Response to reading for 18 July

The first passage that I'd like to respond to is when Helene smiles on the train. "Then, for no earthly reason, at least no reason that anybody could understand, certainly no reason that Nel understood then or later, she smiled. Like a street pup that wags its tail at the very doorjamb of the butcher shop he has been kicked away from only moments before, Helene smiled. Smiled dazzlingly and coquettishly at the salmon-colored face of the conductor." I think that it's interesting that the only people whose reactions to Helen's smile aren't described are herself and the person the smile was directed at (the conductor). The only effects of Helene's smile were embarrassment and anger. All Helene accomplished was cheapening herself and her race. Although I understand the embarrassment and the anger, I also believe I sympathize with Helene. I'm not trying to justify what she did, but I think she was out of options. I believe she was searching for something to latch on to, something that would allow her to maintain some sense of pride, even though all she ended up doing was degrading herself and her sex. Stuff like this happens to me a lot more than it should. One example that comes to mind is when I broke up with my last boyfriend. I wasn't terribly upset about the breakup, but I think I felt like I was losing something that was part of me and I wanted to make sure that I had a life of my own outside of the relationship. So, after we broke up, I called a boy I had dated in high school who I knew (unfortunately for him... I told you girls can be manipulative) still liked me and tried to tell myself that, since he still liked me, it was good for me to talk to him and make him feel better. In truth, I was being disgustingly sneaky and selfish and I was actually caring about him less by talking to him and not giving him the space he needed to get over our relationship, but at the time I thought that I could use what we used to have in order to feel better about myself. I realize none of you know me that well, so I hope you don't think I'm some evil, conniving psychopath.... Even though this passage draws vivid images and conveys pretty clear messages about why it wasn't ok for Helene to smile at the conductor, I think it's maybe most sad to think about the reasons that Helene smiled, even if Nel couldn't think of any. If we weren't supposed to think about the reasons, I don't think Morrison would have drawn the sentence about not knowing the reasons out for so long.

The next passage that stood out to me was when Hannah asks Eva if Eva loved her children and Eva launches into this huge speech about how she showed her love by keeping them fed and alive. I guess if I had to quote a small part of the passage that stuck out to me, it would be at first when Eva replies to Hannah's questions with, "No. I don't reckon I did. Not the way you thinkin'." Then she turns it around and says, "Them big old eyes in your head would a been two holes full of maggots if I hadn't." The passage makes me think about the different kinds of love in the story. Eva loved her children, and the only way she had time to show them was by keeping them fed and... well... you guys know what she did in the outhouse with Plum. Sick. In any case, I think that a modern misconception tells us that love is something natural and something that feels good and something with conditions. I also think that people expect to be loved the same way they love others, and that's not always the case. I haven't read this book, but I know people who have read a book about the "love languages" and how some people only want you to show you care about them by spending time with them. Others want to be touched and others want gifts and other stuff. What it comes down to is that we all have different ideas of what love is. I've actually been doing a kind of study about love lately and I've been learning some interesting things. The assignment schedule asks for personal stories, so here's my two cents.... Perfect love is a lot of things, and Jesus is the only human example of it that we have. Love is self-sacrificing and it serves the Beloved and that's what Eva was doing when she was working to feed her kids. I'm not saying that, today, a man who doesn't spend any time with his children because he's working all the time is blameless. Children need love in a lot of ways, and not only monetary, but I think Eva was loving her children in the only way she knew how. I also don't necessarily support the pride she seems to take in her sacrifice. Without going into more of this Bible study on love, I think it's interesting how love can be so circumstantial in society. It's all about perspective to us, when it should really be about thinking about the person we love. We're not perfect though, eh? Anyways, I think I've had similar experiences in relationships. I remember when my first boyfriend moved away and I was angry because he never cried about it and I didn't understand how he could not cry if he was upset, but he had already moved almost every year of his life before that and he was probably more upset about it than I was; he just had a different way of showing it. Some of the ways that my love for other people has come out in my life hasn't necessarily been in what our culture would consider loving behavior. I have had to cut off relationships with people (like the boy from my example in the first passage) because I loved them too much to hurt them by letting them rely on me. I have loved people by going with them to places that I really didn't want to go because I wanted them to know that I supported them. I think that love has been especially difficult in black society since it was for so long rewarded only by the ripping apart of families etc. The love in Sula, I believe, runs deeper than the love that we think always feels so good. It makes me kind of excited to read the second half of the book.