Social Tensions with the African American Community in Sula and Everyday Use - Essay Example

29 May Social Tensions within the African American Community in Sula and “Everyday Use” African American communities experienced continuous struggles with freedom and autonomy, even after the Declaration of Independence, because many white people in power tried to preserve the status quo. Morrison’s Sula and Walker’s “Everyday Use” intersected the period of the 1960s as their settings, the time of the Civil Rights Movement. Sula, nevertheless, started on 1919, when Helene Wright and Eva Peace were both beginning their lives as parents. Sula and Nel became best friends, but their friendship was not enough to satisfy Sula’s rebelliousness. In “Everyday Use,” Dee, the more modern and confident daughter, was considered as the rebel. Despite her education and pride for her African heritage, Walker (1973) portrayed her as the antagonist of the story. Both stories offered insights about the social tensions present in post-war America and the contradictions present in African American identity, but they also differed because Walker (1973) argued that modern African American identities should respect African American traditions, while Morrison (1973) questioned the strict boundaries of African American traditions that stifle individual differences. From the 1910s to the 1960s, racial tensions continued to divide America along racial lines, which psychologically damaged many African Americans, thereby hurting their opportunities for happiness and freedom. In “Every day Use,” Walker (1973) explored the subtle and overt racial prejudice and discrimination in society. As Mama imagined herself being in Johnny Carson’s show, she asked herself: “Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye?” (Walker, 1973). This question underlined the inferiority that she felt and accepted as part of her life. After slavery, Mama felt intense fear for the white race. She distrusted them because of what they had done to her people. She described how it was like to speak with white people: “It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them” (Walker, 1973). Nevertheless, it is interesting in this story that Dee was also characterized with “whiteness.” Walker (1973) said: “She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid.” The white heels signify her whiteness, which is not on her skin, but in her mind and attitudes. Mama and Maggie belonged to the poor rural class, and they knew their place. They were even already comfortable with their social position. Dee, however, aimed to completely change her identity and stamp out her rural roots. Her white heels signified that she wanted to take a different path from what Mama and Maggie had taken. She took the white route of empowerment through education and differentiating herself from her rural family and background. Sula also demonstrated racial social tensions. In 1919, black World War I veteran and Medallion local, Shadrack, experienced psychological trauma. Next year, after the hospital discharged him, he carried a cowbell and noose, and walked through Medallion saying that he offered them their “only chance to kill themselves” (Morrison, 1973). He launched the National Suicide Day. This day represents the death of freedoms for all blacks, because of their continued subjugated social status. In words, they were free, but in essence, they remained slaves because of the absence of access to civil rights. These stories shared the same exploration of the intense division within the African American psyche, because of the transition from slavery to freedom and from collectivity to individuality. They were similar because they both explored the practices of exclusion and inclusion within the African American community (Venkatesan & Neelakantan, 2008). Sula examined the way African American communities both included and excluded those members who have breached community mores or who have become dislocated in ways that they are forced to live in the moral or social margins (Jones, 1993, p. 615). Sula and Nel reflected sisterhood and their diverging African American families. The Wright household was a middle-class and nuclear family, while the Peace household was more folk-centered and extended (Jones, 1993, p. 615). Because of their different family backgrounds, they chose different future paths. Nel decided to follow the traditional path of marriage and raising a family, while Sula became a sexually liberated woman. Shadrack was dislocated from Medallion, because he believed that to be an African American is suicide. Shadrack, nevertheless, was an accepted member of society, who signified the driving force of collective movement for autonomy. Eva Peace stood for the folk traditions and strength of the African American matriarchy. Without a husband, she tried to raise a family with dignity. Racial division within the African American community was also present in “Everyday Use.” Dee came back to her family’s house with a renewed sense of appreciation for her rural heritage. All of a sudden, she loved her rural life, but only because of the artifacts they represented. For her, her family was an antique relic too. This thinking divided her from Maggie and Dee who continued to live in the traditional manner. Dee thought that they were wasting their lives by remaining ignorant, but for Mama and Maggie, they liked and enjoyed their lives the way it was. Hence, the clash between traditions and modernity is pervasive too in “Everyday Use.” Social detachment deserves further analysis, in that it resulted to fragmented and tormented identities for Sula and to some extent, for Dee too. Sula had a rose birthmark and who experienced not having an identity. Sula claimed “absolute freedom,” which is symbolized by her mark (Jones, 1993, p. 615). She killed Chicken Little, as part of “Cain’s act,” which she did because she felt that her mother rejected her (Jones, 1993, p. 615). That mark, nevertheless, differentiated her from her community, and she experienced mourning and memory, so that she could find and characterize her identity (Jones, 1993, p. 615). Jones (1993) described Sula as a “rejected child who becomes a woman who refuses to be defined by anyone except herself, sits apart as Chicken is mourned and, later, dies alone” (p.616). Sula denied herself, while also denying her sense of identity and place in her community (Jones, 1993, p. 616). In addition, as Sula grew up, the birthmark on her eye transformed. When she was thirteen, the rose developed a stem, and as Sula grew older, the mark became darker. People negatively interpreted this mark. Nel’s children believed that the mark is “scary black thing” (Morrison, 1973, pp.97-98), and Jude, who got angry that Sula would not partake in the “milkwarm commiseration,” asserted that Sula had a “copperhead” over her eye (Morrison, 1973, p. 103). The community also labeled Sula for her evil ways, as they “cleared up for everybody the meaning of the birthmark over her eye; it was not a stemmed rose, or a snake, it was Hannah’s [Sula’s mother’s] ashes marking her from the very beginning” (Morrison, 1973, p. 114). Net believed that the mark provided Sula’s glimpse “a suggestion of startled pleasure” (Morrison, 1973, p. 96). Only Shadrack distinguished the mark as a symbol of Sula's developing self: “She,” he thinks, “had a tadpole over her eye” (Morrison, 1973, p. 156). Unfortunately, when she did develop, she developed away from her community who did not accept her for who she is- a lost and fragmented girl. Dee was also a tormented soul, but she was in great denial of the affliction inside her spirit. Even in the beginning, she showed her psychological difference with the rural folk as she watched her house burn. Mama knew that Dee hated their house, because it marked their poverty and what she considered a backward lifestyle and culture: “I [Dee] her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red, hot brick chimney” (Walker, 1973). She added in her thoughts: “Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much” (Walker, 1973). Dee symbolized the black woman who hated her roots, and in essence, she also hated a part of her identity. This may be the reason why she was always looking for herself somewhere else. She thought she found it when she went to college and became a Muslim. She believed she was more African than her family, because she acquired an African name. But her identity was a shallow representation of her identity. She believed she was anchored to something that was strong, modern, and progressive, and yet the strength of resolve of Mama, which showed when she gave the quilts to Maggie, represented the true African American in the story. Walker (1973) demonstrated that African American identities differ and those who preferred the older life may be better off than those who struggle against their traditions. The stories differed, because Walker (1973) argued that modern African American identities should respect African American traditions, while Morrison (1973) questioned the strict boundaries of African American traditions that stifle individual differences. Sula and Dee both believed that they were complete on their own. Sula Peace appeared to be a “complete self” (Jones, 1993, p. 616). Her birthmark seemed to verify this completeness and divergence, which differentiated her from other “heavy brown” (Morrison, 1973, p. 52). But the story proved that she was also broken, because her community gave her pariah status. No one accepted her sexual liberation and the blacks saw Sula as an evil presence. Venkatesan and Neelakantan (2008) argued that: “Morrison not only offers insights into the foundational tensions and social divide separating African Americans and Irish Americans but also subtly captures the contradictions surrounding the notion of American citizenship itself” (p.114). Sula and Dee were different because Sula used her sexuality to create her own memories and identity. Sexuality becomes a location of memory, but “not one of meeting” (Jones, 1993, p. 616). For Sula, sexuality becomes a place where “she recovers the self that her mother took away, the self on which she can depend” (Jones, 1993, p. 616). It presented the way to feel and grieve for the death of her displaced self (Jones, 1993, p. 616). Cowart (1996) stressed that “Everyday Use” signified the struggle between two contrasting viewpoints in heritage and race, where Dee, in spite of her learning and Africanization, could never truly appreciate. These contrasting images of heritage and race were shown in Maggie and Dee. Maggie was comparable to the quilts that Dee desired: traditionally African, but quite simple and “used.” Butler, Shackelford, and Humphrey (2001) concurred with Cowart and emphasized that “Everyday Use” examined “issues of identity and true cultural awareness” (p.4) and they condemned the “hyper-Africanism...during the 1960’s and 1970’s as false and shallow” (p.4). Hence, Walker (1973) justified the continuation of traditions, while Morrison (1973) lamented the loss of individuality in a mass of collectivity. Morrison’s Sula and Walker’s “Everyday Use” similarly expose the problems of racial prejudice and discrimination in the 1960s. Furthermore, they characterized the division that fragmented African American identities. Morrison (1973) showed that the community broke Sula by treating her differently, because of her mark. She seemed to justify the rebelliousness of Sula as part of her creation of her individuality. Walker (1973), on the contrary, promoted the values of African heritage, in the exact ways the traditional Africans wanted to protect it. It does not matter if the traditional artifacts were damaged, because Africanism was part of their lived experiences (Walker, 1973). Hence, these stories had diverse views on the role of individualism and collectivism in the narratives of post-war African Americans. Works Cited Butler, R.R., Shackelford, D. D., & Humphrey, T.C. (2001). Alice Walker. Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition, 1-7. Cowart, D. (1996). “Heritage and deracination in Walker's Everyday Use.” Studies in Short Fiction, 33 (2), 171-185. Jones, C.M. (1993). Sula and Beloved: Images of Cain in the novels of Toni Morrison. African American Review, 27 (4), 615-626. Morrison, T. (1973). Sula. New York: Plume. Venkatesan, S. & Neelakantan, G. (2008). “Morrison's Sula.” Explicator, 66 (2), 113-115. Walker, A. (1973). Everyday use. 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