Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni ...

34 amanda putnam
her own mother, Eva, “‘did you ever love us?’” (ibid., 67). Eva, angered by
the question, indicates she did not. Thus, it is not surprising that Hannah
repeats this type of phrasing (and abuse) to her own daughter, not willingly
recognizing the damage inflicted on herself in the same situation. But Sula’s
maternal abandonment is real and affects her self-image. Suddenly, Sula is
vulnerable, since (like Pecola), if a young black girl cannot expect her own
mother to enjoy her unconditionally, it is unlikely that the rest of the world
will do so.
Comprehending her vulnerability for the first time, Sula recovers via
violence toward another child. The scene quickly changes from Sula’s household
6 to Sula and Nel playing near a river and trees with a little boy named
Chicken Little. After climbing up and down a tree with the little boy, Sula
playfully “picked him up by his hands and swung him outward then around
and around . . . [and] when he slipped from her hands and sailed away out
over the water they could still hear his bubbly laughter” (Morrison 1982,
60–61). However, the boy does not emerge from the water; and instead of
trying to save him, both girls wait to see what happens. In fact, the first thing
Nel says is “‘Somebody saw,’” (61) suggesting that the girls are far more
concerned about someone seeing them watch a child drown than the actual
passivity of their actions. The girls do not tell anyone what happened, and
Chicken Little’s water-engorged body is eventually found and buried a few
days later.
But the emotional violence of discovering Sula’s mother’s passive hostility
for her helps create a detachment in Sula, allowing her to watch death
and other tragedies from an easy distance. Sula later watches her mother
burn to death in their backyard, and grandmother Eva believes the girl did
so out of twisted curiosity. Having learned from her mother the possibility
of loving, but remaining remote, and having learned from her grandmother
that murder may be a part of family life (as Eva murders her own son), Sula
remains aloof from her mother’s fiery death, just as she was when she accidently
killed Chicken Little.
In fact, later in the novel, it is clear that Sula connects her emotional
trauma from her mother with her personal detachment. The intense pain of
learning her mother does not like her blinds Sula to feeling a normal amount
of social compassion, which then manifests itself through violence toward
others. Sula recounts her new understanding:
As willing to feel pain as to give pain, to flee pleasure as to give pleasure,
hers was an experimental life—ever since her mother’s remarks sent her