SULA
Storyboard Text
- 1919
- "Come on. Pick up that spoon. Pick it up, Private. Nobody is going to feed you forever."
- 1919
- 1919
- Shadrack, a twenty-two-year-old veteran, is sent to a facility to treat his 'shell-shock'. He wakes up and tries to eat from the food the nurses provided, but when he sees his 'enlarged hands', he panics.
- 1920
- Shadrack is released from the hospital. He wanders around the streets, crying, alarmed. He doesn't know where he is or why his hands are suddenly so large. He begins to scream, and then he was taken to jail.
- 1920
- "What you think you doin', gal?"
- After a day of being in jail, Shadrack is released and sent to the Bottom. When he returns, the neighborhood starts to think he's demented. It started on January 3, 1920, when he walks through the streets ringing a bell and declaring National Suicide Day. He does it every year after that and celebrates it alone. By now, people are used to this and National Suicide Day becomes a part of their day-to-day calendar.
- 1920
- "This is your grandmother, Nel."
- Helene Sabat spent sixteen years living in New Orleans with her grandmother, Cecile. When Cecile's great-nephew, Wiley Wright, met Helene, he proposed to her. Helene accepted the proposal and moved in with him to the Bottom.
- Nine years after their marriage, Helene has Nel. When Nel is ten-years-old, Helene receives a letter saying that Cecile is ill. Helene takes Nel with her to the train station, hoping to arrive before her grandmother dies. At the train station, Helene mistakenly walks into the "Whites Only" car and the conductor yells at her.
- whites only
- Helene and Nel arrive at New Orleans, but they're too late, Cecile's already dead. Nel meets her grandmother, Rochelle. After that tense encounter, Nel and Helene head back to the Bottom. Nel starts thinking about Sula, a girl she sees in school but has never played with.
- 1921
- 1921
- "Come on in,"
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- "How you been, girl?"
- 1921
- "You so purty, Mama."
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- Sula Peace lives in a house created by her grandmother, Eva Peace. Eva has one leg and nobody knows why. All they know is that she lost it in the 18 months she left her three kids with the Suggs family. Eva was married to a man named BoyBoy. He was abusive, drank a lot and often took his anger on her. He eventually left Eva and she had to take care of her kids alone.
- 1922
- "If I can do that to myself," "what you suppose I'll do to you?"
- BoyBoy returned briefly after leaving his family. He didn't ask, not once, about his children and Eva was then reminded how much hatred she had for him. In 1920, Eva gave a man who was new to the Bottom the name Tar Baby. He was a heavy drinker and the first person in the neighborhood to join Shadrack's National Suicide Day.
- 1922
- Plum, Eva's youngest and only boy, fought in 1917 and returned to the U.S in 1919. He spent a year visiting American cities and didn't return to the Bottom until 1920. When he finally retired, he was different, quiet, and reserved. He didn't want to tell anyone about his trip. One night Eva found him in his room, he was sulking, he told Eva to leave her alone and she did. Later that night, Eva poured kerosene over him. She lit a piece of newspaper on fire and threw it at Plum. Hannah runs away from Eva later in the night.
- 1922
- Irish immigrants come to Medallion and start discriminating against the neighborhood for being black. Sula and Nel usually take the longest way home after school, but this time Sula decided to take the shortest way. The girls encounter the Irish boys and they stop in front of Sula and Nel to stop them from passing. Sula shows her tough side by taking out a knife and cutting her own finger, showing she's not afraid to hurt them. The boys leave Sula and Nel without causing any problems.
- Sula overhears Hannah say she doesn't really like her and runs away with Nel. They find a place filled with trees and start digging large holes in the ground. They toss all the twigs and rocks they find around and bury them. A boy named Chicken Little comes around and Sula takes a liking to him. She swings him around, he's delighted, but then he slips from her hands and ends up drowning. Sula and Nel wait for him to show his face, but he doesn't.
- A white bargeman finds Chicken Little's body and doesn't think anything of it because he's a black kid and he figured his parents killed him on purpose. The bargeman figured the boy's body might start to smell, so he tied him up and reports his death at his next stop. No one really cares about the body, but they still send it back to Medallion three days after his death. Chicken's mother almost didn’t recognize the body, but eventually realizes it's him. Sula and Nel attend his funeral and Chicken was buried in the' colored' part of the cemetery.
- 1923
- "He give me such a time. Such a time. Look like he didn’t even want to be born."
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- 1923
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- 1923
- Hannah asks Eva a question and leaves the conversation like that even though it's not the answer she was waiting for. Then she proceeds to ask about Plum's death, Hannah wants to know why Eva killed him and Eva starts crying when she's reminded of Plum.
- 1927
- Days after Hannah's conversation with Eva, Hannah says she had a dream about a wedding in a red bridal gown until Sula came in and woke her.
- 1927
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- When Eva begins looking for her comb, she sees through her window Hannah bending to light the yard fire. When she finds it, she sees Hannah caught on fire. She tries to jump and land on top of her, but she lands about twelve feet away. She seeks help and Mr. and Mrs. Suggs throw Hannah in a tub filled with water with tomatoes. The fire dies down and an ambulance comes around to help Hannah. Hannah dies in the ambulance, but Eva survives. Eva then recalled that weddings meant death and the red gown fire. Then Eva remembers seeing Sula, and how she watched the entire scene and never bothered to help Hannah. She thinks Sula wanted to see Hannah die.
- 1927
- It's Nel's wedding and everyone's dancing and celebrating. Nel's new husband, Jude Greene, works as a waiter, though he prefers manual work.
- Nel and Jude continue to celebrate their marriage. In the months Jude was engaged, he thinks about what Ajax told him, that all women want to die for their men. Jude's impressed with how close Nel is with Sula, he notes that they act as if they are one.
- As the wedding is coming to an end, Nel and Jude are eager to consummate their marriage. They dance and laugh, and a while later, Nel sees Sula leaving the reception with a smile on her face. After this last encounter, they don't see each other for ten more years, and when they do, the meeting would be 'thick with birds.'
- 1937
- "I might have knowed them birds meant something."
- 1937
- "Oh, Sula, you've been gone so long."
- 1937
- Sula is back, amongst a plague of birds. She first goes to Eva's and their encounter is cold. Eva accuses Sula of not keeping in touch and Sula brings up Plum's death. Eva then reminds Sula that she watched Hannah burn to death and Sula threatens Eva, saying that she'll light her on fire too. Eva takes the threat seriously, but Sula, instead of going by her word, enrolls Eva in a mental hospital just to get her out of the house.
- 1939
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- Sula and Nel catch up on lost time. They reminisce about old times and Nel asks Sula about her time at college. Sula doesn't share much but she does tell Nel about Eva. Jude comes in, from work and claiming he has had a horrible day at work, Sula makes a joke, but this initially angers Jude. Then Sula corrects herself and makes Jude laugh.
- 1939
- Nel finds Sula and Jude together in her bed. Sula refuses to look at her and Jude doesn't care. When he finishes getting dressed, he brushes past Nel and leaves. Nel then tries to find a place for herself, trying to know why she isn't crying and screaming like people were at Chicken's funeral. Then she spots a ball of fur and string and hair and she thinks that if she touches it she might die. Nel is sad that she lost Jude, but clearly, she's devastated that she lost Sula.
- 1939
- "You pushed him!"
- "No, I didn't!"
- After word gets around about Sula, every incident is blamed on her. When Teapot, a small boy went to look for something in Sula's house, he accidentally fell. His drunk mother, Betty, was walking by and when she saw Sula with Teapot, she blames Sula for pushing him. Betty becomes a loving mother after the incident.
- 1940
- "Is there something I can help you with?"
- Sula and Ajax start to see each other regularly. Sula knows his ways and Ajax likes that he can talk to her without her becoming jealous of his other women. Sula starts to enjoy the gifts he gives her and begins to understand what possession means. Ajax doesn't notice at first, but now Sula cleans her house before every visit of his. She does her hair and when he sees the change; he leaves.
- 1940
- "Why did you steal my husband?"
- Sula wants to believe Ajax was once in her life, so she starts looking for something that reminds her of him. She finds his driver's license and notices that his name is not Ajax, it's Albert Jacks. After this, she realizes she knows nothing of him and blames herself for making him leave.
- 1940
- Nel hears Sula is ill so she visits her after three years of not seeing her. Nel has to work as a cleaning lady and chambermaid in order to take care of her kids after Jude left. Nel offers Sula her help and Sula tells her that she has a prescription that needs to be filled. Nel wants to ask Sula for the money, but realizes that maybe she doesn't have any, so goes to the pharmacy without saying anything.
- 1941
- Nel returns and starts to make small talk with Sula. Nel wants to know why Sula stole Jude, but Sula's answer doesn't satisfy her. Sula begins to wonder if Nel forgot that they were basically the same and Nel leaves.
- 1941
- Sula falls asleep and starts dreaming. She dreams of a Clabber Girl baking powder lady and in the dream, she tries to get close to her, but she always disintegrated into white dust. Sula becomes overwhelmed and when she wakes up, she's gagging and fighting to breathe with the smell of smoke. Sula is in pain, but she can't scream for help. She dies with Nel the last thing she thinks about.
- 1941
- The people in the Bottom don't mourn Sula's death. They're progressing into something better and they think it has to do with 'new beginnings.' Eva was moved from Beechnut and workers were starting to prepare for new jobs. Then a cold winter comes and everything is lost. Food, animals, people get sick and no one can earn money. Everyone thinks it's because Sula's dead and no one has to make an effort to protect themselves from her 'evil ways.'
- January 3 comes around and Shadrack doesn't feel like marching through the streets. He wants to stay at his home, but marches nonetheless. This day is different, usually, no one would march with Shadrack, but soon nearly all of the Bottom starts to march with him.
- The crowd gets larger and larger. They're heading to the tunnel they couldn't work on, destroying the supplies and tools near. When they enter the tunnel, they don't realize the ground isn't stable. Rocks fall and few manage to escape. The majority die and all Shadrack does is stare.
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