Sula

Two characters die in fires—Plum and Hannah. The first is ignited alive after falling into a heroin-induced stupor, while the latter accidentally sets herself aflame while setting a bonfire. The first dies with relatively little pain, while the latter suffers mercilessly. The first dies privately, while the latter becomes a community spectacle. Fire, in the novel, is symbolic of sacrifice and renewal. Eva sets Plum on fire to avoid watching her most beloved child kill himself slowly. Her act, as perverse as it seems, is an attempt to wrest control from a situation that may have destroyed them both. Like Shadrack, Plum returned from war with psychic wounds he would not let anyone see. Unlike Shadrack, he was unable to find a way to cope with life and found succor in heroin.

Hannah’s burning, and Morrison’s gruesome details about the falling away of her flesh, highlight the fragility of the beauty on which Hannah relied. It was as though Ajax’s calls to Nel and Sula as “pigmeat” had come true. Hannah had been reduced to cooked flesh. However, her immolation also allowed Sula to come into being. No longer having a mother whose approval she would have to think about, as Nel did, she was free to become whoever she wanted.

Sula’s return to Medallion was heralded by the deaths of a slew of robins. Robins have significance in the folklore of various cultures—Celtic, Norse, indigenous American, and others. Its red breast has been the inspiration of numerous origin stories. Some claimed that the robin got its red mark after piercing itself on one of the thorn’s in Christ’s crown of thorns. During the Victorian era, the robin heralded the arrival of the Christmas season.

In the novel, this sign is an omen of the potential trouble that Sula will bring to a community that believes it lives in a relative degree of peace. Conversely, the arrival of the bird—both figuratively and literally—connotes the arrival of spring. Medallion will find itself renewed in numerous ways, many unexpected, by Sula’s return home.