Sula: Close Analysis Journal

War holds a heavy burden for all soldiers. Many people die in war, but they are not the only casualties. There are many good people who survive the war, but because of what they've witnessed they will never be the same again. Tim O'Brien writes how throughout the war, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide" (O'Brien 21). Having to return to normal society after experiencing the hideous faces of war was not an easy task; for many veterans it proved to be more than they could handle. Both Toni Morrison and Tim O'Brien write about how difficult it is for soldiers to re-enter society after war.

In Toni Morrison's Sula, she writes about the character Shadrack. Shadrack went to war in December of 1917, "a young man of hardly twenty, his head full of nothing and his mouth recalling the taste of lipstick" (Morrison 7). While Shadrack was in war, "he expected to be terrified or exhilarated - to feel something very strong. In fact, he felt only the bite of a nail in his boot" (Morrison 7-8). Eventually Shadrack's experience in war led him to an unknown injury, sending him home to a hospital, "when Shadrack opened his eyes he was propped up in a small bed. Before on a tray was a large tin plate divided into three triangles" (Morrison 8). Because of his violent tendancies, Shadrack was released from the hospital long before he should have been. Once he pulled himself together a little bit, he instituted National Suicide Day, hoping that, "if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free" (Morrison 14). After returning from the war, he lived out his days, "in a shack on the riverbank that had once belonged to his grandfather long time dead. On Tuesday and Friday he sold the fish he had caught that morning, the rest of the week he was drunk, loud, obscene, funny and outrageous" (Morrison 15). Needless to say, Shadrack had changed immensly from the man he was before he went to serve his country.

In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, he shows the struggles of character Norman Bowker once he returns from the Vietnam war. Bowker's most traumatizing experience in war was when his friend, Kiowa, died right next to him. That experience is something Bowker has to "carry" the rest of his life. He survived the war, but when he came back he was not the same; "the war was over and there was no place in particular to go" (O'Brien 137). He wanted his story to be told, maybe in hopes of "objectifying his own experience" (O'Brien 158). Norman writes out his story for Tim O'Brien to write. It is a hard task for Tim to do, and by the time he was able to figure out how to write the story, it was too late. O'Brien got a letter "In August of 1978 [Bowker's] mother sent me a brief note explaining what had happened...he used a jump rope; his friends found him hanging from a water pipe. There was no suicide note" (O'Brien 160). Norman Bowker is Tim's example of a man who physically survived the war, but a part of him still died over in Vietnam and he was never the same again.

Both of the characters Shadrack and Norman Bowker are veterans from a war; Shadrack from WWI, and Bowker from Vietnam. Both of these men are suffering from a mental illness many soldiers succumb to after their time surviving their country: Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD). Neither of them were treated for it, and because of that they suffered much worse. Shadrack's main symptom of PTSD was hallucinations. Toni Morrison describes how his hands, "began to grow in higgledy-piggledy fashion like Jack's beanstalk all over the tray and the bed" (Morrison 9). These hallucinations cause him to be thrown out of the hospital, so he cannot fully recover ever from his PTSD. Bowker on the other hand, was not wounded in battle. However, his struggle with Survivor's guilt after witnessing his friend die, as well as his other war experiences, he could not adjust back to normal life. His life had moved on without him, "the town seemed remote somehow. Sally was married and Max was drowned and his father was at home watching baseball on national TV" (O'Brien 138). Neither Shadrack nor Norman had anyone close to talk to, so they had very little hope of ever fully recovering from their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In part because they still suffered from PTSD, both men found it nearly impossible to blend back into everyday life. Shadrack's "drunk, loud, obscene, funny and outrageous"(Morrison 15) behavior bothered many people in the town of Medallion. The people of the town were afraid of Shadrack because; "they knew Shadrack was crazy but that did not mean that he didn't have any sense or, even more important, that he had no power...he caused panic on the first, or Charter, National Suicide Day" (Morrison 14-15). In The Things They Carried, Bowker doesn't cause any panic in his hometown, but he is looked upon as an ignorant old fool by many of the younger residents. When he went to the resturant "Mama Burger"(O'Brien 151), and tried to place his order, the waitress snapped at him, "'You blind?' she said. She put out her hand and tapped an intercom attacted to a steel post. 'Punch the button and place your order. All I do is carry the dumb trays'"(O'Brien 151). These two men who bravely fought for our country should have been respected upon their return, but because of their PTSD, they were deemed outcasts of society.

Both Tim O'Brien and Toni Morrison effectly show how many soldiers suffer from PTSD, and have to live with it for the rest of their lives. Norman Bowker knew that if he expressed his feelings he would feel better, however he did not know who to tell his story to or how to explain it. His frustrations show in Tim's writing; "he wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be" (O'Brien 153). Shadrack's inability to recover fully from PTSD is in part because he had no one he could confide in and partly because he was not given enough time in the hospital ward to rest. In both Sula and The Things They Carried, it is shown how even when soldiers survive the war, a peice of them dies on the battlefield, and they are incapable to cope with reality once they are thrown back into society.