Sula

1 use

The sexual freedom of Hannah Peach was my entrance into the story, constructed from shreds of memory about the way local women regarded a certain kind of female—envy coupled with amused approbation.†

1 use

More words were exchanged, hot words and dark, and the whole thing ended with the arraignment of the three black men, and an appointment to appear in civil court Thursday next.†

1 use

When they bound Shadrack into a straitjacket, he was both relieved and grateful, for his hands were at last hidden and confined to whatever size they had attained.†

2 uses

It was manlove that Eva bequeathed to her daughters.†

1 use

1 use

Anyone who left behind that aura of fun and complicity?†

1 use

This deference, paid to the "white" gaze, was the one time I addressed the "problem."†

1 use

The fact that their own skin color was proof that it had happened in their own families was no deterrent to their bile.†

1 use

Sula stretched my attempts to manipulate language, to work credibly and, perhaps, elegantly with a discredited vocabulary.†

1 use

The grandmother took Helene away from the soft lights and flowered carpets of the Sundown House and raised her under the dolesome eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary, counseling her to be constantly on guard for any sign of her mother's wild blood.†

1 use

Write a play, form a theater company, design clothes, write fiction unencumbered by other people's expectations.†

1 use

Without her mockery, affection for others sank into flaccid disrepair.†

1 use

Her flirting was sweet, low and guileless.†

1 use

When she scratched the screen door, as in the old days, and stepped inside, the dishes piled in the sink looked as though they belonged there; the dust on the lamps sparkled; the hair brush lying on the "good" sofa in the living room did not have to be apologetically retrieved, and Nel's grimy intractable children looked like three wild things happily insouciant in the May shine.†

1 use

1 use

Twenty-two years old, weak, hot, frightened, not daring to acknowledge the fact that he didn't even know who or what he was...with no past, no language, no tribe, no source, no address book, no comb, no pencil, no clock, no pocket handkerchief, no rug, no bed, no can opener, no faded postcard, no soap, no key, no tobacco pouch, no soiled underwear and nothing nothing nothing to do...he was sure of one thing only: the unchecked monstrosity of his hands.†

1 use

The nexus of that cross would be a merging of responsibility and liberty difficult to reach, a battle among women who are understood to be least able to win it.†

4 uses

They would read the newspaper aloud to her and make observations on its content, and Eva would listen feeling no obligation to agree and, in fact, would take them to task about their interpretation of events.†

1 use

What they found was a strange accent, a pervasive fear of their religion and firm resistance to their attempts to find work.†

1 use

Every one of them imagined the scene, each according to his own predilections—Sula underneath some white man—and it filled them with choking disgust.†