Rewarding Evil and Punishing Good in Society: Sula vs The Education of Little Tree - Book Report/Review Example

Rewarding evil and punishing good in the society: a Synthesis of Sula and The Education of Little Tree In most cases, society finds itself punishing the good and rewarding evil. This act may not be blamed on the part of the society, but on the nature of evil and good that confuses the way society view the two binary oppositions. In this essay, two books namely; Sula by Toni Morrison and The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter will be analyzed. The two controversial books recount their stories that revolve around good and evil. In Sula, there are two parts that are set within the same narrative. Sula recounts a story of two childhood friends; Sula and Nel. In the course of the narrative, something strange happens when they were young; two girls played with a neighborhood child named Chicken Little. As Sula was swinging him around his hands, Chicken Little accidentally slips into a river and is drowned. The two girls decided not to tell anyone. From then on, Sula lives a life of self blame and she always considers herself evil and lives evil life, but Nel considers herself noble because she was not the one involved in Chicken Little’s death (Smith 185). She lives a positive life and embraces propriety and goodness. In the whole narrative, it is clear that the lives of both women are determined and shaped by the views they hold of themselves. The Education of Little Tree is a story of a five year old boy whose mother dies, and he is later adopted by his Cherokee grandparents. The boy at that time had no name and, therefore, his grandmother names him Little Tree. Little Tree and his grandparents live in the Tennessee Mountains from which he is taught to trust his instincts and respect nature. In his life as the narrative recounts, Little Tree learns about the evils of the white business men and politicians. When the boy is taken to a white people’s school to be assimilated, he is overwhelmed by racism and his grandfather rescues him from the school’s cruelty. The interplay between good and evil has a common end in the two books. In Sula, the good and evil, represented by the characters of Nel and Sula respectively, are closely intertwined. Both women colluded to hide a secret in the story and at last, although Sula lives a desperate life of self blame, Nel hypocritically assumes a life of goodness (Smith 189). In The Education of Little Tree the writer of the memoirs is controversial in real life (Honnighausen & Gennaro 288). This book was highly acclaimed because of its antiracist critique and its recount of simple life, love of nature, and tradition. However, the truth of the book story was busted when Dan T. Carter, a distant cousin of the author and a professor of history reveled that Forrest Carter was the real Asa Carter's (Carter 1); a former member of Ku Klux Klan, a white racist supremacist movement that entrenched segregation. With this revelation, the novel requires a critical look given that the author tried to hide his identity as well as his beliefs in the name of displaying humanity in himself whereas he is among the most loathed white supremacists in history; a true incarnation of evil. Asa Earl Carter may have written this book as an atonement of his guilty side, and this brings out his racial hypocrisy. In this case, the author tried to bring about the issue of evil versus good. The evil side of him was physical, but his instincts, like the instincts of his personified character the Little Tree were instilled in his writing an anti white supremacist text and lived to claim that he was not Asa Carter (Honnighausen & Gennaro 290). His changing of name shows the struggle between the real, which was evil and the fake which was depicted in the book. At last, the good triumphs and the truth is revealed although he was dead by then. Like Nel in Sula, who lives his physical live as a good person and later realizes that she had been hypocritical, Carter’s person in his book is later revealed and the world knows the true identity of the writer (Honnighausen & Gennaro 291). In Sula, we see Nel come to terms with her hypocrisy when Sula’s grandmother engages her in a discussion about Chicken Little. After this discussion, Nel goes to Sula’s grave and realizes that Sula was terrified at Chicken Little’s death, which she never intended. Nel realizes that Sula blamed herself fully, but Nel never attempted to console her. Nel instead rejoiced and at this point, Nel realizes she is evil too and that unlike Sula who lived an honest live to herself, Nel has been living a hypocritical life of goodness. As the novel ends, we see Nel embracing the falseness in her life and appreciating the fact that Sula was her best friend and she encased goodness, not evil as the society thought. In conclusion, the two books have different narratives that critique the concept of good and evil. The underlying factor is that sometimes, what we are presented with as good may not be the actual truth of the matter. In Sula, the reader is meant to believe that Sula is an incarnation of evil and Nel is an archetype of goodness. However, their life which is shaped by the event of the Chicken Little’s accident tests their honesty in life. Sula lives to her truth self, but Nel rejects her true nature and pretends to the society. She is seen as good, but at last she comes to terms with the fact that she could be more evil than Sula. In The Education of Little Tree the story of the Little Tree constructs Carter as a humanist who could see the racism of the whites and critique its ethical value. However, we learn that he is a former lead white supremacist, who left politics and changed his name to conceal his identity and wrote a self atonement book, painting his past as that of a victim of racism, lover of nature and a good person. Although he tries to fight the true evil nature in him, it is later known world over that he was the evil Asa Earl Carter who belonged to the most unpopular white supremacist Ku Klux Klan. The two books are, therefore, an examination of how evil and good look alike in the eyes of the society while it takes time to know the truth. Sometimes, we realize the real good when we have already punished it or realize the evil when we have already rewarded it. Works Cited Carter, Dan. “The Transformation of a Klansman.” New York Times, October 4, 1991. Honnighausen, Lothar & Lerda Gennaro. “Southern History, American Fiction: The Secret Life of Southwestern Novelist Forrest Carter.” In Rewriting the South: History and Fiction. Tübingen: Francke, (1993): pp. 286-304. Smith, Barbara. “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism.” Women's Studies International Quarterly, 2.2 (1979): 183-194. Read More