ipl-logo

Sula Social Commentary Essay

915 Words4 Pages

In literature, social commentary is typically used to directly or indirectly point out the flaws with society, such as racial or class differences. Toni Morrison’s Sula is no exception, as the novel is rife with examples of how life was perceived by African Americans in the early 20th century. From the beginning of the novel, it becomes clear that there is a great disparity between races; the blacks were segregated into the infertile and run-down neighborhood of the Bottom and were severely disadvantaged both socially and economically. On the other hand, this segregation gave the African American community the impetus to join together and have an identity to call their own. From the relationship between the black and white communities to the relationship between Nel Wight and Sula Peace, Morrison demonstrates how racism could have both a dividing and unifying effect.
The development of the Bottom and the death of Chicken Little emphasize the perceived differences between races and serve to only separate the blacks from the whites. The Bottom starts off as “a joke;” a white farmer tricks his former slave into receiving infertile land …show more content…

Helene, “under the dolesome eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary,” attempts to erase any of the wild influence her mother had on her by living in a very uptight manner (Morrison 17). This manner is tested on her train trip to see her dying grandmother: when the white train conductor speaks condescendingly towards her, she merely smiles, shocking both her daughter and the other black passengers on the train. Her smile simultaneously makes her look like she is a victim of white oppression and makes her appear to appease the white man for the sake of accepting subjugation. This smile has

Show More
Related
575 Words | 3 Pages

1920’s society offered a prominent way for blacks that look white to exploit its barrier and pass in society. Visible within Nella Larsen’s Passing, access to the regular world exists only for those who fit the criteria of white skin and white husband. Through internal conflict and characterization, the novella reveals deception slowly devours the deceitful. In Passing, Clare and Irene both deceive people. They both engage in deceit by having the ability to pass when they are not of the proper race to do so.

Read More
701 Words | 3 Pages

As soon as he saw Irene he said, “So you’re a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!” (Larsen75). Clare just stood at the window with no care in the world for her or the people staring at her. “She stood there as composed as if everyone were not staring at her in curiosity and wonder, as if the whole structure of her life were not lying in fragments before her” (Larsen 76). Irene looked at Clare and she saw the faint smile that Clare expressed.

Read More
1385 Words | 6 Pages

In the book, there are significant racial tensions and racial divisions in society. Young Black women like Lauren, the primary character, must find their way in a society where they face prejudice and marginalization. In the story, racism is shown as a persistent menace in a society where one's character or aptitudes are more often evaluated than the color of one's skin. Unfortunately, this is a problem that persists in modern culture. The work emphasizes the consequences of institutionalized racism, which persists today.

Read More
1663 Words | 7 Pages

She agonized and felt shameful that she didn’t know what to wear only to be pointed out as the bad example by the nuns, which makes her audience feel embarrassed and as if they were “an island - not so much a tropical paradise as an Alcatraz, a place nobody wants to visit” (876). Cofer convinces her audience to feel empathy for her from sensing her aggravation toward stereotypes and how she “resented the stereotypes that [her] Hispanic appearance called forth” (876). However, in the end, Cofer illustrates her pride and claims, “every time I give a reading, I hope the stories I tell… get my audience past the particulars of my skin color, my accent, or my clothes” (882). This demonstration of Cofer’s pride for her culture and the realization that these aspects are things she can’t or won’t change,

Read More
488 Words | 2 Pages

Another symbol that expresses how being white means being fortunate is the phrase in lines twenty six and twenty seven when the woman says “how easy this white skin makes my life” meaning that only because she is not black, she is superior and has an easy life. All literary techniques included, On the Subway contrasts two people based on their skin tones. Olds illustrates these differences through symbolism and imagery to interpret with detail how racism is presented in

Read More
618 Words | 3 Pages

In the story “ On the Subway” the reader can identify that the narrator, the lady, is racist by noticing that the story uses allusion. For example, the lady says, “ I must profit from his darkness, the way he absorbs the murderous beams of the nation’s heart.” This is a refers to slavery which shows the reader that the lady is antiblack. Imagery is widely used in the story to show the reader the differences between the black boy and the white lady; in addition, it also shows how observant the white lady is on the black guy because she thinks she is going to get robbed or possibly killed. The lady describes the boy’s “black sneakers laced with white in a complex pattern like a set of intentional scars.”

Read More
587 Words | 3 Pages

However, Sula follows a wildly divergent path and lives a life of fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. Both characters emphasizes on what is takes to be different regardless of how their family or community viewed them as. These two stories are prime examples of black feminism in which Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have dealt with during their time. Both stories clearly argues that sexism, class oppression, gender identity, and racism are inseparably bound

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story “Recitatif”, Toni Morrison exploits her reader’s inability to be free from racial stereotyping by vaguely describing, on purpose, the two major characters. Even the character’s names elicit a stereotype unto themselves. Through a total of five “episodes”, Morrison challenges readers’ conceptions on both Twyla and Roberta’s race as they collide with each other, throughout their otherwise mundane lives. To begin, Morrison throws the reader into a world where, “to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race” (1), is not what the protagonist had in mind. To elaborate, Twyla introduces her roommate based on stereotypes, “One of the things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny.

Read More
1199 Words | 5 Pages

The idea of loyalty as a theme in Toni Morrison’s Sula can be refuted in the fact that there are many occasions when the sense of trust was broken, even though it can also be proven in the characters non-stopped attempt to be there for one another that there was some kind of assurance. In Toni Morrison’s Sula, the representation of a struggling young woman who symbolized more than what she was credited for was created. Her life had not been like most coming of age women. She endured the death of her mother up close and personal, continued to be criticized and unpleased by her community, and soon fluctuated towards her own death. Through this, Toni Morrison focused on the unjust relationships within the novel that pointed back to the antagonist, Sula.

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

Sula and friendship Sula is a novel about vagueness, and it is one of the most effective novels, which is written by Toni Morrison in 1973. The name of the book is Sula because Sula is the main character of the story. The novel reports complicating mysteries of human emotions and relationships between mothers and their children, and between friends. Sula and Hannah altered many people’s opinions about mother and friendship. Sula and Nel were close friends.

Read More
722 Words | 3 Pages

It’s hard to defy the stereotype of being a poor black family when you’re living it. Every week, my mom would go and collect her welfare check, and she’d turn to me, with an ashamed look on her face, distraught that life put her in a terrible situation, and mostly because of the fact she was black. We lived on a small road, in an all-colored neighborhood, close to the 16th Street Baptist Church. I had a migraine and had woken up late. My mother was shaking me with her emaciated arms, screaming at me to wake up.

Read More
1194 Words | 5 Pages

In Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, Morrison utilizes the racist incidents within the Bottom to illustrate the submissive, degrading, and foolish influence of racist America on African Americans, while still successfully capturing the dignity and sense of community of the African Americans, ultimately demonstrating the stupidity of racism. Morrison first depicts African Americans as wanting to conform and assimilate into the white American culture through Helene’s Wright behavior towards her daughter, Nel Wright. By disliking Nel’s physical appearance, Helene represents the discrimination many African Americans have against their heritage and roots; therefore, she submits to the racism. The stupidity also becomes apparent because of Morrison’s

Read More
671 Words | 3 Pages

The novel Black Boy by Richard Wright exhibits the theme of race and violence. Wright goes beyond his life and digs deep in the existence of his very human being. Over the course of the vast drama of hatred, fear, and oppression, he experiences great fear of hunger and poverty. He reveals how he felt and acted in his eyes of a Negro in a white society. Throughout the work, Richard observes the deleterious effects of racism not only as it affects relations between whites and blacks, but also relations among blacks themselves.

Read More
1356 Words | 6 Pages

In order to do so, I will use quotations extracted from Morrison´s work and other secondary resources, and I will focus on the main characters of the novel that stand as representations of their social dimension. Toni Morrison uses the personal lives of the

Read More
2515 Words | 11 Pages

She was influenced by the ideologies of women’s liberation movements and she speaks as a Black woman in a world that still undervalues the voice of the Black woman. Her novels especially lend themselves to feminist readings because of the ways in which they challenge the cultural norms of gender, slavery, race, and class. In addition to that, Morrison novels discuss the experiences of the oppressed black minorities in isolated communities. The dominant white culture disables the development of healthy African-American women self image and also she pictures the harsh conditions of black women, without separating them from the oppressed situation of the whole minority. In fact, slavery is an ancient and heinous institution which had adverse effects on the sufferers at both the physical as well as psychological levels.

Read More

More about Sula Social Commentary Essay

Related Topics

Open Document