Sula By Toni Morrison

African-American folklore is perhaps the basis for many African- American literary works. In a country where as late as the 1860’s there were laws prohibiting the teaching of slaves, it was essential for the oral tradition to carry the values the group considered significant. African- American folklore has since been taken to new levels and forms. Writers have adopted these themes and have fit them into contemporary times. Most recently author Toni Morrison has taken African-American folklore themes and adapted them into fictional literature in her novels. Using the narrative as an instrument, Toni Morrison, author of Sula, confronts issues of culture in a unique manner balancing both artistic and folk elements. Through the act of “telling”

Local legend says that the Bottom’s title comes from a slave owner’s covetous trickery of a slave in his ownership. The slave owner swore to the slave that he would free him in return for the completion of some difficult tasks. In addition, he vowed to the slave a plot of respectable "bottom land" in the valley. When the time came, the slave owner didn't want to uphold his side of the bargain. He bequeathed to the slave a plot in the hills, stating that it was the "bottom of heaven" because of its closeness to God. The slave was elated to accept the "gift." Only later did he realize that hilly land was extremely difficult to farm. A town that was actually founded as a second chance, or some hope for former slaves will be where a tale of folkloric traditions will come to life. This type of town lends itself more easily to the folklore tradition because it stands for the power of dreams and a change from the harsh realities of

In essence, she tells the tales that many have not, and in the process, presents alternate ways of thinking about knowledge and the presence and influence of blackness in America (Baker 10). Morrison uses the grotesque to accomplish some of her goals for writing, which include, but are not limited to: educating readers about African and African American cultures (primarily folklore and religion); telling stories that have never been told or have been neglected (primarily those related to the female slave experience); emphasizing the importance of the oral tradition; stressing the importance of one’s roots in the formation of self; and exposing interlocking systems of race, class, and gender that negatively affect black persons. Concurrently, Morrison’s fiction is prominent for its understated rebellion of totalizing African American mythologies, especially those of African American communities from the urban North to the rural Midwest or South. Identity in Morrison’s novels is formed and revised by a nondeterministic process in which one cause does not necessarily lead to a specific effect, much like the legends of slaves escaping. As Melvin Dixon argues, “her novels are bildungsroman of entire communities and racial idioms rather than the voice of a single individual,” with a central protagonist developing only after interactions with larger