Response to the Injustice System in Toni Morrisons Sula...

The language, the imagery, the themes, the characters, everything in Toni Morrisons Sula, touches my heart. I want these people to win, to know goodness in their lives, to stop being small. I want the loud and long cry of rage which has no bottom or top with circles and circles of sorrow to end (Sula 174). Morrison embraces the political aspects of her work without apology and freely admits to desiring to emote a reader response. She maintains, the best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time (Rootedness 345). Without question, Morrison is able to do both. In her analogy, comparing our place as readers of her writing to that of the congregation†¦show more content†¦Not until more than two years later did the enslaved people of Texas learn that they were free. The word came on June 19th, 1865. (Banks 444) Morrison has two purposes in drawing our attention to this marker. It shows the integrity of the government that takes two and a half years for Texas slaves to learn they are free. The second is to question how far the African Americans have come in a hundred years of freedom. Vietnam is heating up, and Black troops are among the many called to fight the war. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws segregation in public places and makes it illegal to deny a person a job on the basis of gender, age or skin color (556). Another victory is won when The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passes, guaranteeing the right of all Americans to vote (557). Finally, African Americans have a voice in their future. It only took a hundred years after the ending of slavery to have these critical rights. Despite all the mandated change, discrimination continues; and Malcolm X, a volatile leader who fought for African American rights, is assassinated. Promises coupled with death and dying. Nothing changing: every thing changing. Hope dying, and the need is to mark the occasion with a cry of rage. Mirroring the difficult times, Morrisons characters in Sula are not prepared to live in the world presented to them. When they are freed from slavery,