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"Highly Political and Passionately Aesthetic:" How Toni Morrison's Use of the Uncanny Informs the Reading of Race Relations in Sula
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McCormick, Kathleen
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Spring 2019
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2019
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3677_molly.byron.pdf
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Toni Morrison's Sula features several haunting deaths that leave readers unsettled, not only by the deaths themselves, but by the text's attempt to repress the disturbing manner in which each occurs. The events are presented to us in an aesthetically and linguistically appealing manner, which lulls us into a state of comfort and denial about what we are witnessing until, at the last moment, the text brings to the surface the horrifying reality that has been lurking underneath. For example, it describes a woman burning to death in her yard as a "flaming, dancing figure" (76), allowing us to block out the excruciating pain she is experiencing until the fire is extinguished and she is left with "a mask of agony" (76). The text pulls us out of the complacency it has induced for a brief moment, forcing us to see its dreadful reality; then, before we can process its horror, the moment passes, leaving us without explanation or relief. Few, if any, critics have addressed this troubling element of Sula, which begs the question: what effect do these deaths have on readers that is so intolerable that even critics refuse to face it? The answer lies in the contrast between our perspective and that of the white characters in Sula: while our complacency is induced and then dramatically stripped away by the text so that we are deeply affected by the pain of black characters, the white observers in Sula never abandon their contentment with black pain, seeing only how they can profit from it. By placing readers in the position of both passive onlookers and sympathetic, emotionally affected witnesses, Morrison forces us to confront our own willingness to watch marginalized people suffer for the benefit of the dominant, which is a tremendously difficult reality to face.
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