Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Many people commit actions that are unfavorable to society. Society, in turn, usually scorns these delinquents wishing that they would be expunged from all civilization. Morrison?s Sula, for example, shows how happy people get when a wicked person has left society. It says, ?The death of Sula Peace was the best news folks up at the Bottom had??(Morrison p. 141) Yet, can we live in a world without thieves, cheaters, and liars? If there were no wrongdoers, how would we know what is good or bad? How would we know what makes us sad or happy when there are no bad things in this world? And, to how far are we going to say what is wrong or inappropriate for today?s society? The need for licentious and sinister people is a very difficult idea to comprehend, but the world can?t live without them. This idea is an underlying yet complex theme within Toni Morrison?s Sula. Although difficult and perplexing, Morrison attempts to show how the presence of evil can have not only a negative effect to society, but also a righteous one. Throughout Sula, Morrison demonstrates that evil serves a purpose in society and that evil can have a positive effect on life. What is considered evil? Evil tends to be any action or deed that is morally wrong and hinders the realization of good. Killing, adultery, stealing, and beating, are just some examples of actions that are considered immoral in the American culture. Consequently, how does one inherit immoral and inappropriate manners? Parents often attempt to shape their children into what they may think is appropriate in society. However, parents sometimes fail to realize that their kids tend to pick up some of their bad habits. Sula, forCalub2example, learned that it was okay to sleep with married men. She led her life sleeping with the married men and never cared to deal with the emotions of making love and commitment. But where did she learn to commit adultery? Her mother, Hannah, did the exact same thing; she also slept with married men. Morrison said, ?Seeing her step so easily into the pantry and emerge looking precisely as she did when she entered, only happier, taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable.?(p. 44). Children tend to acquire the same manners and ideals as their parents. Morrison even said, ?Eva?s arrogance and Hannah?s self-indulgence merged in her??(p. 118)Although it is prevalent that evil creates more evil, Morrison insinuates the fact that wicked and heinous deeds are sometimes necessary. Eva, for example, had killed her only son to save him from his misery. Morrison said, ?His habits were much like Tar Baby?s but there were no bottles, and Plum was sometimes cheerful and animated?Then he began to steal from them??(p. 45) Now, Tar Baby wasn?t someone to be compared to because he was an alcoholic. In addition, Plum was taking drugs. Morrison said, ?It was Hannah who found the bent spoon black from steady cooking.?{p. 45) It seemed that the life on the road and in war had caused him to take this awful route in life. Eva expected a man to come back after the war, but Plum came back an unstructured, helpless little boy. She said, ?I done everything I could to make him leave me and go on to go and live and be a man but he wouldn?t and I had to keep him out so I just thought of a way he could die like a man?.? (p. 72) Even though there really isn?t any justification for murder, Morrison displays how it was necessary to take the extreme action. Plum was sufferingtoo much and needed to find peace, and the only way for him to get peace from hisCalub3tribulations was death.In addition, children sometimes see the bad things their elders are doing and in turn, try not to grow up with the same bad habits. Helene, for example, grew up with a mother who was a whore and who cared little for her. Morrison said, ?Helene was born behind those shutters, daughter of a Creole whore who worked there.? (p.17) Helene hated her mother for her licentious ways. After Nel said that Helene?s mother?s skin was so soft, Helene insulted her mother. She said, ?Much handled things are always soft.?(p. 27) So Helene, in turn, became a strong mother and held on to her husband instead sleeping with many men. Morrison said, ?She rose grandly to the occasion of motherhood?? (p. 18) All in all, the evil people witness and experience as a child heavily contributes to the way they will act when they are older.Not only does Morrison display the way evil can be passed down from generation to generation, but also how one amoral event can alter a life. Shadrack, for example, experienced a heavy and most horrifying event, war. Shadrack witnessed many people dying; he even saw a man?s face blown off. Morrison said, ?It was not the death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of it.? (p. 14) This was never a problem for Shadrack before the war. The gruesome and tragic actions of war changed Shadrack?s life extremely. He became ?crazy? as some people said, celebrating National Suicide Day and he started drinking. But Shadrack, although full of problems and quite evil, served a purpose in the Bottom. When all seemed sad and lost, Shadrack paraded around the city and brought joy back to the people. The people found his antics quite joyous and amusing and so many marched along with him. Morrison said, ?The scene was so comic theCalub4people walked around the road to make sure they saw it all. In that the way the paradestarted.?(p. 159) In addition, this parading brought back hope to the people. Morrison said, ??Called to them to come out and play in the sunshine-as though the sunshine would last, as though there really was hope?.”(p. 160) Celebrating National Suicide Day, allowed them to release the pain they suffered, allowed them to feel like it was worth living and that nothing can get in their way, not even the white people. Morrison said that it ?kept them convinced that some magic government was going to lift them up, out and away from that dirt, those beans, those wars.? (p.160) Although Shadrack was troubled and did many wrong things, his presence was needed in the Bottom especially when times were tough.Morrison?s most important display of effective evilness is Sula, the main character of the novel. Sula is a great example of how one immoral and selfish woman can change the lives of a community for the better. The people in Bottom despised Sula, calling her a ?roach.?(p.112) They were disgusted in her ways because she slept with all the married men once like she was trying all of them out. They also believed that she was sleeping with white men. This made ??small children look away in shame; made young men fantasize elaborate torture for her??(p. 112). Then they started attacking her, attesting that she just watched her mother get burned, that she pushed little Teapot down the stairs, and that Shadrack greeted her nicely because they were both devils. Morrison said, ?Yeh, so how come he tip his hat to Sula? How come he don?t cuss her????Two devils.???Exactly.?(p. 117) However, they did not know that Shadrack respected Sula because she was his only visitor and what seemed to him his only friend. In addition,Calub5their hatred and fear of Sula caused husbands and wives to love each other more, to protect their children, to repair their homes and to join as one community against her. Morrison said, ?Their conviction of Sula?s evil changed them in accountable yet mysterious ways.? (p. 117) Just because of her wrongdoings, families at the Bottom became closer and the community became more unified.But when she died, the people of Medallion felt that they did not need to be as unified anymore and families were once again troubled, all over town. Morrison said, ?The tension was gone and so was the reason for the effort they had made. Without her mockery, affection for others sank into flaccid disrepair.?(p.154) Here, Morrison shows that the lack of evil can cause people to lose all need of caring, or protecting, or depending upon one another. Morrison said, ??they returned to a steeping resentment of the burdens of old people. Wives uncoddled their husbands; there seemed no further need to reinforce their vanity.?(p. 154) Moreover, Sula has shown that we sometimes need to come upon bad experiences and meet bad people so that we may know how to work around these obstacles in life and so that we may be better people.Sometimes, a person must experience bad events to realize the bad in his or her own self. Chicken Little?s death, for example, made Nel realize that she was like Sula in the fact that she lacked a lot of compassion. Nel said, ?Why didn?t I feel bad when it happened? How come it felt so good to see him fall.? (p. 170) Nel did not feel any shame or guilt during the killing of Chicken Little. In addition, the lack of compassion the people at Bottom had for Sula helped Nel realize that Sula was right and was her true friend. Morrison said, ?It was very strange this stubbornness about Sula. For even whenCaub6China, the most rambunctious whore in the town, died, even then everybody dropped what they were doing and turned out in numbers to put the fallen sister away.?(p. 172) But at Sula?s funeral, Nel ?found herself the only black person there?.?(p. 173). The people of the Bottom lacked respect for Sula and showed no care. Nel ??wondered if the townspeople hadn?t been right the first time.?(p.171) This shows how evil may sometimes be where it is least expected. It took the death of Sula for Nel to realize that Sula?s ways were justified. Sula was not the only person with wicked and bad deeds; everyone in the Bottom had a dark side. Moreover, evil might be where it is least expected. Sometimes, the evil is ?on the other foot?. Furthermore, Morrison shows us that corruption and evil has its proper place in our society. Without the bad, we won?t know what is good. Evil or corruption gives people something to work for in life; it allows them to realize what they should or should not be. Morrison is not saying that it is okay to allow evil in society, but that there will be always corruption and depravity, so people must learn to deal with it. Morrison said, ?the presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.? (p.118)

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