Jolene Patricia Brown
Dr. Judith Rose
English 177
2 February 2010
Fear, Realization, Actualization: A Comparison of Nel and Newly-Free Slaves
Late that night after the fire was made, the cold supper eaten, the surface dust removed, Nel lay in bed thinking of her trip. She remembered clearly the urine running down and into her stockings until she learned how to squat properly; the disgust on the face of the dead woman and the sound of the funeral drums. It had been an exhilarating trip but a fearful one. She had been frightened of the soldiers' eyes on the train, the black wreath on the door, the custard pudding she believed lurked under her mother's heavy dress, the feel of unknown streets and unknown people. But she had gone on a real trip, and now she was different. She got out of bed and lit the lamp to look in the mirror. There was her face, plain brown eyes, three braids and the nose her mother hated. She looked for a long time and suddenly a shiver ran through her.
“I'm me,” she whispered. “Me.”
Nel didn't know quite what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant.
“I'm me. I'm not their daughter. I'm not Nel. I'm me. Me.”
Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear. Back in bed with her discovery, she stared out the window at the dark leaves of the horse chestnut.
“Me,” she murmured. And then, sinking deeper into the quilts, “I want...I want to be...wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful.”
The many experiences of her trip crowded in on her. She slept. It was the last as well as the first time she was ever to leave Medallion.
For days afterward she imagined other trips she would take, alone though, to faraway places. Contemplating them was delicious. Leaving Medallion would be her goal. But that was before she met Sula, the girl she had seen at Garfield Primary but never played with, never knew, because her mother said that Sula's mother was sooty. The trip, perhaps, or her new found me-ness, gave her strength to cultivate a friend in spite of her mother. (28-29)
In Toni Morrison's novel Sula there is a passage on pages 28 and 29 which contains a psychological passing of Nel through three stages of maturity that culminate in her discovering herself outside the world of her mother. Much like those freed slaves who could not fully grasp the meaning of “free,” Nel is learning what is hers, what is her mother's and what is her community's. Boundaries between freedom and slavery, joy and fear, pleasure and pain become clearer through experience and time. Though she does not fully realize her potential in this passage, she does embark on goals that are strictly hers alone: to leave Medallion, to be someone other than “Nel,” and to make a friend in spite of her mother's rules. Her transition through these stages mirrors those of the newly freed slaves who had to decide between a what they knew as home and the promise of a better place outside of that known world; the fear they had to overcome, the ideas they had about themselves and their dreams, and then putting those dreams into reality.
The first stage of the passage is fear, like the slaves who have not yet understood what it means to be free, Nel is embarking on a road not yet traveled as she tries to imagine a life different from her own. Nel catalogs her fears from the recent trip with her mother and the fears she lists all have one things in common: they deal in her fear of being judged by others, such as the urine on her legs, the disgust of the woman's face (28). She describes the trip as both “exhilarating” and “fearful,” as she remembers the world of unknowns that she was thrust into by her mother. Instead of being terrified Nel decides that a life of travel is what she desires; the exhilaration, fear, unknown—all these things gave her a new perspective which she desired to keep close to her. Nel is a girl controlled by her mother, Helene, and it is no surprise that she desires to find some other version of herself that is separate from her mother. Nel is at a point in her life where she must start to exercise her freedom from Helene but because of her Helene's controlling nature she must be careful in those things she chooses to do.
Comparing Nel's situation to that of freed slaves, the reader recognizes that a newly-freed slave will have little idea of what it is like beyond the captivity of his master. In freeing the slaves, but not providing them with an education or some means of supporting themselves outside of slavery, the slaves were left to decide what freedom means for them and how to pursue it. Jim Crow laws, set in place to discourage the rights of blacks, only reinforced the desire to move on to a better place, as this song illustrates:
I'm tired of being Jim Crowed, gonna leave this Jim Crow town,
Doggone my black soul, I'm sweet Chicago bound,
Yes, Sir, I'm leavin' here, from this ole Jim Crow town.
I'm going up North, where they think money grows on trees,
I don't give a doggone, if ma black soul should freeze
I'm goin' where I don't need no B.V.D.'s. (“The Great Migration”)
Like Nel, the song's singer longs to be gone from the world of “Jim Crow” where the rules are rules only for the sake of the rulers, and not for the good of those who are ruled. The comparison between Nel's mother and a white former-slave owner is easily compared in this passage when Nel's mother refers to Sula's mother as “sooty” (29). According to the OED, the word sooty is “an offensive name for a black person” which implies being “foul or dirty with soot” and also “foul with sin” (OED). Helene, though she is also black, fills the role of the oppressor well by using language that is derogatory to blacks in order to maintain the power over her daughter.
The next stage in this passage is Nel's realization that she does not have to live strictly under her mother's rule; she is her own person and can visualize herself in her mind as what she is: “I'm me. I'm not their daughter. I'm not Nel. I'm me. Me” (28). This move from fear to realization is important in breaking away from her mother and, for slaves, breaking away from the rules imposed on them by their former masters. They realize themselves as a separate entity from those who had them in captivity, finding who they are beyond the chains that kept them bound. The fear is still there for Nel but she embraces it as a “discovery” about herself and asks Jesus to make her “wonderful” (29). Nel has had an epiphany in which she sees herself not how her mother would have her see herself, but as she chooses to see herself. She is no longer “Nel” or their daughter: she has become a “me.” This same move is made by freed slaves who begin to see themselves not as slaves any longer, but as people who can make their own futures freed from slavery, Jim Crow laws, and outside the perspective of whites. They become something more than just former slaves and though there might be fear, that same fear is coupled with joy, and power. The joy of freedom and the power to choose what is best for their own future, instead of being told what to do—both Nel and former slaves have new, although unclear, paths ahead.
The final move in the passage is of Nel's actualization. She takes what she has learned and uses it to create goals for herself—mainly to leave Medallion. What really happens, however, is she meets Sula and despite her mother's disapproval decides to “cultivate a friend in spite of her mother” (29). This move on Nel's part to envision a life for herself outside of her mother's realm, and to do something that she knows her mother will disapprove of takes her from the realization that she is her own person, to actualization where she becomes her own person. The same can be said for the blacks who made the migration North: instead of waiting for the future to happen, they took steps to move themselves and their families to what they felt would be a better, more inviting, and prosperous place. Though Nel's action might seem small compared to the move from South to North, it is a big move for her to make on her own, with no support from anyone else to help her do it. In her own way, Nel migrated from the realm of her mother to her own, and though she ultimately decides to stay in Medallion her friendship with Sula proves to be the one thing to change her life forever.
Nel goes through three stages in this passage that are mirrored in the lives of former slaves during the reconstruction period in the South: fear, realization and actualization. In only a few lines, Morrison manages to capture the predicament of a generation of people who must decide between what they know and what they dream; what that need and what they want; who they are and who they want to be. It is not an easy struggle for either for Nel is up against her mother and her community, and the former slaves are up against a community as well: one that consists of hate, oppression and a tradition of bloodshed dating back hundreds of years. Both will succeed in small ways at first by taking those steps Nel goes through in discovering what she she fears and finding ways to realize her strengths and seek out those things she desires, even if it is something as simple as friendship from a girl her mother disapproves of.
Works Cited
“The Great Migration: Leaving the South.” inmotionaame.org. InMotion. January 30, 2009. Online. http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/topic.cfm?migration=8&topic=2
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