The Good of a Community
The tragic story of Sula is a story of just deserts. Strangely enough, its themes of lifelong bonds, free love and the good of the community failed to satisfy me. Horrible puns aside, this is probably because I searched for understanding in the superficial, unlikable characters of Medallion, Ohio. Instead, I think it will serve me well to consider the novel’s themes from the perspective of the community as a lethargic self-catabolic animus. Collectively, the events, developments and eventual demise of Medallion present the community’s dominance over cultural and sexual customs. As a result, Morrison depicts the individual’s constant struggle for agency and power with the community.
At their strongest, Sula and Nel contravened the maxims of Medallion as companions. Morrison adorns Sula with many examples of their bond transcending the mood of the community. For example, the funeral scene after the death of Chicken Little is notable because the girls are briefly separated. The community’s mentality overpowers the girls’, in the form of Reverend Deal and his sermon. Morrison identifies the group and its mentality, “And when they thought of all that life and death locked into that little closed coffin they danced and screamed, not to protest God’s will but to acknowledge it and confirm once more their conviction that they only way to avoid the Hand of God is to get in it.” (Morrison, 65). Here, the presence of God compounds the group mentality and the girls are expected to follow suit. Instead, the girls reunite near the coffin, knowing that the faith of the community is unnecessary to keep the memory of the deceased alive. In this small way, Morrison has the girls defy the conformity that the community at large demands of them.
As Sula sleeps with Jude, the bond unravels, leaving Sula and Nel to challenge the conventions of their community as independent women. Yet the community is an entirely different monster by 1937. Most of Medallion’s citizens are united in their revulsion of Sula’s amorous ways. Morrison does well to note that wayward mothers, for example, return to their children as a form of personal critique to Sula. By rallying against Sula, Medallion thrives.
Both women make decisions in spite of the community’s activity. Nel’s decides to visit Sula as she’s dying, going against Medallion’s tradition of having its women silently ostracizing persons of interest. Sula actively sleeps with the many men of Medallion, much to the chagrin of their wives. Though we as readers are left to make moral judgements on these actions, they are notable in the development of Medallion as a community for their peculiarity. I imagine that as the events of the novel occurred, they were accompanied by the silent hiss of gossip, the hum of chatter fraught with the contempt that comes with “newsworthy” notoriety.
