Essay On The Birthmark In Toni Morrison's Sula

Set high up in the hills of a small Ohio town, the Bottom, the novel Sula, written by Toni Morrison, symbolically represents each character’s view of the birthmark across Sula’s face. The close-knit community of the Bottom creates an environment where scrutiny thrives upon one character, Sula. Sula leaves a lasting impression on each individual she comes in contact with while living in the Bottom. The distinctive birthmark receives various interpretations from the people who Sula interacts with, for each individual the birthmark is a representation of their own personal identity, rather than Sula herself.

Sula’s birthmark is first referenced as a stemmed rose in the year 1922. Sula’s birthmark is attributed as a stemmed rose from not only

Nel, her childhood best friend, but Morrison herself. A stemmed rose represents two different aspects into the character Sula. Morrison describes Sula’s appearance as “a heavy brown with large quiet eyes, one of which featured a birthmark that spread from the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed rose” (52).

A rose can indicate romance, it’s the flower of love, beauty, courage, and respect. Sula created a relationship with Nel that was full of love. Nel saw this love given to her in the rose shaped pigmentation on her friend’s face. However; the stem covered in thorns represents hurt and pain. When Sula returned to the Bottom 10 years after Nel’s wedding, “the rose mark over Sula’s eye gave [Nel] a glance of startled pleasure. It was darker then Nel remembered” (96). Over their years apart Sula’s birthmark has grown darker, indicating a change in her character. The darkened birthmark implies that over their time apart Nel has started to view Sula’s character in a darker way. In 1937 after Sula slept with Nel’s husband, Jude, Nel broke off their friendship. The year was 1940 when the two childhood friends would cross paths once again. Sula has become sick and Nel decided it was time to visit and check on her. This was “the first time in three years she would be looking at the stemmed rose that hung over the eye of her enemy,” Sula has now become an enemy to her once inseparable friend (139). Nel “would be facing the

black rose,” the rose that was once lively and full of love has now become as dark as black (139). The black stemmed rose symbolizes the death of their friendship and the pain suffered in result. The once stemmed rose that signified love and beauty has transitioned to a dark damaged representation of the friendship between Sula and Nel. The Transformation of the rose exemplifies how Nel has both good and bad characteristics herself. Nel herself may sometimes appear full of love and compassion but at others she encompasses dark characteristics which are represented in the darkening of the rose shaped birthmark.
Nel’s husband Jude had a dark viewing of Sula himself. Sula “this friend of his wife’s, this slight woman, not exactly plain, but not fine either,” had a “copperhead over her eye” (103).The copperhead is a venomous snake which implies Jude’s view of Sula is poisonous. A snake can represent temptation or deceitfulness. The description of Sula’s birthmark as a snake foreshadows the consequences of Sula’s role in Jude’s life. Jude implies that “Sula had an odd way of looking at things and that her wide smile took some of the sting from the rattlesnake over her eye” (104). Jude was tempted by the snake, represented over Sula’s eye, to sleep with her and discover why “she stirred a man’s mind” (104). His temptation led to his separation between himself and Nel, and Sula’s separation from Nel. The temptation Jude succumbed to when he slept with Sula gave insight into his one weakness. Jude himself was deceitful in way as he was fraudulent about his true values to himself. He was not truly a loyal husband or family man. As a man who always put his good values and family first, he inevitably was tempted, which then destroyed his connection to his family. The poisonous snake represented Jude’s true identity. Jude was the poison that separated not only Nel and himself, but the two girls, Nel and Sula. He was the poisonous bite that deteriorated the relationship between them.
The townspeople did not have a positive relationship with Sula either, which is what led them to the view her birthmark in an unfavorable light. The people of the Bottom described her as “a roach” and “a bitch” (112). Much like her mother, Hannah, Sula didn’t like the thought of being tied down. The townspeople hated the fact Sula took interest in their men and then “ditched [them] for others” (112). She would sleep with a man and then move on to the next one without a second thought, which consequently offended many of the women in the Bottom. The townspeople began to blame Sula for everything that went wrong in the town. Sula was blamed for pushing a little boy, Teapot, down her steps and for the death of Mr. Finley, who was sitting “on his porch sucking chicken bones . . . looked up, saw Sula, choked on the bone and died on the spot.” (114).These two incidents, for which Sula had no responsibility for, led to the town creating their own meaning of Sula’s birthmark. Sula’s birthmark “was not a stemmed rose, or a snake, it was Hannah’s ashes marking her from the very beginning” (114). Sula was marked by her mother’s identity from the very beginning, meaning that this birthmark is what led to all the problems in the town since Sula’s birth. The town uses Sula as an excuse for the blame of their own personal issues and insecurities.
On the contrary, not everyone in the town blamed Sula for any mishaps in the world. Shadrack, the town’s WWII veteran and local fisherman, was known to be uncivilized and extremely orderly. His first interaction with Sula came after the drowning incident of the little boy Chicken Little. Sula ran to his house after the accident had happened, she was “a visitor, his only one” (157). Shadrack looked at Sula and saw that “she had a tadpole over her eye (that was how he knew she was a friend—she had the mark of the fish he loved)” (156). The tadpole is the young form of an amphibian, much like a child is the young form of an adult. This represents not only Sula’s innocence as a young child, but the innocence in Shadrack as an adult. Shadrack seeks comfort in Sula’s birthmark, he has been out casted by the Bottom but he feels comforted by the little girl he found at his door who is also out casted by the town. The birthmark is a reflection of the innocence still found in war torn Shadrack and his fisherman lifestyle.
It is evident that Sula’s birthmark plays a major role in the novel. Morrion’s emphasis on Sula’s birthmark throughout the novel justifies the importance of characters being able to find their true identities. Consequently the characters retaliate against their personal issues on Sula which leads them to view her in a misconceived manor. Sula’s birthmark is simply just darkened skin pigmentation. How the characters interpret the mark reveals how they truly feel of themselves. The various perceptions of Sula’s birthmark give insight into how unique of an individual she is. The novel, Sula, demonstrates just how quickly people are to judge one another and how often times blind judgements can cause misconceptions of another’s character.