Sula

During the winter term of sophomore year, we read Toni Morrison's "Sula." It was a rare book whose protagonist wasn't the typical "good person" we collectively define as a society. Therefore, this book portrayed the society of Black people who were heavily marginalized in the early 1900s through the eyes of someone who wasn't afraid of breaking the common norms and questioning things that were kept as final. I wrote an essay about the symbolisms throughout the book that refer to chaos.

Toni Morrison's "Sula" is a book representing how life was like in a Black community during the 1900s. Sula – the catalyst of the story, rather than a protagonist necessarily – is quite the opposite of a typically righteous individual. Sula cannot be defined by worldly measures: she is above the dichotomy of good and evil. She is simply herself, true to the human nature of chaos. Such chaos, in fact, is present within every member of the Bottom community, albeit suppressed either due to hypocrisy or genuine fear of "resorting" to evil. In other words, Sula serves as a catalyst to help the people rediscover such chaos, although not consciously recognized by anyone else in the Bottom. In Toni Morrison's "Sula", multiple symbols – such as Sula's rose birthmark, the grey ball Nel sees in the bathroom, and the color green throughout the text – reflect the theme that chaos is within all of us, but it is difficult to acknowledge them honestly.

First, Sula's rose birthmark represents the detriment and attractiveness of chaos. The thorns represent the destructiveness that Sula, the embodiment of chaos, causes; the petals represent the attraction that people subconsciously feel towards Sula. For example, when Sula returned from college and slept with countless men throughout the Bottom, "it made the old women draw their lips together; made small children look away from her in shame; made young men fantasize elaborate torture for her – just to get the saliva back in their mouths when they saw her" (Morrison 112-113). Note how people are eager to display disapproval to Sula, but at the end of the day, they are curious of her and are drawn to her, one way or another. If they genuinely wanted to deject Sula, and thus the presence of chaos, they would have fully "ignored" her, just like how they tried but never successfully did. This also connects with the mark of Cain mentioned in Hermann Hesse's "Demian", which is described as something that people show contempt towards, but are ultimately fearful of: it represents empowerment and independence, something that the rest of the people cannot obtain. For another example, when Shadrack reminisces about Sula after her death, he remembers that "she had a tadpole over her eye (that was how he knew she was a friend – she had the mark of the fish he loved), and one of her braids had come undone" (Morrison 157). This implies how people see Sula's birthmark based on their own perspective, just like how people see a rose differently based on their angles, and ultimately, how people react differently to chaos. This also indicates how chaos is only perceived without judgement if the other person is also someone free from worldly restrictions like hypocrisy, as Shadrack is the only individual who sees the birthmark as something as innocent as a tadpole. Such pieces of evidence represent that despite Sula's everlasting presence as the embodiment of chaos, most people end up failing to acknowledge such chaos within themselves.

Second, the grey ball represents the persistence of chaos. Sula, the embodiment of chaos in the novel, is an individual inside everyone's radar. However, because people do not want to associate themselves with chaos – as they assume that it is something to be avoided and shunned – they refuse to look at it directly. For example, when Nel finds the bathroom after realizing that Sula slept with her husband Jude, Nel finds "a ball of muddy strings, but without weight, fluffy but terrible in its malevolence. She knew she could not look, so she closed her eyes and crept past it out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her" (Morrison 109). Note how the grey ball is consistently at Nel's reach in the bathroom even when Nel is actively trying to ignore it. This represents an ugly truth: something hard to acknowledge, but is firmly present. In other words, this symbolizes the chaos of Sula that people simply regard as evil, which Nel did not want to admit that Sula had – and even if she did, the fact that she was subject to it. For another example, when Nel finally realizes that Sula and her chaos are also a part of herself at the end of the novel, the grey ball reappears and dissipates into thin air: "A soft ball of fur broke and scattered like dandelion spores in the breeze" (Morrison 174). This represents how the "ugliness" Nel once tried to refrain from, just like how everyone else in the Bottom did, is now a mere background as Nel simply accepts its presence. Such pieces of evidence symbolize that the grey ball could be something that all of us are in reach of, but will remain a nuisance unless we take the courage to actually understand its existence within all of us.

Lastly, the color green symbolizes the complete nature without the dichotomy of good and evil, whose color only emerges in the text when someone successfully accepts this coexistence. Green is often used as a symbolism of nature. Human nature is not a full completion of good or completion of evil: it is a mixture of both, an embodiment of chaos. Sula is merely an individual whose embodiment of chaos is complete, and because of that, the color green is often emphasized throughout the novel. For example, Sula purposely wears a green ribbon when Ajax visits her: "But Sula, the green ribbon shining in her hair, was flooded with an awareness of the impact of the outside world on Ajax" (Morrison 133). This emphasizes that she is "chaos" at the end of the day – not necessarily a sole "evil" – through highlighting her acceptance to vulnerability and femininity when she feels inclined to them. For another example, when Nel visits Sula's grave and finally understands how connected she is to Sula and her embodiment of chaos, "Leaves stirred; mud shifted; there was the smell of overripe green things" (Morrison 174). In other words, the color green surrounds Nel as she finally realizes the coexistence beauty and ugliness of life as they come together to form a full, complete self. This also symbolizes how Sula ultimately helped Nel wrap up her childhood realization that she was not defined by a frame or concept, but was solely herself: "'I'm me,' she whispered. 'Me'" (Morrison 28). Such pieces of evidence remind the reader that Sula is ultimately "chaos" instead of "evil", and that such chaos is something merely natural and is present within all of us.

In conclusion, Toni Morrison's "Sula" uses various symbols throughout the book to emphasize the theme that chaos is an aspect present in all of us, and that it is a natural asset, albeit consistently denied and shunned. Morrison especially uses a sharp analogy to indicate this, through using Sula as a demonstration of an individual who fully accepts and embraces such chaos, and through using how different members of the Bottom react differently to her presence. The symbols that represent Sula throughout the novel are also symbols that consequently represent the chaos that she brings. The rose birthmark demonstrates the contempt and attraction that all of us feel towards Sula, and perhaps towards the existence of chaos in our own world; the grey ball demonstrates the "ugliness" that we perceive from chaos when we merely see it as something to avoid; and the color green represents the full realization that chaos is something neither to shun or be afraid of, as it is merely something present within all of us.