Indiana State University

Toni Morrison's Sula: A Black Woman's Epic

Author(s): Karen F. Stein
Source: Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Winter, 1984), pp. 146-150
Published by: St. Louis University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904289 .
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 TONI MORRISON'S SULA: A BLACK WOMAN'S EPIC
KAREN F. STEIN*

In Toni Morrison's novels of black American life, ap- face constraint rather than enhancement of life. To some
pearance and reality, the magical and the real, the tragic and readers, their actions may seem aberrant, more suited to
the comic are continually juxtaposed. Irony operates on punishment than reward.
many levels, as the hopes and plans of Morrison's characters To combat such traditional attitudes, women writers
are frustrated by their white neighbors and by fate.' The frequently use irony and parody and invert traditional
author plays with a variety of viewpoints as whites and motifs. Thus, we find Morrison grounding Sula in the epic
blacks, husbands and wives, parents and children observe tradition, but using ironic reversals of epic expectations to
and misunderstand each other.2 create a new definition of heroism that will encompass the
Perhaps Morrison's multi-layered vision has been shaped lives of black women. Unlike the stock epic tale, in which the
by her complex relationship to literarytraditions: As a black hero, driven by inner compulsion to leave society in search
woman author, she is a double outsider in our patriarchal, of knowledge and power, undertakes a dangerous but
white culture-a position which allows her to criticize both successful journey and returns in triumph to transform a
the white and the black worlds.3 But whatever the source of fallen world, Sula presents a tale of courage in the face of
her unique vision, the result is her books' complex literary limitation and powerlessness, of self-knowledge wrested
and moral texture. As we are drawn into her stories, we must from loss and suffering, of social amelioration eked out of
shed our misconceptions and question our judgments until hatred and fear. Because it is the drab and ordinary Nel
we arrive at the core of truth. rather than the more flamboyant Sula, with whom Nel is
Morrison typically frames her tales within mythic nar- paired, that achieves heroic stature, the book dramatizes the
rative structures, thus creating a heroic context for her inwardness of the quest. Most of the characters in Sula
themes and characters. At the same time, she develops a rich misinterpret the novel's two central figures, permitting
irony by juxtaposing heroic expectation with mundane Morrison to emphasize the private nature of heroism and
reality. Furthermore, by pitting contrasting figures the complexity of moral judgment.
against one another, Morrison repeatedly reverses the Epic in scope, rich in Biblical allusions, the book's vision,
reader's expectations. It is Morrison's use of these two like that of the heroic tale, is of human life played out against
devices, ironic structuring and character pairing, that I wish a background of natural and supernatural forces. The
to examine in discussing her 1973 novel Sula. novel's mythic elements-repeated deaths by fire and water,
The central figures in the novel, Nel Wright and Sula rituals of naming, signs and dreams, the mysteries of human
Peace, are diametric opposites whose lives are linked by motivation and behavior-are held in balance by irony;
bonds too powerful for either to resist. Ultimately hero and chronological structure;a taut, objective narrativestyle; and
villain change roles, as their relationship grows into a larger harsh realism. A recurring rhythm of birth, death, and
selfhood. Using heroic conventions as a structural basis for rebirth structures the novel, every chapter describing an
her novel, Morrison creates layers of irony and multiple actual or symbolic death. To compound the irony, death is
perceptions that add depth to her analysis of contemporary often seen as positive, as in Eva's burning of Plum, a ritual of
black women. Although the characters' lives in an impov- release and purification.5 Unlike many traditional epics,
erished rural community, tellingly named "the Bottom," which depict the founding of a civilization or its restoration
contrast markedly with the epic figures whose names they to proper order, Sula begins with the razing of the Bottom to
bear (i.e., Ajax, Helen, Eve, and Judas), Morrison's char- make room for a whites-only golf course. This destruction,
acters are measured by the heroic yardstick. And true which sets the book's tone of hovering doom, is both
heroism does flourish here, in the most unlikely soil, as the example and symbol of the steady erosion that the black
book's hero painfully comes to terms with her own evil. community and its members suffer. The contrast of fertile
Almost all American novelists have written tales of life and sterile machinery6 reenacts the black struggle to
questing heroes, creating characters of heroic stature whose survive in the face of white oppression, the epic struggle
journeys lead to tragic destruction or comic renewal. But between life and death. Economically and politically power-
these heroic myths have tended to be cast in androcentric less, the black community is vulnerable to white society's
terms. Joseph Campbell'swell-known Hero with a Thousand exploitative self-aggrandizement. By the book's ambiguous
Faces (Princeton Univ. Press, 1949), for example, traces the conclusion only one character-Nel-will enact the epic
literary journeys of male heroes who overcome dangerous promise of renewal.
foes, mate with symbolically significant women, and return Set in a small Ohio town during the years 1919 to 1965,
to restore order to their kingdoms. Because traditional Sula chronicles the fortunes of the women in two matriarchal
heroic patterns describe male characters, the lives of quest- households within the black community, particularly Nel
ing female heroes are often anomalous.4 Living in a culture Wright and Sula Peace, whose lives represent the range of
that sets limits on acceptable female behavior, they often choices possible for black women in modern America. As we
watch them grow to maturity, the heroes learn about
sexuality, evil, power, love, and, primarily, about the
*Karen F. Stein is Associate Professor of English at the University of prospects and limits of their lives, the difficulties of survival
Rhode Island. in an inimical world. Sula and Nel represent opposite
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 approaches to the epic tasks of self-discovery and integra- Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of
tion into society. Whereas the questing hero is traditionally blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris
curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple
an embodiment of a culture's noblest values, the rigid Nel is hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down their
too bound by convention to undertake a journey, and the stalks. (p. 48)
adventurous Sula appears to be the antithesis of her society's
codes. Further, although Sula's quest appears to be a failure, Nature's fertile ripening evokes the ripening sexuality of the
her return brings an unexpected, albeit short-lived, boon to friends. Yet, as the description of the personified natural
the Bottom. Although Sula is shunned and feared as a world makes clear, ripening is simply a stage in the growth
reprobate, paradoxically, her negative example spurs others that leads inevitably to death and decay.
to greater virtue, and she inspires the psychological growth In this luxuriant Summer of,1922, Nel and Sula reaffirm
of the friend she betrays. Thus, a seemingly failed quest has their awareness of themselves as sexually desirable by
unexpectedly positive ramifications. passing an ice cream parlor where they receive the appre-
At the book's heart is the tale of the friendship between ciative stares and comments of the lounging young men. But
Nel Wright and Sula Peace. Beginning when they are this sense of complacent well-being is shattered by two
adolescent girls and continuing as they mature, the friend- events which occur in rapid succession and blight the
ship changes in nature but remains the deepest attachment promise of Sula's life. The first crisis is Sula's overhearing
and most profound influence on both of their lives. Although her mother comment casually that she doesn't like her. The
the two girls share dreams of adventure and unfolding second is her accidental drowning of the young boy Chicken
selfhood, their approaches to the task of maturation are Little while playing with him near the river. This double
diametrically opposed. Nel casts her visions in traditional disillusionment determines the subsequent course of Sula's
romantic fantasies and sacrifices her independence to life: "The first experience taught her there was no other that
conventionality, while Sula, insisting on her independence, you could count on; the second that there was no self to
becomes isolated from society; she is free but directionless. count on either. She had no center, no speck around which
Obedient, quiet, and repressed, Nel first experiences to grow" (p. 103). Life's mysteries confound her; she learns
herself as an individual apart from her family when she gazes poorly and too soon the lessons of death and of the essential
in a mirror and dreams of traveling in the world beyond the untrustworthiness and isolation of human beings.
Bottom. "But," the narrator interjects at this point, "that The chapter that begins in such delicious anticipation
was before she met Sula. . ." (p. 25). The introduction of ends with the funeral of Chicken Little. Leaving the funeral
Sula at this crucial birth of Nel's self-awareness highlights together, Nel and Sula outwardly appear to be like "any two
the link between the two girls. In fact, it is her sense of her young girlfriends trotting up the road on a summer day
nascent identity which gives Nel the strength to defy her wondering what happened to butterflies in the winter"
mother's prohibition and establish a friendship with Sula. (p. 57). The irony of this image highlights the tension
Yet it is to be Sula, rather than Nel, who eventually realizes between their apparent childlike innocence and their terrible
Nel's dreams of a journey and of independent selfhood. knowledge of death.
As is frequently the case in epics, dreams play a significant The incidents of the chapter "1922" reflect a recurring
role in the story. Dreams build the initial link between Sula pattern in the book. Repeatedly, an individual at the height
and Nel, and foretell their different paths of self-expression. of his or her powers dies or witnesses a traumatizing death.
In her daydreams, Nel fantasizes "lying on a flowered bed, Sula is destroyed by her involvement in Chicken Little's
tangled in her own hair, waiting for some fiery prince" drowning. Directionless, without a foundation of human
(p. 44) like the passive fairy-tale heroine. When Nel later trust, she is isolated, a pariah.
marries, her life becomes one of passive limitation and
stagnation, described in terms of spider web imagery For Nel, sexual awakening also produces a kind of death:
suggestive of the entanglement in her own hair. Sula's It leads her to a death of self in her marriageto Jude Greene.
fantasies, by contrast, are actively sensuous ones in which (As in the case with other names, Jude's is of ironic import:
she gallops "through her own mind on a gray-and-white He will be Judas, betrayer of Nel's hopes.) Her marriage is
horse tasting sugar and smelling roses" (p. 44). Resisting described in the imagery of death. Ajax advises Jude that
human ties, she is the daring, sensuous, active woman, girls want to be miserable: "'Ax em to die for you and they
seeking to experience life and her own being to the fullest. In yours for life"' (p. 71). Married women are seen as "folded
her isolation, Sula is free, but she is directionless. Because . . . into starched coffins" (p. 105). In Jude's eyes, Nel is to
neither of these two paths leads to personal fulfillment and become a part of him, "the hem . . . of his garment";"the two
social regeneration, the novel dramatizes the ironic contrast of them together would make one Jude" (p. 71). This, of
between epic expectation and actual achievement. course, signifies the death of Nel's already fragile sense of
The process of self-development carrieswith it the hope of self. An image which recurrently describes the contraction
fulfillment and achieving selfhood. Again, Sula depicts of Nel's life after marriage is that of the web (see pp. 82, 103-
reality frustrating expectation. Instead of enlarging their 104). Caught in a trap of her own devising, Nel, spider-like,
worlds and achieving contentment and fruition, Nel and comes to occupy a small, but safe, space.
Sula repeatedly find experience constricting their lives and Nel's marriage separates her from Sula, who alone, of all
bringing the bitterness of death and betrayal. This ironic the women in the Bottom, rejects the limits, the obligations
reversal is epitomized in the chapter entitled "1922,"which and restrictions, of marriage and motherhood. Viewing
begins with the girls' sexual awakening and ends with a marriage as compounded of convenience and caution, Sula
funeral. The book's single use of lush natural description avoids such ties. While her repudiation of these bonds
heralds their rite of passage: renders her an outcast in the eyes of her community, she
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 perceives herself as free, and therefore able, as none of the Although it is her connection to Nel that prompts Sula to
other women are, to be honest and to experience life and self return to the Bottom, she jeopardizes the friendship by
fully. Her journey is the enactment of that freedom. refusing to acknowledge any ties as binding. Sula brings
Most epics focus on the initiation phase of the hero's knowledge of a wider world, objective distance, a fresh,
journey-with its dangerous, often fantastic adventures disinterested perspective that enables her to find humor in
leading to participation in the sources of universal power. the everyday details of her friend's domestic life. For a brief
Because Sula's freedom is uncommitted, her journey is seen time they recapture the sweetness of their adolescent
only briefly; nevertheless, her return will lead to enlighten- companionship. Enjoying their shared reminiscences, Nel is
ment. relaxed and happy; this is the only time we see her laugh.
On Nel's wedding day, Sula, with an amused smile, leaves However, this harmonious interlude is shattered when Sula
town, returningten years later. Her quest for knowledge and seduces Jude. For her, acting out of sheer restlessness and
experience is described only in retrospect. Her years at habit, out of whim, out of a need to challenge the very fabric
college, her travels and romantic liaisons are mentioned of marriage itself, this liaison is as brief and unimportant as
parenthetically; she remembers most as boring. The wisdom any of her others. For Nel, it is a betrayal of friendship.
she attains is the cynic's. While the heroic journey is typically Jude, discovered, leaves. Accusing Sula of disloyalty, Nel
a source of power, this is not the case for Sula. Although remains aloof, although she thinks of her friend often.
Campbell defines a "mystical marriage" as the hero's Without Sula and Jude, with her children growing away
"ultimate adventure," representingan increase of power and from her as they grow up, Nel's life contracts even further,
the attainment of "total mastery of life" (Hero with a narrowinginto a loveless round of duties and responsibilities,
Thousand Faces, pp. 109-20), Sula's sexuality breeds only to job, children, and church.
boredom and despair. She learns of the alienation she Partly from a sense of duty, but more from a need to
reaches in post-coital sadness, when she descends to a confront her directly and discover the reason for her
private core of loneliness and melancholy nostalgia. Sexual betrayal, Nel visits the dying Sula three years later. Sula, still
intercourse, rather than promoting human relatedness and interested in observing her own mind, is lying in bed,
mystic insight, increases her isolation and misery (Sula, analyzing the sensations of pain in its various stages, as she
p. 106). had earlier indulged in fantasies of savoring the sweetness of
Described as an artist without a medium (p. 105), danger- sugar and roses. Still wry and quick-tongued, she teases Nel,
ous because undirected, lacking discipline or aim, Sula is challenging her belief that she is a wronged victim: "'What
free but empty. She never makes the existentialist's com- you mean take him away? I didn't kill him, I just fucked him.
mitment, the surrender of freedom through attachment to If we were such good friends, how come you couldn't get
an idea or person that de Beauvoir and others see as the over it"' (p. 125). Sula implies that it is Nel herself who has
truest hallmark of human freedom.7 Her one human been the traitor. For when Nel marriedJude, she severed the
relationship of significance, the friendship with Nel, provides ties of friendship that bound the special relationshipbetween
her with a center, a place she can call home: "Nel was the first the two girls and grounded Sula in the human community.
person who had been real to her, whose name she knew, who Without Nel, Sula becomes an outsider.
had seen as she had the slant of life that made it possible to Although the typical epic hero experiences a transforming
stretch it to its limits" (p. 103). Her need to reestablish her vision which he or she brings back to redeem society, Sula
link to Nel brings her back. has attained only a knowledge of her own sadness, aliena-
tion, and loss. Now, however, at her death, half-joking, she
It is consistently at the points of tangency to each other articulates her own tart apocalyptic vision of a Messianic era
that the lives of Nel and Sula are most vitally lived. We in which all people will come to love each other:
remember that their friendship came into being in dreams
"After all the old women have lain with the teen-agers; when all
before the two girls met each other. More significantly, the young girls have slept with their old drunken uncles; after all
Morrison's imagery suggests a kinship so close as to be a the black men fuck all the white ones; when all the white women
physical connection. In their girlhood, ". . . their friendship kiss all the black ones; when the guards have raped all the
was so close, they themselves had difficulty distinguishing jailbirds ... and Norma Shearer makes it with Stepin Fetchit;
one's thoughts from the other's ... a compliment to one was . . . then there'll be a little love left over for me." (p. 125)
a compliment to the other, and cruelty to one was a Her comic sexual analogy to the promised Biblical period of
challenge to the other" (p. 72). When Sula returns, the ties peace and love stresses harmony, sexual passion, and
remain strong. Nel's home-centered life is expanded and equality between the powerful and the powerless. In the
enriched when Sula returns to the Bottom. Her reappearance outrageousness of her vision, the novel ironicallyemphasizes
is described in physical terms. To Nel, her friend's return is the distance between the ideal of epic regeneration and the
"like getting the use of an eye back, having a cataract impossibility of redemption in the fallen world of modern
removed.... Talking to Sula had always been a conversa- America.
tion with herself" (p. 82). For Sula, lacking a central core, Sula's final speech asserts her own goodness, and ques-
Nel is "the closest thing to both an other and a self"(p. 103); tions Nel's assumption of righteousness. Nel leaves, "embar-
she thinks of them as "'two throats and one eye"' (p. 126). rassed, irritable and a little bit ashamed" (p. 126). After her
The imagery of physical connection suggests a more pro- words of triumphant self-justification, Sula curls up in a fetal
found bond than friendship between the two women; they position and dies, thinking of a comforting return to a
are two parts of one personality or, as Morrison has stated, permanent womb-like sleep. At the very moment when
"If they were one woman, they would be complete."8 As breath and heartbeat cease, Sula, always aware of her
doubles, they complement each other and, combined, make experiences, and thinking of her one friend, notes, "..... it
up a complete picture of the hero. didn't even hurt. Wait'1lI tell Nel"' (p. 128). Acting out her
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childhood dream of exploring her mind and tasting sensuous Able for the first time to identify with her friend, Nel admits
pleasures, Sula has lived hard, made no compromises and her own capacity for evil, learning finally Sula's disturbing
now dies young. early lesson of human untrustworthiness. Nel had judged
Sula's death is interpreted by her community as a sign of Sula harshly and prolonged their estrangement because of
approaching good fortune. Because of her wanderings and her own failure to confront her dark impulses. Her new
estrangement from the usual human ties, the townsfolk recognition of her psychological kinship with Sula unlocks
believed her to be a witch. Signs and portents were Nel's depths of long pent-up emotion. She comes to an
attributed to her: Her return was accompanied by a "plague anguished realization: It is not Jude after all, but Sula, her
of robins" (p. 77). Yet, ironically, her negative example was childhood companion, that she misses so painfully. She
a warning which inspired others to greater goodness. Her pours out her grief, releasing feelings she has long denied. In
blessing to her community is achieved indirectly;it lies in the her mourning for Sula, twenty-four years after her friend's
improved behavior with which others respond to her death, Nel at last weeps. With her new willingness to face
presumed evil: suppressed feelings comes relief from another longstanding
Their conviction of Sula's evil changed them in accountable malaise, an imaginary dread. As she weeps by Sula's grave, a
yet mysterious ways. Once the source of their personal mis- vague terror breaks and scatters like dandelion seeds, her
fortune was identified, they had leave to protect and love one ominous fears exorcised (p. 149). She has been the villain of
another. They began to cherish their husbands and wives, the novel, but her tears are a cleansing baptism.9
protect their children, repair their homes and in general band
together against the devil in their midst. (p. 102) According to Carl F. Keppler, the second self in literature
Contrary to expectation, bad luck follows her death. (here, Sula) is the darker, mysterious, more aware one.
Rumors that blacks will be hired to build the tunnel on the Often in conflict, the two parties to this relationship
New River Road prove false. Severe frost kills the fall crops representfor each other their own unacknowledgedpotentials,
and strains the limited resources of the Bottom. Epidemics simultaneously fascinating and frightening. The symbol of
of croup and scarlet fever erupt. But worse, with Sula gone, the second self signifies the human desire to become whole
her neighbors relapse into their former lackadaisical ways. through complete development of the total range of possible
The increase of energy and virtue with which they reacted to selfhood. Tensions between the two may lead to destruction,
her seeming evil disappears with her death: but, says Keppler, the process "stripsaway all masks of self-
enlargement."'0 In this way, Nel and Sula grow in self-
The tension was gone and so was the reason for the effort they knowledge and understanding through their links to each
had made. Without her mockery, affection for others sank into
flaccid disrepair. Daughters who had complained bitterly about other.
the responsibilities of taking care of their aged mothers-in-law In the novel Sula learns what she does of the meaning of
had altered when Sula locked Eva away .... Now that Sula was human relatedness and of the human admixture of good and
dead and done with, they returned to a steeping resentment of
the burdens of old people. Wives uncoddled their husbands;
evil in her link to Nel. As the second self, Sula experiments
there seemed no further need to reinforce their vanity. (p. 132) with freedom and honesty beyond the limits allowable
Accordingly, Sula's boon to her society is achieved by her within the social order, and lives the life of adventure Nel
negative model, and lasts for only a short time. But for Nel, dreamed of but denied herself. Nel, on the other hand,
the person to whom she was closest, Sula's impact is more expands her imaginative and emotional capacity through
intense. her association with Sula. It is her continuing love for Sula
that makes possible her most cogent insight into her own
To Nel, Sula brings not only loss and pain, but also, even
motivation and her deepest emotional response. When she
after her death, an enlarged self-awareness. Although Nel
leads a restrained, constricted life, she survives. Through her weeps for Sula, she is freed from old constraints and
involvement with Sula she learns about herself, attaining misconceptions, stripped of her false moral pride and
greater openness and emotional capacity. She comes to smugness. Through this mourning for her dead friend/ self
realize that caution had led her to accept limitations too at Sula's graveside, Nel is symbolically reborn as the
readily and that moral smugness had blinded her to her own surviving self, continuing the process of growth and self-
awareness that Sula began.
potential for evil.
Believing herself morally superior to Sula, Nel realizes Nel's moment of insight, however, is not couched in the
later her own complicity in Chicken Little'sdeath. When Nel glowing redemptive images associated with the epic realiza-
makes one of her charity visits to the old people's home, tions of most heroes, but in more ironic, more limited terms.
Sula's grandmother Eva confuses her with Sula and asserts The book ends with her lamentation: "It was a fine cry-
that she was involved in the drowning. Nel is upset by the loud and long-but it had no bottom and it had no top, just
accusation. She has always been careful to think she saw him circles and circles of sorrow" (p. 149). In the novel's vision,
drown; with Eva's challenge she acknowledges to herself the ability to survive in the face of a hostile world and to
that she watched and even experienced a secret excitement. accept one's fate in full self-knowledge constitutes the real
(Following Nel's example, Sula had watched her mother nobility left to the hero. The truest heroism lies not in
Hannah burn to death.) external battle, as in the wars which destroy the novel's men,
All these years she had been secretly proud of her calm, but in confrontation with the self. Nel, who never left home,
controlled behavior when Sula was uncontrollable, her com- makes the terrifying journey into the depths of her soul. By
passion for Sula's frightened and shamed eyes. Now it seemed admitting the guilt she had tried to deny, and recognizing
that what she had thought was maturity, serenity and com- her failure of sympathy for her friend, Nel comes to terms
passion was only the tranquilitythat follows a joyful stimulation.
Just as the water closed peacefully over the turbulence of
with herself and frees her emotional capacity. Thus, Nel, the
Chicken Little's body, so had contentment washed over her cautious, conventional woman, learns the meaning of Sula's
enjoyment. (p. 146) life, and survives.
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 NOTES 5See Lavinia Chase, "The Willing Victim," diss. Univ. of Connecticut
1978, pp. 125-26; Lounsberry and Hovet, p. 128; and Ogunyemi, p. 132.
6Sula (1973; rpt. New York: Bantam Books, 1975), p. 3. Future
'For a discussion of the irony in Sula, see Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, references will be to this edition and will occur parenthetically in the text.
"Sula: 'A Nigger Joke,"' Black American Literature Forum, 13 (1979), 7Simone de Beauvoir, Pour une Morale de l'Ambiguite (Paris: Gallimard,
130-33. 1965).
2For a discussion of multiple perspectivesin Sula, see BarbaraLounsberry 8See Jane Bakerman's 'The Seams Can't Show: An Interview with Toni
and Grace Ann Hovet, "Principles of Perception in Toni Morrison's Sula," Morrison," Black American Literature Forum, 12 (1978), 60.
Black American Literature Forum, 13 (1979), 126-29. 91nhis article, Ogunyemi analyzes the reversal of Nel from hero to villain
3This point is made by Odette C. Martin in "Sula," First World, Winter in greater detail, but he fails to note her redemption and subsequent
1977, pp. 35-44. attainment of true heroic stature.
4See Annis Pratt'sArchetypal Patternsin Women'sFiction (Bloomington: I'The Literature of the Second Self (Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press,
Indiana Univ. Press, 1981), esp. pp. 9-37. 1972), pp. 194-95.

THETATTOOEDHEARTAND THE SERPENTINEEYE:

MORRISON'S CHOICE OF AN EPIGRAPHFOR SULA
C. LYNN MUNRO*
By selecting the passage "Nobody knew my rose of the What distinguishes the two works, however, is that, while
world but me.... I had too much glory. They don't want Morrison relies on subtle undercutting and innuendo,
glory like that in nobody's heart"from Tennessee Williams' Williams, perhaps, as J. L. Styan suggests, "becausehe does
play The Rose Tattoo' to serve as an epigraph for Sula,2 not trust his audience to accept his ironies without their
Toni Morrison has not only provided the readerwith a pithy being overstated,"5 enunciates that which is incongruous
statement of the novel's underlying theme, but has also and out of proportion. Because he is writing a drama meant
implicitly invited the readerto consider the play as an analog for live performance, Williams cannot rely, as Morrison
to the novel. If one reads the two works consecutively, one's does, on narrative and lyrical passages to enrich his
understanding of the novel is enhanced, and it becomes clear meaning. Nor can he collapse time as Morrison does in
that both Morrison and Williams are intent upon examining order to provide context and continuity to the events which
the ravages of time and misbegotten love. Further, their he records. Instead, he must set the stage and cast his
common aim seems to be to force their audiences to characters in such a way that the audience gets an immediate
recognize the tragic dimension which colors the most sense of what each signifies.
mundane of lives and to realize that much of the tragedy is a Because she has chosen to cast her material in the form of
result of the individual's inability to transcend or even a novel, Morrison faces fewer restrictions. She can even
recognize his or her own self-indulgence. postpone introducing her protagonist, Sula, until she has
In the context of the play, the passage with which given the reader a sense of Medallion's ambiance and an
Morrison has chosen to preface her novel ironically under- understanding of the primacy the residents of the Bottom
cuts the validity of using noumenal love as an excuse for attach to sheer survival skills. By exposing the reader to
avoiding active engagement with others and points to the Shadrack's National Suicide Day, Helene Wright's rigid
risks inherent in what Christopher Lasch has termed the conservativism, and Eva's benevolent tyranny, prior to
"narcissistic preoccupation with the self."3 Serafina Delle introducing Sula, Morrison is able to prepare a rich context
Rose, like Nel in Sula, effectivelyabdicatesher responsibilities for the reader'sencounter with Sula. As a result, ratherthan
to herself and others following the loss of her husband seeing Sula as peculiar, the reader senses that she, like the
Rosario. Rather than come to terms with her grief, she town's other residents, is attempting to forge a strategy
transforms her home into a veritable shrine and sequesters which will allow her to respond to the vicissitudes of life
herself amid lifeless dressmaking dummies, preferring to without compromising herself.
relive the past rather than to risk engagement in the present. While Serafina is attempting a similar feat, Williams must
Concomitantly, Serafina, like Sula, rather than acknowl- begin by focusing the audience's attention on Serafina and
edging the truths voiced by her townspeople, decries their her response to her environment rather than by trying to
pettiness and maintains a solipsistic world view which establish a context in which to introduce her. Only by
allows her to proclaim that "nobody knew my rose of the showing her interacting with others (initially, with her
world but me.... I had too much glory. They don't want daughter Rosa and the conjure woman Assunta) can
glory like that in nobody's heart" (RT, p. 199). While this Williams highlight her values and predispositions. His aim
assertion allows her to maintain a sense of self (just as it throughout the first scene is to elicit an immediate response
allows Sula to assert the goodness of her chosen course), it from his audience, thereby overcoming the defenses which
also effectivelyparalyzesher, leavingher in a stateapproximat- they have erected against the recognition of the tragic
ing self-immolation. dimension of everyday life. It is for this reason that Williams
Both Sula and The Rose Tattoo are characterized by an interjects what he himself has called "a certain foolery, a
"ironic consistency, which jolts one into acute awareness by certain distortion toward the grotesque" to disarm his
its contrariness while it offers comfort through laughter."4 viewers and induce them to come to terms with the "almost
*C. Lynn Munro, a past contributor to BALF, teaches at Stockton State liquid warmth of unchecked human sympathies relieved of
College in Pomona, New Jersey. self[-]consciousness [and] allowed to function."6
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