The Significance of the Character Shadrack in the Novel Sula Essay Example

calms him; he sleeps and is no longer afraid of his hands.

The sheriff figures out that Shadrack is originally from The Bottom and has him taken there. Back in his own hometown, Shadrack becomes a colorful, but harmless, local character. Because of his shell shock, he is obsessed with the suddenness of death and dying. One day he announces the institution of a new holiday: “National Suicide Day” (Sula 14). He proclaims that on January 3 of every year after 1920, people who no longer want to live with the fear of death should kill themselves. Eventually the people of The Bottom become used to Shadrack and his antics and refer to him as the local madman.

His holiday, National Suicide Day, becomes part of the language and landscape in The Bottom. The sight and sound of Shadrack walking down the street ringing his bells and proclaiming National Suicide Day are quite normal. The importance of fear is represented through many events in the book. For example, Sharack was a veteran of World War I, so in 1917, he was in battle with his fellow comrades in the treacherous grounds of France (Sula 7). The battle was just detrimental in all sorts of ways because at any time anyone, including Shadrack, could die from a bomb or grenade.

For instance in one of the battles fought, which would be the last one Shadrack fought in the war, while running through the fields in pain because a nail pierced the ball of his foot, he witnessed the head of one his comrades get blown off from the rest his body. This traumatic event forever changed

the way Shadrack saw things. The word fear comes to mind when speaking about how Shadrack reacted after the war was over. The sudden death of a comrade during the war, as well as the widespread violence and terror he has experienced, has left him cowering and shaking, even when he is away from the battlefield.

His mental breakdown is a direct result of his having viewed death constantly and up close. While he is in the hospital, Shadrack prefers to be in a straight jacket; he needs the order and predictability of confinement instead of the chaos and volatility of life and war. In light of his own fears, it is entirely understandable that Shadrack proclaims a day for suicide. The fact that death can happen anytime seems unfair and unbearable to him. For Shadrack, this "victory" over death is as reassuring as a straight jacket. This is so because to know that he can control his own final destiny makes Shadrack feel so much better.

Despite the fact that Shadrack is no longer in combat, he is still overwhelmed by visions in which he sees the horrors of war, and he is especially stunned by the brutal suddenness of death in the midst of battle. In order to counter this specter of unexpectedness, he thinks that if only an entire day could be set aside yearly. A day when people could escape “the smell of death” (Sula 16) and the fear of it by committing suicide then during the rest of the year people wouldn’t have to fear death and cower from it. Giving death its own day would compartmentalize it the same

way that the food on Shadrack’s hospital tray is compartmentalized.

On the food tray, there is no chaos: Everything is orderly and within borders. The rice doesn’t touch the meat, and the meat doesn’t touch the stewed tomatoes. The colors of the foods are distinct and do not mix together. Shadrack believes that people and things need boundaries to provide order in an otherwise disordered world. For example, although we generally associate straitjackets with insanity, when Shadrack is confined in one he feels secure and protected; he is “both relieved and grateful” (Sula 9) because he has a boundary around himself.

After he is released from the boundaries of the military hospital, he begins to experience panic including pain, fear, and the hysteria of helplessness. There is a significance of chaos in the events cause by National Suicide Day. The people seen him as a crazy dude who never really causes any harm to any body, but they rather not be around him when he comes around for his yearly self proclaimed holiday. At first people were scared but as time rolled around people began to ease up and joke about it, but they still took it seriously. That was when reality is kicked out and he begin to see the light.

The people in the town seen him as no threat at all but they didn’t take him lightly at all. Every year he comes out with his cowbell and hangman rope to let everyone know that it was suicide day. So in a way Shadrack changed the community but not for the good but for silliness of the community. the community accepts him

as one of their own in spite of his eccentricities. The community knows that he will sell fish twice a week, occasionally get drunk and outrageous, continue to live alone, and, every year on January 3, celebrate National Suicide Day with a parade.

In other words, Shadrack will live a very ordered and ritualistic life. Shadrack’s motivation to create his dark holiday arises from an understanding that black death always seems to be sudden and surprising in ways. For example the author states “It had to do with making a place for fear as a way of controlling it. He knew the smell of death and was terrified of it, for he could not anticipate it. It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both…In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day” (Sula 14).