Sula try prepare for, unique, just one. You will find nobody such as for instance Sula. Yet. I’ve seen Sula inside my days, in my own siblings, my aunts, my friends, a stranger crossing the street. Morrison spotted Sula within the someone, as well, just before she authored the girl:
I started to write my 2nd publication, which was entitled Sula, because of my personal preoccupation having a picture of a woman and you may exactly how We heard their title obvious. The woman identity is Hannah, and i also consider she try a friend out-of my personal mom’s. I really don’t contemplate watching their quite, but what I actually do consider ‘s the color around their-a type of violet, a good suffusion of something violet-and her sight, and that appeared as if half-closed. But what From the extremely is when the women said her name: the way they said “Hannah Tranquility” and you will smiled so you can themselves, so there is some magic from the her which they knew, which they don’t discuss, at the very least maybe not during my hearing, nonetheless it looked loaded in precisely how it told you their term. And that i guessed one to she is actually some a keen outlaw however, which they accepted in some way. (The source of Mind-Respect, 241)
Which contradiction takes profile differently in Sula, throughout the novel’s preoccupations with ironic oppositions, with how private thinking-means the fresh collective, to the dynamic relatives ranging from buy and you may problems. As well as Morrison’s desire, all facets of your parece-flow as a result of this type of interlocking thematic regulators, coordinating including an elaborate server otherwise looks.
This types of paradox-“it actually was lovely upwards in the bottom”-is theoretically named antiphrasis, phrendly-login nevertheless just means calling things because of the their contrary, exactly how we sometimes label a hefty child “Slim” otherwise a high one “Lightweight
The new ed getting a nature who we do not extremely satisfy to have thirty-weird profiles. Sula initiate alternatively which have a fictional place-Medallion, Ohio-and you will especially that have “you to definitely part of town where in fact the Negroes lived, the part it known as Base inspite of the reality it was upwards about slopes.” So it paradoxical name originates from “a beneficial nigger joke,” the type told by one another light folks and you may colored anyone “if they are looking for a small morale.” Morrison right here sets up the initial of several dizzying spins ranging from higher locations and you will reasonable, of treetops to help you openings, away from hilltops to help you mud, regarding aeronautical heavens in order to tunnels and you can trenches. ”
Antiphrasis is at work in new labels of a lot letters in Sula. I see a person boy named BoyBoy. I fulfill a soft man called Tar Child. I meet a woman people phone calls Teapot’s Mamma “as are his mamma is actually truthfully their major inability.” Later from the book, i discover that the folks of Base has actually an over-all “forget having title transform by elizabeth Comfort. “Together with her it understand including an excellent chant,” Morrison produces, a good chant since eerie since it is holy, as the not one of the dry relates to its end in serenity or rests for the serenity just after.
Eva snatched the fresh hats from other brains and overlooked the labels. She checked out the first son directly, his wrists, the design of their head additionally the demeanor you to definitely displayed inside the their vision and you can told you, “Better. Have a look at Dewey. My my personal mymymy.” Whenever after you to definitely exact same seasons she sent having a child exactly who leftover dropping down off of the porch next door, she said exactly the same thing. Anybody said, “But Skip Eva, your calls one other you to definitely Dewey.”
The brand new paradox from Sula would be the fact she actually is quintessentially herself-nobody is eg the lady-but she actually is including every person we understand who’s that way
Eva bestows the name Dewey upon three men-whose epidermis try respectively “deeply black colored,” “light-skinned,” and “chocolate”-having an excellent she notices when you look at the each, since if coordinating specific inner question to your external name. But for every single dewey will get “indeed along with name a good dewey-signing up for to your other several in order to become a good trinity which have a beneficial plural label … indivisible, loving little without you to definitely but by themselves.” The brand new chain group game they play enacts the concatenation: “With the shoelaces each and every of these linked with the latest laces of your own others, they came and tumbled of Eva’s area.” The fresh new boys prevent expanding, so they really don’t getting different from one another over time; sooner, not even the mammas can tell the newest deweys aside.