Sula the second half

"In spite of their fear, they reacted to an oppressive oddity, or what they called evil days, with an acceptance that bordered on welcome. Such evil must be avoided, they felt, and precautions must naturally be taken to protect themselves from it. but they let it run its course, fullfill itself, and never invented ways either to alter it, to annihilate it or to prevent its happening again. So also were they with people."

This passage in the first part of the second half of the book is talking about the arrival of the birds and Sula. It seems to connect the "plague" of the birds with evil which then suggest that Sula herself brought the birds with her return after being gone for ten years. She seems to be the "people" that this passage refers to. Evil seems to be a big issue; especially in the second part of the book and Sula is the one who is deemed evil by the towns people. In many ways she acts according to her whim and her actions could be considered evil. Such as sleeping with Nell's husband. But their are many places throughout the book where evil takes place but is less emphasized. For instance, Eva burns her own son. She thinks she is doing it out of love but to most normal people that could be seen as evil. Sula's mother Hannah sleeps with all types of men even if they are married and that could be seen as evil to most people, but isn't given as much attention. However, sula is deemed evil because she watched her mother burn, watched when chicken drowned, put her grandmother in a nursing home and slept with her friends husband. All of those things are bad, but she never actually lit someone on fire and her mother slept wiht more married men then she did. So it is interesting to me how evil seems to be defined in the story.

"So he had said "always", so she would not have to be afraid fo the change-teh falling away of skin, the drip and slide of blood, andthe exposure of bone underneath. He had said 'always' to convince her, assure her, of permanancy."

I found this passage interesting because it is answering the question most of us had when reading the first part of the book which is "what did Shadrack mean when he told Sula always"? I feel like Shadrack was trying to sooth Sula becaue she had seen death for the first time. She seemed to be afraid not for being caught not doing anything to save chicken, but afraid of death herself. Shadrack seems to mean "permanancy" as a way of saying immortality. However antoher way to interpret it would be that we are always afraid of death. It is a permanent fear in the minds of all humans. Maybe this is a wrong way to read it but later on down the page he speaks of seein Sula dead and says "so he had been wrong. Terribly wrong. No 'always' at all. Another dying away of someone whose face we knew." it seems to mean that he was wrong about always fearing death. he sees Sula dead and realizes you can't fear death when you're dead and maybe death isn't always such a fearful thing. Maybe that is why he felt national suicide day was no longer important.