conversations with Toni Morrison (pp. 138-155). Jackson: UP of Mississippi.

Morrison, Toni. (1981). City limits, village values: Concepts of the neighbourhood in black fiction. In Michael C. Jayne and Ann C. Watts (Eds.), Literature and the American Urban Experience: Essays on the City and Literature. Manchester: Manchester UP.

---. (1997). Sula. In Henry Louis Gate Jr. et al. (Eds.), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (pp. 2098-2180). New York: Norton.

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America. Detroit: Wayne State UP.

Wagner, Linda W. (1986). Teaching The Bluest Eye. ADE Bulletin, 83, 28–31.

Whitman, Walt. (1998). Preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass. In Jerome Loving (Ed.), Leaves of Grass (pp. 439-462). New York: Oxford UP.

Wilson, Michael. (1996). Affirming characters, communities, and change: Dialogism in Toni Morrison’s Sula. In Marilyn J. Atlas (Ed.), Midwestern Miscellany XXIV (pp. 24-36). Michigan: Michigan State U.

Wolfe, Joanna. (2004). “Ten minutes for seven letters”: Song as key to narrative revision in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Narrative, 12.3, 263-280.

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Documents

Toni Morrison’s Sula Toni Morrison’s Sula · Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Hybrid Novel of Africa and America 陳榮旗 1. INTRODUCTION In the history of America, people’s demand