english

FINALLY, our last blog post!!! Now that we are done with our last book I have to say that I really enjoyed it. Not only was it something completely different from what we have been reading but it also was a page turner as well, which constantly kept me interested.

A point in the novel that I found to be quite interesting, was on page 229, when the narrator states:

“ We were always oral. We were forever biting , we bite hard, we spit and shined each other, we licked each other, we slobbered, we gorged, we made elaborate meals of ourselves, we made holiday feasts Scotch and Korean, the cold strange meal of tongue, of ankle, of toe, we made a mess..” At this point in the novel, the narrator is telling the reader how he is making love to his wife for the first time in a while. But what I noticed to be interesting is that Henry once AGAIN talks about their ethnic differences while talking about how he is about to have sex with his wife. He mentions that they ‘made holiday feasts scotch and Korean.’ I feel as though Henry can never get over how different they are ethnicity wise. He constantly mentions it in almost any big event that happens in their lives. Which could be a problem, even though they are beginning to ‘mend’ their damaged relationship.

He even states how its been“.. 5 months since he has seen her naked and maybe eight or nine since he has really touched her…”

This just proves what a horrible relationship they had over the past couple months and they were just beginning to solve it right then and there. I find it a little sad that for so long that those two lost each other in a way, they forgotten the love they had for each other with Lelia constantly going away on her “solo” trips and Henry never speaking up for himself. Henry also states how “he had forgotten how to make love to his wife.” I feel that Henry and Lelia grew apart from each other mostly because of their son Mitt’s death. Especially since they both dealt with their sons death so differently. As in previous chapters Henry and Lelia got into a huge fight about how Henry is always so quiet about their son’s death and Lelia constantly wants to talk about it

All of this happens at the end of the chapter, and continues on into the opening paragraph of the next chapter with them moving back in with each other. They are finally starting to begin to heal their broken relationship.

Upon reading the final chapters of Sula, I would have to say that they weren’t that bad. I actually enjoyed reading this novel in particular simply because it had so many twists and turns; especially with the character Sula. I never expected her to turn out to be the “bad omen” of the town.

In class, we went into groups and concentrated on certain parts of the book, my group had Sula’s funeral. This part of the book I found to be very significant, simply because no one cared that Sula died nor even mourned her death. The whole beginning paragraph of Section 1941 talks about how the townspeople either came to her funeral to 1. Make sure that Sula was truly dead or 2. Make sure that no one truly disrespected her funeral. The town looked at Sula as some sort of witch when she was alive, mainly for the fact that bad things happened whenever Sula was around; for example, when the boy fell off Sula’s porch and she got blamed for pushing him. And even in her death, they looked down upon her and still blamed her for things that went wrong in their lives. However, it was really ironic how she was looked at as such a horrible person, because in reality her horribleness is what made everybody so good. Sula in a way made them straighten out their lives for the better when she was alive and when she died everyone went back to their horrible crude ways. A quote that immediately caught my attention was on pg 153, it states, “Without her mockery, affection for others sank into flaccid disrepair…now that Sula was dead and gone with , 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…” In other words, this quote already emphasizes what I have already explained. It even states how wives no longer were affectionate or cared about their husbands like the way they did when she was alive. They only loved their husbands in fear of Sula sleeping with them and now that she was dead, they didn’t have to worry about it. It just further explains how truly messed up this town was and how screwed up the people were that resided in it.

Upon reading the beginning parts of “Sula” By: Toni Morrison, I’ve found it to be very interesting yet very similar (in ways) to a lot of the other books we have read so far. I feel like the majority of the books that we have read whether they are canonical or non-canonical have to do with racism or African Americans besides “The Great Gatsby.” This makes it seem like there isn’t any diversity in the literature that we are reading.  It’s to the point where before we even begin reading a novel, I feel as though I can predict its either going to be about racism or something really disturbing like in “The Sound and the Fury” for example, how the brotherly love went a little bit further than just normal brother/sister relations; Or in “Invisible Man” when the whole ring match/electrocuting all the African Americans.

However, aside from all of that, when reading a little bit further into the book we read about how one of the characters, Eva, kills her son,
Plum. Now I found this to be so bizarre. She said she did it because he was all mixed up after the war but that’s no excuse. This really made me mad and also made me look very differently at her character. No matter how messed up someone is in the head that is no excuse to kill them, especially YOUR own son! I also found it to be very confusing with all the different characters that appear all over the novel.  I feel like they listed so many, that it makes it so easy for even the reader to get confused.  We (as a class) even found it hard to put together who was whose grandmother/mother, and what daughter belonged to who, between all of the female characters Eva, Helene, Nel, Sula, Hannah and Cecile; which was quite confusing