Collective survival in Sula by Toni Morrison DOCX

Title	Collective survival in Sula by Toni Morrison
Author	Henry Pierre Sarr
Pages	1
File Size	14.6 KB
File Type	DOCX
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Summary

American Literature I/Collective survival in Sula by Toni Morrison According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary survival is ‘’ the state or fact of continuing to live or existing, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal or difficult circumstances’’. Actually it appears that the surviving p...

Description

American Literature I/Collective survival in Sula by Toni Morrison According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary survival is '' the state or fact of continuing to live or existing, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal or difficult circumstances''. Actually it appears that the surviving people are those who strive in however hard conditions to better their situations or to escape from the harshness of their surroundings. Thus survival can be individual, but also collective. There, a group of two or more people will be living in more or less the same precarious situations, and thus unify sometime their forces to fight against it, a pain or even a threat. In Sula by Toni Morrison, the first group of survivals are women, oppressed because of their color and their gender. In fact, Medallion offers two works opportunities to women, domestic for ungrateful white families or prostitution. The society itself is hostile and violent toward those black women as Morrison said in 1983 in an interview with Claudia Tate ''aggression is not as new to Black women as it is to White women.'' Morrison seems to be paying tribute to black women who struggle to better their situations. Actually, she exposes many women who are victimized or who have been in general left by their husbands (Eva) or widowed and who had to recreate or manage life and family by their own means. Thus, they absolutely refused powerlessness or lack of options, socialized gender and racial identities that constrains them. Also survival is not restricted to women or to individuals, it goes beyond, and can be applied to a larger extend, to the entire black community of the Bottom. In the Bottom, people were not living but they were surviving in a world which is strange and determined by its harshness. The first inconvenient the people face is obviously the racism. The racism is at the basis of their lack of job. In a society as Marie Negro said in her article In search of self: Frustration and Denial in Toni Morrison's Sula ''job helps to define people''. It helps to give a specific qualifications to people and to be then able to rate them and their capacities. However because of their color and origins those people of the bottom are forced to bear it and try to live in some conditions in which it is actually not evident. They are not judged by their capacities but by their colors, people like Jude Green are a perfect example. Also, the community itself lives close-knitted when needed, they join their forces and try together to challenge and face and even survive when difficulties come. For instance they have joined their forces against the arrival of Sula after a long time of absence and after having destroyed the life of her soul mate. The entire community fought against it like Morrison said in Sula, section 9, 1939 page 118 line 16 to 18 "The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over''. There we can see there have been a collective struggle against the new behaviors of Sula in which they see Evil. HONORABLE HENRY PETER SARR...