{"id":1026,"date":"2019-02-07T04:28:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T04:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2019-02-07T04:28:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T04:28:36","slug":"kristas-response-to-toni-morrisons-sula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/uncategorized\/kristas-response-to-toni-morrisons-sula\/","title":{"rendered":"Krista’s response to Toni Morrison’s Sula"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Toni Morrison\u2019s Sula<\/em>, black bodies have little value and are used and discarded. The death toll is high, but there isn\u2019t a whole lot of anguish or despair associated with any of the deaths. In fact some of them happen so quickly the reader might miss them. The death of Plum by his mother\u2019s hand echoes the killing of Lennie by George in Steinbeck\u2019s Of Mice and Men<\/em> in that they appear to be \u201cmercy killings\u201d of disabled individuals by those who claim responsibility for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Eva\u2019s son, Plum, returns from war he is coping with PTSD. He deals with the complex emotional trauma by using drugs (heroine, I believe?). Plum is possibly Eva\u2019s favorite child, the one to whom she intends to leave everything but when he returns from war, he is profoundly changed. He retains his \u201csweet, sweet smile\u201d and acts animated, all while falling farther and farther into drug addiction (45). Eva clearly loves her son a lot, but she is also disappointed in how things have turned out. One night she goes down to his room and holds him and rocks him in her arms. He wakes slightly and is comforted by his mother\u2019s presence. Eventually she pours kerosene over his body which he interprets as \u201csome kind of baptism, a blessing\u2026[e]verything is going to be all right\u201d (47). Then Eva sets the kerosene alight and leaves the room, retreating back to her room as others rush to put out the fire. Though it seems like lighting someone on fire would be an extremely violent way of killing them, the reader does not get to see that anguish, and the framing is almost peaceful with Eva\u2019s detached \u201cIs? My baby? Burning?\u201d (48).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of Of Mice and Men<\/em>, George shoots Lennie in the back of the head for several reasons; perhaps it is because George has decided that Lennie is a danger to others, or maybe it is because he is afraid of what will happen to Lennie at the hands of the other men or the authorities, or because he doesn\u2019t believe that Lennie can fend for himself. At any rate, George does love Lennie and, like Eva, he feels responsible for Lennie. George tries to keep Lennie calm and speaks soothingly to him about the farm they had been planning on buying; like Plum\u2019s, Lennie\u2019s death is relatively peaceful.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both George and Eva decide that Lennie and Plum, respectively, are better off dead. Maybe to a certain extant, that is true, however all agency is taken away from both disabled characters. Neither is given any say in his fate. But since George and Eva take responsibility for Lennie\u2019s and Plum\u2019s deaths, they should both have taken more responsibility for their lives. More engagement, understanding, and accommodation might have saved these lives. It is not right for George and Eva to decide that Lennie and Plum cannot fit into this world because of their disabilities and to eliminate them from it without trying to change society. \u201cMercy killings\u201d become merciful for the able-bodied perpetrator and not for the victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears that both Eva and George feel remorse for what they have done, but they also both feel that their actions were necessary. Slim consoles George in the final scene by telling him that he \u201chad to do it\u201d (107). Eva feels enough guilt that she attempts to stop Eva\u2019s suicide by immolation. Hannah is still alive when she and Eva are put in the ambulance but Hannah dies on the way to the hospital. There is a little ambiguity though. Could Morrison be suggesting that Eva kills Hannah on the way to the hospital? Does that, too, qualify as merciful? For Hannah or Eva?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word Count: 623<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pledge: Krista Beucler<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A post script: If you need a little more intersectionality on your Instagram, check out Aaron Philip (@aaron__philip), a black, trans, disabled model <3 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Toni Morrison\u2019s Sula, black bodies have little value and are used and discarded. The death toll is high, but there isn\u2019t a whole lot of anguish or despair associated with any of the deaths. In fact some of them happen so quickly the reader might miss them. The death of Plum by his mother\u2019s … Continue reading “Krista’s response to Toni Morrison’s Sula”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papJgd-gy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1027,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}