Flexing the Nexus
Rereading Toni Morrison’s foreword to Sula at the end of the novel was indispensable in cementing my comprehension of the story. While I understand that the desire to have an audience consider a text alongside a set of principles requires a strategic placement of them, Morrison’s preface doesn’t do justice to the words that follow; the story justifies the words. For a self-proclaimed writer who is unapologetic for the political motivations behind her writing, I can think of few greater accomplishments. By constantly changing time and perspective, Morrison does an exquisite job of relating the individualism behind her four “points of a cross,” a fitting symbol for Hannah, Nel, Eva and Sula both as independent characters as well as for where and how they converge with one another (“Foreword”). Similarly, her dedication to the development of each woman in her own right strengthens the overall critique she makes of the notion of the attainability of a higher Truth, a theme that harkens back to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. It is also crucial to recognize how Morrison’s sympathy for each character in the text reigns more powerful than any individual judgment she may claim for them in her foreword, which provides further support to the benefits of reading or rereading the foreword after the novel’s end.
Morrison’s form lends great significance to the lives she portrays. By cyclically rotating focus from one woman’s perspective to the next and simultaneously jumping from year to year, she prevents readers from passing categorical judgments on any single character. Similarly, her dedication to the dynamism of these women over an extensive period of time––the novel spanning nearly half a century––reinforces this strategy. As a result, readers are forced to consider each woman through a variety of ages, social and financial circumstances, and emotional and mental states, making the reduction of any of them to a simple archetype a difficult endeavor indeed.
The image of the cross is vastly powerful throughout the novel, both as a religious symbol reflecting the higher aim for Truth and as one that represents the relativism and common ground in which the four female characters meet. In her foreword Morrison notes that Hannah, Nel, Eva and Sula share “a merging of responsibility and liberty difficult to reach.” But the image of the cross also inherently connotes a diverging of direction. Indeed, each woman relates to her surroundings in a unique way and their choices reflect this difference. Still, Sula urges readers to understand the overlaps in their collective circumstance, which dictates much of their relationships to the world Morrison creates. Even Sula the wildcard is not exempt from these forces: she may be more in tune to the intricacies of the nature of being a black woman in Medallion, but she is no less liable to them than the others. The cross as a religious symbol presents a fitting example of this nature. The people of Medallion are decidedly God revering. While they resist meddling with Fate, they deeply endeavor to discover a higher Truth.
In this regard, Sula harkens back to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The authors of both novels devote serious effort to constructing an intricate world for their main characters to inhabit. Additionally, both stories present main figures who are at odds with their respective communities, which act as powerful forces in shaping the lives of the individuals who make them up. But Morrison and Hawthorne both create characters to triumph this nature, both present individuals too keen on their individuality to accept the existence of a higher Truth, which to them seems a preposterously limiting idea.
Tags: Nathaniel Hawthorne, relativism, Religion, Sula, The Scarlet Letter, Time, Toni Morrison, Truth
