An Interpretation Of Sula From Death Aesthetics Perspective

Sula is the second novel of Toni Morrison after Beloved, which has received high reputation for its vivid image of female characters and her distinctive writing techniques. The creation period of the novel was just when the booming of the black community’s civil rights movement and the women liberation movement, and it portrays how black women seeking individuality liberation, independence and equal rights under the background of black African-American community. It is also a masterpiece of profound significance which was written for the black women who live in the bottom of society. The humanistic death images and non-humanistic death images make Morrison has a deeper understanding of death value and reflect the aesthetic significance of death.Yan Xianglin’s death aesthetics is an investigation of life and death in an artistic way, which also combines aesthetic, cultural philosophy, mythology and thanatology. But it has other obvious characteristics which differ from death psychology, death ethics, death sociology and other thanatology theories. First, what death aesthetics aims to investigate is not the empirical death phenomenon, but the death images in the artistic texts by applying the aesthetic idea and method within the field of arts and aesthetic appreciation. Second, not only does the humanistic death images are among the researches of death aesthetics, but it investigates the non-humanistic death images such as animals and plants, which are always the components of expression symbols and aesthetic object. Based on death aesthetics theory and through comprehensive analysis of symbolism, purpose and value and emotion of death images, the author probes into the tragic fate of Sula, Hannah and Plum. At the same time, combined Eve and Shadrack’s life experience, the miserable scene of declining black community culture, coward black men and lamentable black women are represented under a white people predominant social background. However, Sula is the only representative of the whole black community who has awakened in ideology. The author pointed out the idea that black women could only achieve the true mental freedom by searching for self-identity. Sula’s behavior to break the worldly boundary made her death become more valuable.There are different death forms in Sula, each represents distinct symbolic meanings, which shows the author’s unique purpose, expresses the author’s emotion and embodies the different aesthetic value. Especially, the life experience and death of the heroine make more sense of Toni Morrison’s determination of advocating the abolition of racial discrimination and gender discrimination.