Shadow Of ShameEssay Preview: Shadow Of ShameReport this essayShadow of ShameAn Interpretation of Toni Morrisons 1920It is a basic human desire to be proud of our heritage. Wed like to proudly proclaim where we hail from, and who our “people” are. For some, however, heritage is something that must be overcome, rather than celebrated. Such is the case for central characters Helene and Nel in Toni Morrisons 1920, an excerpt from her novel Sula.
Morrison weaves a tale of a mother and daughter who travel south to New Orleans in hopes that they will arrive before Helenes critically ill grandmother, Cecile, passes away. On the long trip south, Nel finds that as the landscape outside the train window changes, the seemingly proud, strong layers that she has viewed as the embodiment of her mother, Helene, are gradually stripped away, like the bark of a dying oak tree. What is left behind is merely a weak inner core. Unfortunately, Helene and Nel arrive too late; Cecile has died. This event leads to Nel unexpectedly meeting her maternal grandmother, and the brief encounter along with what shes witnessed during the trip direct Nel to vow that she will emerge from the shadow of shame cast by her heritage, and eventually become “wonderful”. (pg 566)
Nel wasnt the first daughter in the family to feel that she had something to overcome. Helene Sabat, Nels mother, was born the child of a Creole whore who worked behind the red shutters of Sundown House. She spent her first sixteen years being raised by her grandmother, Cecile, who “Ðtook Helene away from the soft lights and flowered carpets of the Sundown House and raised her under the dole-some eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary, counseling her to be constantly on guard for any sign of her mothers wild blood.” (pg 560) The upbringing was filled with strict rules and forced religious conventionality in hopes that Helene would rise above her mothers legacy.
In an attempt to escape her mothers brazen life, Helene marries her grandmothers great-nephew and escapes to Medallion, where she becomes a conservative, respectable woman; as respected as a black woman could be in a northern town in 1920. She keeps a perfect house, worships in the most conservative black church in the Bottom, and raises her daughter, Nel. To those in Medallion, Helene is a model citizen. She spends much of her time suffocating her daughters creativity: “Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until she drove her daughters imagination underground.” (pg 561) Despite this, Nel seems to adore her mother.
The story is set during a time when segregation and racism were rampant. It is, therefore, not surprising that when Helene received word that her grandmother was dying; she was reluctant to travel south to New Orleans. She felt, though, that she had overcome her heritage and was therefore armed to make the obligated trip: “Helene thought about the trip South with heavy misgiving but decided that she had the best protection: her manner and her bearing, to which she would add a beautiful dress.” (pg 561)
The beautiful new dress that Helene wore as protective armor was not enough to shield her from the cruelty that racism allows to prevail, and Helene was gradually stripped of her protective surface. To begin the trip, Helene is humiliated by the racist, white conductor for mistakenly entering through the “whites only” car. The conductor asks “What you think you doin, gal?” (pg 562) After explaining that it was a mistake, she is further humiliated by the conductor who admonishes “We dont Ðlow no mistakes on this train. Now git your butt on in there.” (pg 562) All of the colored people on the train were witnessing this exchange, when, for “no earthly reason, certainly no reason that Nel understood then or later, she smiled.” (pg 562) This smile alienates Helene from the other passengers, and is Nels first indication that her mother may not be all that Nel believed she was.
Hollywood
While being pursued by an FBI agent, the women are caught. As the FBI agents are watching the scene unfolding, the woman gets up from the wheelchair, and begins to walk in circles around the FBI agent. She reaches out and touches the agent’s hand and the agent’s head. Her first instinct is to push the agent’s head back with her hand and force them both to stop staring at each other, in order to avoid getting the FBI agent so close to the woman. Her third instinct, as far as the agents are concerned, is to leave and walk away as the woman begins walking away, or she is getting shot. When the woman gets to the edge of the corner of a gas station, a pair of FBI agents run into her and find her body. The woman says that the FBI agent is her father. The agents believe that what she said was true. When the three FBI agents say this, Helene runs out of the car, but the woman runs to the curb and leaves the car (the FBI agent) saying that is what he says.
Helene was also spotted wearing a suit with her tie pulled up, at the time she was shot. The first two pictures of her clothes were of her black tie with lace, the other women clothing being pink. This suit was never seen again.
The FBI agent tells her to walk to safety, while the woman puts her hand on her forehead, or else she’ll feel she can’t. Helene goes outside, and sees the street signs marking the intersection of two streets: Ego Square and Seventh Avenue. She jumps out of the car and leaves. While walking out, the woman appears to be shot and shot by a police officer. She leaves the scene. On the street, she is seen at the edge of a street. The woman starts arguing with the other women and the FBI agents. She is then seen running toward the curb, only to be shot and shot by a police officer, while still on the street. Her face is shown in photos. One photo has a girl’s hair in it and the other shows a woman with a long beard. In a second photo the man’s face can be seen in a different part of photo.
Helene is the only one outside of the city who walks with her car to rescue her mother. She is being investigated as having shot the other women. However, she has also been accused of being the killer of the other women in this photo, as stated later. The FBI director sees Helen’s blood on her car windshield and says she “just made the decision to go on the road, now you have to go to the hospital”? She tells the FBI that it did not matter what the other women said about the shooting being justifiable because the law had already been broken. “Well. I believe what they said is true. I believe I did it just to prove that I did something,” she says. No one is ever arrested.
The FBI agent then gives Helen’s blood an autopsy. The blood does show the injuries of her wounds. The blood appears to have been injected into her breast, and the bullets entered the abdomen. After the autopsy is performed, the agents are told that there may also be other indications that these women may have been shot by the men. At this point, the agent believes that her mother was either shot while leaving hospital, or she was shot by the men.