The Supernatural

1. The Supernatural

2. Adjective • Amanifestation or event attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature : a supernatural being. |ˌsoōpərˈnach (ə)rəl|

3. 1. The Deweys “But miss Eva you calls the other one Dewey.” “So? This here’s another one.” Page 37. “What do you need to tell them apart for, they’s all Deweys.” Page 38.

4. 2. The Strange Things ‘1st Strange Thing’“Before the second strange thing, there had been the wind, which was the first.” Page 73 “The men who worked in the valley got up at four thirty in the morning and looked at the sky where they sun was already rising like a hot white bitch.” Page 73 ‘2nd Strange Thing’“… Hannah’s coming into her mother’s room … and saying Mama did you ever love us?” Page 67

5. ‘3rd Strange Thing’ “Hannah … struck by a sudden sleepiness went off to lie down […] She dreamt of a wedding in a red bridal gown until Sula came in and woke her.” Page 73 “Later she would remember it as the third strange thing. She had thought it odd even then, but the red in the dream confused her.” Page 74 “She remembered the wedding dream and recalled that weddings always meant death. And the red gown, well that was the fire, as she should have known.” Page 78

6. 3. Sula’s Return “Accompanied by a plague of robins, Sula came back to Medallion. […] Nobody knew why or from where they had come. What they did know was that you couldn’t go anywhere without stepping in their pearly shit ... robins were flying and dying all around you.” Page 89

7. “ Such evil must be avoided , they felt, and precautions must naturally be taken to protect themselves from it.” Page 89 “ As always the black people looked at evil stony-eyed and let it run. […] So they watched her far more closely… Things began to happen.” Page 113

8. “…Sula had an odd way of looking at things and that her wide smile took some of the sting from that rattlesnake over her eye.” Page 104 “When the word got out…the people in Bottom shook their heads and said Sula was a roach.” Page 112 “…they forgot all about Hannah’s easy ways and said she was a bitch.” “It was the men who gave her the final label, who fingerprinted her for all time. They were the ones who said she was guilty of the unforgivable thing […] she slept with white men.” Page 112

9. “When Sula said no, the boy [Teapot] turned around and fell down the steps. He couldn’t get up right away and Sula went to help him. “ Page 114 “Mr. Finley sat on his porch, sucking his chicken bones, as he had done for 13 years, looked up, saw Sula, choked on a bone and died on the spot.” “That incident, and Teapot’s Mamma, cleared up for everybody the meaning of the birthmark over her eye; it was not a stemmed rose, or a snake, it was Hannah’s ashes marking her from the very beginning.” Page 116

10. 4. Nel “A gray ball hovering just there. Just there. To the right. Quiet, gray, dirty. A ball of muddy strings, but without weight, fluffy but terrible in its malevolence. She knew she could not look, so she closed her eyes and crept past it out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.” Page 109

11. 5. 1940 Sula’s Death “ Her body did not need oxygen. She was dead. Sula felt her face smiling, “Well I’ll be dammed.” She thought, “it didn’t even hurt. Wait’ll I tell Nel.” Page 149