War in "Sula"

page 7
Blasted and permanently astonished by the events of 1917, [Shadrack] has returned to Medallion handsome but ravaged, and even the most fastidious people in town sometimes caught themselves dreaming of what he must have been like a few years back before he went off to war.

Questions:
1) Of all the men in the story, Shadrack is the most consistent. If he had never gone to war and experienced the horrors he did, do you think he would have been like Jude or Ajax? Is his consistency, even in madness, attributable to his character before the war or is it because of the war?
Comments:
Morrison devotes several pages to Shadrack's war experiences and the affect war had on Shadrack, all of it very moving but too long to re-type here. I highly recommend you look them up (pages 7-16 in my edition).

[Next] View the next War quote.
Return to Sula Topics page.
Return to the Toni Morrison Homepage.