Sula+notes

Sula notes! 1919 – Part Two 1937 – 1939
 * How do we find meaning in a story that doesn’t follow a straight arc?
 * Eva – mother to Hannah and Plum
 * Grandmother to Sula
 * Helene is mother to Nel
 * Shadrack comes back from WWI with PTSD
 * Not afraid of death, but its unpredictability
 * Starts National Suicide Day
 * Sula comes back in a plague of robins
 * One robin comes into Shadrack’s shack – where Sula came in years before
 * Sula puts Eva, her grandmother, in a home
 * Sula tells Nel she was afraid for her life
 * Later Sula admits she lied to Nel
 * Eva seems to understand that Sula has no moral compass
 * Doesn’t follow any set of rules
 * Sula betrays Nel, sleeps with husband Jude
 * Jude leaves Nel
 * Sula says hell is anything lasting forever
 * Nel says hell is change
 * Nel is left with the quiet, gray, dirty ball hovering near her head – p. 109
 * p. 95 – love for Jude was a “steady gray web” around her heart
 * “That was the terrible part. The effort it took not to look.”(109)
 * Love for Jude? Or is it love for Sula?
 * Whole town has turned against Sula
 * Town starts remembering real and imagined evils
 * Community decides her birthmark is Hannah’s ashes
 * Community comes together in their hatred for Sula
 * Teapot’s Mamma becomes a good mom
 * Community improves – take better care of each other
 * Sula isn’t a good member of the community – any community
 * p. 118 –
 * Hearing Hannah’s comment taught Sula there was no other you could trust
 * Chicken Little’s death taught her there was no self you could trust
 * Her hands didn’t hold on
 * Life is experimental
 * Do whatever you like


 * Ajax comes into her life
 * Sula is in love with Ajax
 * Never happened before!
 * He doesn’t want commitment
 * Leaves
 * Sula finds his driver’s license
 * Albert Jacks
 * She never really knew his name

1940 1941-  1965
 * Sula is dying; Nel comes to check on her
 * They start to discuss the reality of the past
 * Nel says, “You can’t do it all.”
 * Sula says, “ I don’t know everything, I just do everything.” (142)
 * Nel’s mad at her for doing what she wants
 * Sula’s goal is to experience everything
 * Sula says she created her own loneliness
 * But Ajax did leave her
 * Sula asks Nel how she knows she was the good one
 * (who is part of a community?)
 * Sula is pleased by the “sturdy termination” of the window
 * Similar to Shadrack’s concern?
 * Sula’s funeral
 * People see it as a good sign
 * Things must be looking up!
 * With Sula’s meanness gone, people are back to being mean to with each other
 * Shadrack’s memory of Sula
 * He was trying to comfort her with permanence
 * He doesn’t remember Chicken Little
 * He’s not interested in Suicide Day anymore
 * Starts the parade anyway, without enthusiasm
 * People start following
 * Times have been hard
 * Sunshine, laughter, hope
 * Parade gets to the tunnel site
 * Where they never got jobs, money
 * Jump the fence, want to destroy it
 * Go inside the tunnel
 * Ground thaws, tunnel collapses
 * Many people die
 * Deweys are never found
 * Shadrack survives with his bell
 * The Bottom is no longer the black part of town
 * Nel visits Eva – still alive!
 * Eva starts talking about the death of Chicken Little
 * Says that Nel is the same as Sula
 * Nel says, “I didn’t watch it. I just saw it.”
 * Eva is sure it was murder
 * Plum talks to her – his ghost?
 * Nel remembers Sula’s death
 * So rejected by the community
 * White people take care of her

Themes?
 * What happens to a community when someone ignores all the rules?
 * Fluffball of love for Sula?
 * Do we love someone, miss someone, in spite of the terrible things they’ve done?