“The summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. And the boys” (Morrison 56).
When I first read this passage, I was swept away by how beautifully written it was. It is just like the season it’s describing—intense, laid-back and smooth. Sentences or books about summer always really get to me. It’s because I’m a summer girl and always have been since I was really young. Summers are a time of promise, of learning and making fun mistakes, of rebelling, and a time for adventure. I like how the author, Toni Morrison, uses the phrase “limp with the weight of blossomed things.” It’s as if there is so much possibility and transition in the summer months that the season can barely hold itself up. I pictured a scale here. Winter, fall, and spring are all balanced on the scale. However, when the steamy, heavy but light months of June, July, and August come along, the scale goes nuts.
This brief passage relates to every summer I’ve had in my twenty years of living. Some summers run together a little bit, but most of them are full of new, spontaneous adventures. I always hung out with two of my best friends from home during the summers and do anything random we could think of. It’s great how the author mentions boys. Each summer—even up to our senior year in high school—we would write in a special book. My best friend Samantha bought the book from a now closed toy store on the Plaza when we were in middle school. It was a plushy plastic material, pink, and was a sort of memory book. There were pages with certain categories on them and we’d write our name and what our answer was for the category question. The passage above made me smile, because about three-fourths of the book was questions about boys. For instance, one of the categories was “cutest boy.” Chasing and flirting boys were definitely a key part of summer. Boys were a lot of the adventure.
The passage kind of relates to the theme of the cycle of life and personal growth Sula brings up. To me, it seems that Morrison is using seasons to show the changes in all the characters.
“Nel and Jude, who had been the stars all during the wedding, were forgotten finally as the reception melted into a dance, a feed, a gossip session, a playground and a love nest. They began to dance, pressed in among the others, and each one turned his thoughts to the night that was coming on fast” (Morrison 85).
Morrison described the wedding perfectly. I like how she said it was melted. That’s how a lot of weddings are. The wedding and the reception tend to go by so fast that it is kind of like a blur. But when I read it, I was happy. I really like Nel’s character a lot.
This section reminded me of my brother’s wedding in Jamaica last June. After they got married at our resort, we all ate at the outside eatery that night. The air was balmy, sweet and everything did kind of blend together. People in colorful outfits, the music, and the laughter was all stirred up together into a pot of happiness.
I think the above passage is foreshadowing a theme that is to come. I read the back of the book summary, and it says that Nela and Sula grow apart for circumstances. I think that Nela’s happiness in life may have something to do with it.
1 comment:
That's an intersting thought about Sula's leaving town having to do with Nel's happiness. Maybe Sula couldn't handle seeing Nel with something that she did not have. Maybe she felt replaced by Jude in a way as well. It is clear at the end of the novel that Sula had not been replaced by Jude, when Nel is walking away from the graveyard, realizing that the grey cloud of lonliness was indeed Sula, not Jude. It meant that after Sula had slept with Jude, causing him to leave, it wasn't Jude that she missed but Sula. It shows how strong their friendship really was that even after Sula had slept with her husband, Nel still misses her more than her husband.
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