The Importance Of The Birthmark In Sula

The first time the author mentions Sula’s birthmark getting darker is On page 74 Morrison says “The birthmark over her eye was getting darker and looked more and more like a stem and a rose”. This is the first time we see in the book that the author now adds a stem into the description of her birthmark. The stem of the rose is the part that contains the thorns and can hurt people. The rose on the other hand is just beautiful and lovely as Sula was. I think Morrison adds the description of the stem into the book for a reason. This is the same thing that we see Sula watch her mother burn. Eva looks over at Sula and sees her with a look of interest on her face. On page 78, Morison writes, “Eva said yes, but inside she disagreed and remained convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she interested.” This is the first time the town and Eva begin to suspect something has changed and is more evil about Sula. This is also the time Morrison mentions her birthmark getting darker. After the death of Hannah, …show more content…
The author uses all of the things that the birthmark represented in a very symbolic way. Each of these things means something different and they pertain to the way the town and people viewed Sula at that time. Along with the shape of the birthmark we notice that the shade gets darker and darker. Physiologically this is not significant because birth marks gets darker and darker over the course of time. I think it is significant because the author only mentions the darkening of the birthmark when Sula commits an evil action or when a new interpretation is made of the birthmark. Furthermore, we notice that the birthmark also gets darker when the way the town views Sula darkens. In conclusion I think Toni Morrison effectively uses the interpretations and shades of Sula’s birthmark to depict the darkening image Sula obtains from the towns