Sula: Crash Course Literature 309 - YouTube (2)

But Sula reminds us that there are losses and gains in any choice, and that the binary of the extraordinary life and the ordinary one is treacherous and profoundly false.

And this is even more profoundly true for people living within systems of oppression.

Morrison later wrote of Sula, “Hanna, Nel, Eva, Sula were points of a cross – each one a choice for characters bound by gender and race.”

In the end, she wrote, “…the only possible triumph was that of the imagination.”

So, what might a triumph of the imagination look like?

Well, we can see it in Nel and Sula's enduring connection – the intensity of their friendship,

the violence of their betrayals, and the power of their mutual recognition.

Sula eulogizes a community in which African Americans bonded together to withstand economic, social, and psychological hardships.

But it's hardly an idealized community.

There's violence within it, as well as scapegoating.

Places are not merely good or merely bad any more than people are.

Morrison's characters, like her places, are troubled and triumphant, weak and strong,

joyful and heartbreaking, but they're never just one thing or the other.

And what makes Sula a masterpiece is its refusal to give in to the seductions of simplification.

Instead, it depicts the complexities and richness of human connection.

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This is the last of our Literature miniseries, by the way.

Coming up next: Human Geography is way more fascinating than you might think.

Thanks again for watching, and as we say in my hometown, "Don't Forget To Be Awesome."