I really enjoyed reading this book, and I agree that it's hard to pick just two quotations from it. But, the first one that stuck out to me in Part 2 was on page 127 where it describes why Ajax is interested in Sula. "Her elusiveness and indifference to established habits of behavior reminded him of his mother, who was stubborn in her pursuits of the occult as the woman of Greater Sait Matthew's were in the search for redeeming grace." This reminded me of our discussions of other readings in class, how men in the past prefered women who were passive, who fit cultural norms of what a woman shoudl be. The fact that Ajax is attracted to a woman who is independent, seemingly un-emotional and stubborn, shows that even during that time period men could appreciate those traits in a woman. It seems that the only reason men didn't appreciate those traits were because of the cultural norms that called for passive women. I really like the description of why Ajax fell for Sula, because it seemed like it was for real reasons, rather than because she fit the cut-out of the ideal woman of that time period.
The second quotation I found didn't pop out to me until the end of the book. It's on page 145 when Nel comes to see Sula when she is sick. Sula says, "Oh they'll love me all right, it will take time, but they'll love me." This quote comes full circle near the end of the novel after Sula's death. The cold takes over The Bottem, and once women don't have a reason to pay more care and attention to their reationships, they don't. Once Sula is gone, people don't have an example of someone they don't want their children to become, and therefore start beating them and overreacting about the smaller things. Everything that was expected to change for the better after Sula's death ended up changing for the worse, because they didn't have that extreme to compare things to. That's why the quote came full circle, because even before Sula died she knew that in the end, she would be appreciated.
The end of the book unveiled the underlying theme throughout the novel for me. I found that through all of the hardships and betrayl, Sula and Nel's friendship never went away. At the end, Nel realizes that the "grey fuzz" or cloud that is following her isn't a deep sadness over the absence of her husband, but sadness for the absence of Sula. It is evident that Sula felt the same way, because when Nel went to see her on her death bed there was a quotation that said "Leave it to Sula to pick up friendships exactly where they left off." This shows that Sula does not see Nel's relationship with her husband on the same level as their relationship. She doesn't feel that she's betrayed Nel because no relationship is stronger or more important than the one between her and Nel.
2 comments:
I liked that quote from Sula about how people would 'love' her long after she was dead for that whole list of reasons. I took it to mean more like Sula predicting far into the future, when everybody loses their 'morals' and start doing crazy stuff... that people would look back on her and think that the stuff she did was not so bad, and even like her for it. Which is kind of what you were saying too.. I just think she was being a little more abstract about it than just referring to the people in her town specifically.
I like how you showcased Nel and Sula's personalities in the last quote. Sula did seem to look at everything as a game. It was like she thought like that when she was messing around with Jude. Sula seems almost childlike in everything she does and doesn't see that her actions have a consequence. She doesn't even see or care about the consequeces. She just plows through life like nothing had happened.
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