Essay Preview: Sula
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Eva Peace is a young woman left with the burden of raising her three young children, Hannah, Ralph, who she calls “Plum”, and Eva, who she calls “Pearl”, on her own after her husband BoyBoy walks out on them. She is left with only $1.65, five eggs, and three beats and must resort to charity in order to support her family. After realizing “she would soon run her welcome out” (32), she leaves her children with the neighbor, Mrs. Suggs and says shell return the next day. Eighteen months later she returns with only one leg, and begins to receive checks in the mail each month. Many tales are told of what happened to Evas leg but no one ever knew what really happened and didnt dare speak of the missing leg unless for some reason it is brought up by Eva herself. Even though she sat low to the ground in a wagon that was made for her by one of her male companions, “they all had the impression that they were looking up at her, up into the open distances of her eyes” (31). Eva is a self-sacrificing, caring, and determined woman that goes to extreme measures to help others.
Eva displays the character trait of being self-sacrificing many times throughout the novel. One of the first instances, Plum is a baby and stops having bowel movements. Eva tries many different things to relieve him of the pain but nothing will help. One late night when he begins to cry, Eva decides “to end his misery once and for all” (34). She takes Plum to the outhouse and with the last bit of food she has, sticks the food and her finger in his anus. “Her fingernail snagged what felt like a pebble; she pulled it out and others followed” (34). After this, Plums problem is fixed and he is now able to sleep again. The next incident, again involves Plum. He returns from the army a drug addict and an alcoholic, acting very much like a young boy, when really hes a grown man. Eva says later to Hannah that he was “Being helpless and thinking baby thoughts and dreaming baby dreams and messing up his pants again and smiling all the time” (71). So one night after Eva finds a burnt spoon used for drugs she decides once again to relieve Plum of his pain. After rocking him like a baby and holding him close to her, she soaks him with kerosene and sets him on fire. Later in the story, when Hannah asks her, “But what about Plum? Whatd you kill Plum for, Mamma?” (70), Eva replies “I just thought of a way he could die like a man not all scrunched up inside my womb, but like a man” (72). And then said, “But I held him close first. Real close. Sweet Plum. My baby boy” (72). These two instances show that Eva will sacrifice her happiness and go to extreme measures to help those she cares about.
Evas also seen as a very caring woman. This can be seen many times in the novel. From the beginning of the novel until Sula places her in the nursing home, Eva takes in many boarders and makes sure all of them are cared for. She takes in three young boys, who all look different and calls all three of them dewey. She takes care of them and makes sure they all go to school. She also takes in a white man from the mountains who she calls Tar Baby. He comes to The Bottom