Use of Language in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
In her novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Dominican author Julia Alvarez demonstrates how words can become strange and lose their meaning. African American writer Toni Morrison in her novel Sula demonstrates how words can wound in acts of accidental verbal violence when something is overheard by mistake. In each instance, one sees how the writer manipulates language, its pauses and its silences as well as its words, in order to enhance the overall mood of each work.
In Toni Morrison's Sula, the reader meets the protagonist, Sula, and her friend Nel when both girls are roughly twelve years old. Both girls are black, intelligent, and dreaming of their future. Early on in the novel, two events occur which change Sula's worldview. First of all, she overhears a conversation in which her mother says that she loves Sula, but she does not like her (Morrison 57). Sula is deeply wounded by the off hand remark.
Soon afterwards, she and Nel are playing near the river when they encounter another friend-Chicken Little. The children begin to play together. Sula is swinging Chicken Little around when she accidentally knocks him into the river. "The pressure of his hand and tight little fingers were still in Sula's palms as she stood looking at the closed place in the water. They expected him to come back up, laughing" (Morrison 61).
This incident, combined with what feels to Sula like her mother's rejection, cause the child to turn away from the conventions of society and to avoid even the trauma of her own emotional reactions. Morrison writes that Sula was:
As willing to feel pain as to give pain, to feel pleasure as to give pleasure, hers was a...
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...cess that led from the Garcia girls' past to their present. In so doing, Alvarez illustrates the realities of assimilation for the Garcia family. It is a poignant story as Alvarez dramatizes the multiple complexities that permeate family life, but it remains a story of ordinary life-not tragedy.
Morrison's book, on the other hand, is a tragedy. Sula becomes trapped in a downwardly spiraling cycle of negativity that causes her to become the personification of evil in her community of Medallion. It is not until Sula commits suicide, and her consciousness lives on that she fully realizes that she was not intrinsically evil, but that there is good and evil in everyone (Morrison 146). Thus, it can be seen that while there are similarities between these two novels in their basic orientation, the way that each author uses language results in very different perspectives.
Martinez’s story is not so much one that pieces together the events of the crash, nor the lives of the three youths, but it is an immigrant’s tale, discovered through the crossings of the various Chavez family members and profiles of Cheranos in Mexico.
Toni Morrison’s novel Sula is rich with paradox and contradiction from the name of a community on top of a hill called "Bottom" to a family full of discord named "Peace." There are no clear distinctions in the novel, and this is most apparent in the meaning of the relationship between the two main characters, Sula and Nel. Although they are characterized differently, they also have many similarities. Literary critics have interpreted the girls in several different ways: as lesbians (Smith 8), as the two halves of a single person (Coleman 145), and as representations of the dichotomy between good and evil (Bergenholtz 4 of 9). The ambiguity of these two characters allows for infinite speculation, but regardless of how the reader interprets the relationship their bond is undeniable. The most striking example of their connection occurs right before the accidental death of Chicken Little. In the passage preceding his death, Nel and Sula conduct an almost ceremonial commitment to one another that is sealed permanently when "the water darkened and closed quickly over the place where Chicken Little sank" (Morrison 61):
This book is a story about 4 sisters who tell their stories about living on an island in the Dominican Republic , and then moving to New York . What is different about this book is the fact that you have different narrators telling you the story , jumping back and forth from past to present . This is effective because it gives you different view point’s from each of the sisters . It may also detract from the narrative because of the fact that it’s confusing to the reader . This is a style of writing that has been recognized and analyzed by critics . Julia Alvarez is a well- known writer and in a way , mirrors events that happened in her own life , in her book . Looking into her life , it show’s that she went through an experience somewhat like the sisters . I interviewed an immigrant , not from the same ethnic back ground as the sisters , but a Japanese immigrant . This was a very
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
The symbiotic nature between Sula and Nel began during their adolescent years. Sula depended upon Nel for sturdiness and comfort, while Nel preferred the unpredictable nature of her counterpart. They used the other's lifestyle to compensate for their shortcomings by placing themselves in the other's surroundings. When Sula visited Nel's home, "Nel, who regarded the oppressive neatness with dread, felt comfortable in it, with Sula" (Morrison 29). In the same way, Sula found comfort within the walls of the Wright home. They took solace in each other's presence. Each one finds comfort i...
Conformity and defying social norms were a common theme this week. In Toni Morrison’s book Sula, Sula Peace actively opposes gender roles. She does this by doing what she would like to do without the burden of her town’s expectations. Sula enjoyed sex and disregarded all of the opinions of the townspeople around committing adultery. Eli commented that it was even more unacceptable in that time period, but Sula’s main priority is being authentic. Even though she urged men to cheat she was still a risk taker and lived spontaneously, which was even more forbidden for a black woman and like Lauren said, the men were also to blame, not just Sula. Not many people in the Bottom share that trait because they are afraid of social isolation. For example, Nel didn’t stray far from the status quo due to her upbringing. Nel’s mother taught her to be proper and follow the set of rules given to her. Her mother often reminded her to “pull her nose” (28) so Nel could have a more appealing nose. On the other hand, Sula lived in an unconventional household with a constant flow of different people coming and going out of the house. Since she was not exposed to a father figure, she was not tainted by patriarchal expectations of the genders. She didn’t witness
The frustratingly reminiscent tone encompassed in Julia Alvarez’s “Bilingual Sestina” works to emphasize the author’s difficulties of assimilating into a new culture. When she looks back and reflects on her past memories in her hometown, she yearns for the same simplistic lifestyle. Correspondingly, the constant repetition of the six end words further expresses her conflictions as she must fuse together two different cultures to truly find her identity.
Toni Morrison clearly depicts an opposing view of the traditional symbolization of the rose. Although Sula is not frail and beautiful, she is still set on a pedestal. Instead of people admiring her, they fear her and the life she leads. The use her as an excuse to lead better lives. However, when she dies, the Bottom falls apart. The people no longer have a common bond of hatred towards Sula. Reality befalls the community with Sula's death. At first, the Bottom seems content with Sula's death, however, "[people of the Bottom] returned to a steeping resentment of the burdens of old people. Wives uncoddled their husbands; there seemed no further need to reinforce their vanity" (153-4). The town no longer has a rose to blame their mishaps. Instead, they must face up to their reality and their misfortune.
Sula by Toni Morrison is a very complex novel with many underlying themes. Some of the themes that exist are good and evil, friendship and love, survival and community, and death. In Marie Nigro's article, "In Search of Self: Frustration and Denial in Toni Morrison's Sula" Nigro deals with the themes of survival and community. According to Nigro, "Sula celebrates many lives: It is the story of the friendship of two African-American women; it is the story of growing up black and female; but most of all, it is the story of a community" (1). Sula contains so many important themes that it is hard to say which one is the most important. I agree with Marie Nigro when she says that Sula is a story about community. I believe that community and how the community of Bottom survives is an important theme of the story. But I do not believe that it is a central theme of the story. When I think back on the novel Sula in twenty years, I will remember the relationship and friendship between Nel and Sula. I will not remember the dynamics of the community.
They began to lose touch with each other. Nel got married and Sula left because she claimed there was nothing left for her in the Bottom, since Nel is a devoted mother and wife. Sula felt as if Nel was putting her on the sidetrack instead of the main road, which hurt her a little. According to society every woman’s main desire should be toward creating life and building a family. This is a true statement in many cases; however, when it comes to Sula it is far from it. Nel is the definition of the ideal woman while Sula is not. Sula doesn’t desire to have children or get married, her main concern is her and Nel’s friendship. When Sula loses her relationship with Nel because Nel builds a symbiotic relationship with someone else Sula is now willing to leave and find a new life somewhere else. Ten years later she returns to the Bottom because she didn’t find what she was looking for. Sula comes back a little upset to find out that her best friend is just as boring as all the other women in town. She is now doing the same exact thing as everyone, she “had given herself over to them” (Morrison, 118). Nel’s promise she made when she was child was broken the day she married Jude Green. She promised that she was going to become herself. He is the exact same as Wiley Wright, Nel’s father, both of them are more concerned with economic success rather than family
In Sula, there was no other character that had a greater impact in the narrative like Eva Peace. Eva, who is one of the few characters that survived Toni Morrison’s creative onslaught of murders, faced many challenges and played various roles in the novel. In Sula, Eva is seen as a self-sacrificing mother who goes to the greatest extents to save her children. Her self-sacrifice is what saved her children while they were young. She amputated her own leg to feed and provide for them. Eva is also seen as a person who nurtures life and also takes it. In Sula, Eva, in a sense, becomes a mother to many individuals. She cares for them and feeds them just like they were her own. She also acts selflessly toward her youngest, Plum, who becomes a heroin addiction. She lights Plum on fire not because of spite, but because she loves him too much to see him as a drug addict. What is so significant about Eva’s character is that the reader must thoroughly analyze Eva to understand the rationality of her actions.
Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye provides social commentary on a lesser known portion of black society in America. The protagonist Pecola is a young black girl who desperately wants to feel beautiful and gain the “bluest eyes” as the title references. The book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.
Through the negative experiences that she has had with motherhood, Sula does not want to become a mother. She sees Hannah’s sadness and frustration with Eva and recognizes her poor relationship with Hannah and does not want to repeat it. Sula’s insufficient relationship with her mother is exposed when Sula watched her mother burn and die. Sula does not attempt to help her mother, she only stands silently and watches her mother die. Eva notices this but, “remained convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested” (78). This shows her lack of care for motherhood. She does not have kids and dies without having any. But during her life, she ends up in a similar situation as her mother She focuses only on men and people begin to hate her for this. She begins to take friends’ and neighbors’ husbands the same way Hannah did. Sula even turned on her only friend, Nel, and took her husband too. She is the reason that Nel’s husband left her. Sula adopted the same principles as her mother, and Hannah was shaped by Eva.
There are many aspects of story that come together to create a complete narrative. A lot of the tools used by writers are intentional and serve the purpose of driving home certain aspects of the story or creating and engaging, and entertaining narrative. Toni Morrison—the author of Sula—is no different. Morrison employs many writing techniques and tools in her narrative Sula. It is important for the reader to be aware of and understand some of these narrative tools that the author uses because it allows the reader to gain a better understanding and appreciation for the narrative. In Sula a few narrative techniques that allow for the argument of women experiences to shine through are the use of a third person narrator, and gaps; throughout the story these tools allow the reader to become interested in and focus in on women experiences.
America has been described by various terms such as melting pot and tossed salad, but what these terms are trying to convey is that America is a country of great diversity. The literature of this country reflects its population in its diversity of genres, themes, language, and voices. One of these voices is Toni Morrison, an author who knows and appreciates the power of language, and uses it. In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech she states, "The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers". The "vitality of language" of which Morrison speaks, may very well be the soul of the American novel, or at the very least, the soul of Morrison's novels, such as Sula, Beloved, and The Bluest Eye.