Sula+characters+&+characterization

Sula characters


 * Shadrack – WWI vet, comes home in 1919
 * PTSD – shell shock
 * Doesn’t see the world realistically
 * At home, he figures out how to deal with death
 * Not afraid of dying
 * Afraid of the unexpectedness of it
 * National Suicide Day, Jan. 3
 * Community gets used to it
 * Shadrack parades, mostly alone
 * Carries a noose, rings a bell
 * Eva + BoyBoy
 * Pearl (Eva) – moves away
 * Plum (Ralph) – WWI vet – PTSD
 * Dies when his mother sets him on fire
 * Wants him to die like a man, not a baby
 * Hannah
 * Sula (born in 1910)
 * Great-grandmother of Nel
 * Her funeral is in New Orleans
 * Rochelle – lives in Sundown House – brothel
 * Helene is Rochelle’s daughter
 * Helene + Wiley Wright
 * Nel (born in 1910)


 * Tar Baby – rents a room in Eva’s house
 * Probably white
 * Always drunk


 * The Deweys – 3 boys
 * Adopted by Eva at different times
 * Not the same age
 * Look completely different
 * One is very black, one is a redhead, one is Mexican
 * No one can tell them apart
 * Why? Race on the outside doesn’t matter?
 * Eva has given them all the same name

Characterization – how the author uses characters to tell a story
 * Flat characters – when the author gives a few details, enough for us to assume what this person is like. Not complex.
 * Round characters – more realistic. Author gives more lifelike detail – complex, like real people.
 * Direct characterization – when the author tells you something directly about a character.
 * Ex.: He was a stingy man.
 * Indirect characterization – When the author tells you things about the person so that you have to infer something about that character.
 * Ex.: The old man locked his door and pulled the curtains. Then he looked around the small room and seemed to decide it was safe. Finally, he pulled an old trunk out from under the bed, unlocked it and looked at the gold inside, carefully locking it up again before he hid it.