commentaire sula.

SULA : EXCERPT N° 8.
“Like antelopes” p.161 to “ringing his bell” p. 162.

“It was not death or dying that frightened him [Shadrack] but the unexpectedness of both”1 wrote Toni Morrison. Indeed, Shadrack’s traumatic experience of war deeply affected him, and the relation he had to death. His National Suicide Day (a celebration he created to face death with a bit more of ease) is a recurrent event that will be seen many times throughout the story; to the point that it will fully become part of the community’s traditions. In this excerpt, that is from the chapter 1941, Shadrack is leading the community to the tunnel that has been under construction and of which works have been stopped because of a sudden frost wave. But, unlike the other National Suicide Day celebrations we have been able to witness in the story, this one is very different as it seems that everyone is losing their mind and relying on a sort of animal instinct. People slowly start to follow Shadrack as he madly rushes to the tunnel – they pass through the white area of the town, disregarding all the social rules as these ones seem to vanish - his madness seems to infect every single one of them. As they go down the tunnel, it starts to crumble and lead most of the people to their death. While reading this specific extract of the story, we, as readers, could be hit by how fast everything goes as soon as the group enters the tunnel, and how the mood and the flow of the narration seem to give many hints about the outgoing of the events. Thus, how could we say that this excerpt translates a loss of control from the Bottom’s people thus leading the community to its imminent end ? We will start by focusing on the loss of control from the community and how it manifests, before studying the many faces of the tunnel and how it can be interpreted. Then we will see how Death is presented as an end, for both Shadrack and the community.

The first thing that can be easily noted in this excerpt is the lost of control coming from the community as it penetrates the tunnel. Violence is expressed through a very aggressive tone. The first paragraph is only one sentence, lasting for no more than ten lines – which is very long, and sets a frantic energy. This gives a hostile style, as if the narrator was getting more and more angry as they add to what is actually going on within their [the community] mind. For fact, the whole description of the destruction of the tunnel is going crescendo (from the moment they enter until they start ripping everything that comes in their hands) and it feels like the reader can perceive the rage burning within the community’s skin as they enter like beasts into the tunnel. They first “picked up the lengths of timber and thin steel ribs” then “smashed the bricks they would never fire in yawning kilns” and “split the sacks of limestone they had not mixed or even been allowed to haul” before they “tore the wire mesh” and “tipped over wheelbarrows and rolled forepoles down the bank” (l.4-9). This whole journey through the massive destruction and the use of violent verbs (“smashed”, “split”, “tore”) also add to the feeling of violence and anger during this description. This, and the accumulation of events as they give themselves even more deeper to demolition.
The giving of animal features to the community while describing it and the comparison with wild beasts also gives matter to this feeling of loss of control. In the first line of the excerpt they are addressed as “antelopes” (l. 1) which is an animal that comes from Savannah. This, and the fact that they overcome “a wire barricade that was never intended to bar anything but dogs, rabbits and stray children” (l.1-3) which settles this whole animal-like description of the community. This, and the use of the word “stray” alongside the word “children” could be discussed since “stray” is usually used for animals. Indeed, the parallels between their description as a wild horde of dizzy conscious less animals and their entering into the tunnel by coming through a boundary that was first put in place as a prevention from these said animals settles this process of “animalization”2. Also, the orality of this part of the text adds to this sensation – at some part, there are alliterations in “s” : “thin steel ribs and smashed the bricks (..) split the sacks of limestone” and the sound produced when the paragraph is read out loud feels like an animal shriek / scream (it feels like the narrator is spitting or hissing like an angered animal - a wild cat or a snake).

Something that can also be noted is the fact that the tunnel is sort of “multi-faced” in its meanings in this excerpt. It first appears as an incarnation of social boundary and the target of all the frustrations the community is going through. In the beginning of the chapter, right before this excerpt, we learn that black workers have not been allowed to participate in the construction of the tunnel, thus taking away from them the possibility to earn money while working. There are hints to this within this part of the text, in the narration such at lines 6-7 “split the sacks of limestone they had not mixed or even been allowed to haul” where their bitterness takes the better of them as they rip off everything they can, or at lines 11-13 “old and young, women and children, lame and hearty, they killed, as best as they could, the tunnel they were forbidden to build” where we can sense a last feeling of unity as their anger pushes them to destroy everything.
Then, the tunnel is also appearing as a living being of itself, being given human features, humanizing it to the point of making it look like it is going to swallow everyone. At line 14, it is said that “they didn’t mean to go in, to actually go down into the lip of the tunnel”. Here, using the word “lip” seems to be an interesting choice since it makes it appear like the community is throwing itself to the wolves. Even though the word “lip” could also be understood in the meaning of “edge”, Toni Morrison chose this specific word that has a double meaning.3 It is also specified that “the earth, now warm, shifted” (l. 20-21) which gives the impression that everything within the tunnel has its own will and must be feared. And it should also be noted that the word “kill” is used as if the tunnel was a living entity (l.12 “they killed”, l.15 “kill it all”) that must be bled to death, defeated at all cost.
Lastly, the tunnel also could be interpreted as a foreshadowing to what is coming. First “they leaped” (l. 1) through the tunnel, as if they were already dying or agonizing – at the edge of death. Then it is later added that “they went too deep, too far” (l. 19) which is also a hint that this expedition in the tunnel is not going to end well. Also the apocalyptic-like descriptions such as : “(..) ice split and earth shook beneath their feet” (l. 29-30) add to this feeling of monstrosity from the tunnel. Moreover, there is a huge symbolic with the tunnel in itself since everything that is underground is usually linked to the underworld, the land of the dead, Hell. In Greek mythology for instance, the underworld (under the ruling of Hades, the god of the dead) is where the passed ones remain after they leave the living world for good. There is also a river in the tunnel, which could be a reference to the Styx – the river that forms a boundary between Earth and the living world. The tunnel then appears to be a manifestation of death for the community – a metaphor for its slow passing, extinction.

To continue, Death seems to be shown as an end in this excerpt. First through the figure of Shadrack, who is presented as a Death messenger. During the whole story, Shadrack had a link with Death. His “National Suicide Day” was at first rejected by the community but they slowly started to accept and adopt it to the point it became a sort of tradition everyone was waiting (as it has been said in the introduction). He had this sort of “Death messenger” role - like Sula he sort of united the community with his whole character and habits. Just like she had the role of the “hated” person, he was the “mad” man that everyone knew and bring everyone together with his eccentricities – to the point of leading them to their death. The chapter ends with these sentences : “And all the while, Shadrack stood there. Having forgotten his song and his rope, he just stood there high up on the bank ringing, ringing his bell” (l.40-42). Reading this, it feels like he knew what was going to happen and doesn’t seem to be shocked by death. Actually, he succeeded in his goal which was to create a day where people (especially him since he is traumatized by war and the death it engendered) could face Death without being scared of it. To continue on a reference to Greek mythology, we could say that he incarnates the same role as Charon, whose main role is to help the dead pass through the Styx (which, as it has been said earlier, seems to manifest itself through the figure of the river). Just like Charon helped the souls into crossing the Styx, Shadrack helped the community to do exactly the same – led them to Death, while ringing his bell (which could be a reference to the Church’s death knell that rings after the passing of someone).
This passage seems to sign the end of the Bottom’s community and unity. The community had nothing holding everyone together anymore. With Sula being gone, and the frustration left by the frost and once again the jobs denied to the black workers, it was only a matter of time before everything shattered. The community was holding only by one thin hair – thin hair that finally broke when Shadrack hold his annual National Suicide Day. When people followed him through the city, ignoring all of the rules (for example, they passed through the white part of the town), it feels like it was already a hint that everything was going to crumble. At line 20 it is written “a lot of them had died there” which is a first morbid note on the way things are going to go. It is later added : “Tar Baby, Dessie, Ivy, Valentine, the Herrod boys, some of Ajax’s younger brothers and the deweys (at least it was supposed; their bodies were never found) – all died here.” (l. 32-35) : for the reader, it sounds like the end is coming since the characters that are named as dead have been mentioned in the story, from close or afar - and the fact that the surviving ones are characters that weren’t spoken of a lot : “Mr. Buckland Reed escaped, so did Patsy and her two boys, as well as some fifteen or twenty (..)” (l. 35-37) creates a contrast that makes the reader feel emotions such as sadness, grief, shock. It is also said at lines 22-24 : “(..) deprived of the sun that had brought them here” - the “sun” being gone, it states that they are stuck here without any exit and that they are inevitably going to die. This feeling is even more highlighted with the following sentence : “Pressed against steel ribs and timber blocks young boys strangled when the oxygen left them to join the water” (l. 27-29). It gives the idea that they are stuck in an underground coffin. Also the fact that the dying are “young boys” directly refers to the end of the community since the “young” are the future. If the future dies, how can the community be prosperous ?

For that matter, it seems that many factors are involved into portraying the loss of control of the community, and its inevitable end. Firstly, violence and especially both the tone of the narration and the “animalization” of the people are deeply linked to the appearance of the group as “lost”, “dizzy”, or even “wild”. By using strong verbs, animal-like alliterations and an accumulation, Toni Morrison succeeded into creating a hostile mood. For what is of the multi faces of the tunnel, it added more to this passage and especially to its meaning – being the sociopolitical context of the town at that moment, the human-like description of the tunnel which gave a hint about the upcoming of the events, or even the whole metaphor that the tunnel hid. And finally, Death in itself seemed to be portrayed as an eminent end for the community of the Bottom – has it been throughout all the story with the figure of Shadrack and is omniscient National Suicide Day, his Charon-like role, or through the description of how baneful the events turned out to go inside the tunnel.