Blog Post 6
I was not expecting Sula to start the way it did, but I think I understand why. "1919" was about National Suicide Day and the story of Shadrack and how he founded this day. I was surprised the story started like this, I don't really know what I was expecting but when the first line I read was talking about suicide awareness I was brought back a little. Relating to today's society, suicide has become one of the leading causes of death. This story takes place in the early 1900's I feel like shows how some things change while others don't. For example, in "1920" Helene mentions the bathroom for colors. Although racism still greatly exists, times have definitely changed for the better in regard to race. However, with suicide, it has only gotten worse. In the chapter "1919" the story of Shadrack made me think of how many people there are that have PTSD and that suffer from depression and thoughts of suicide who went to war. Along with the people who did kill themself. I found this chapter to be eye-opening reading in today's society because the world has changed greatly but the topics that are touched on in this story thus far are prominent in today's world.
I definitely agree with Angela's post regarding Morrison's attempt to purposefully make the reader uncomfortable right from the get go. Not many stories start so shockingly, but by opening the story in such a shocking, uncomfortable way, Morrison can instantly give readers the same uneasy feeling the inhabitants of the Bottom feel on a daily basis. I also agree that some things change and others do not, and that Morrison wanted to highlight this, but Angela's post got me thinking about whether or not suicide really is worse now, as opposed to when the opening of the novel takes place. Certainly we are more aware of suicide among marginalized communities like the black people living in the Bottom. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the bulk of the population did not care about the conditions minorities endured, and they certainly did not care if they lived or died, and how it happened. In fact, we see this demonstrated in the novel when the white man finds Chicken Little's body, and remarks (I'm paraphrasing) that if it hadn't been a child's body, he would have left it in the river. Angela's post did a great job of making me think about the ways we have changed as a society, and the ways we have remained the same.














