Nel Thinking of Sula (Situational Irony)
After Nel finds Jude and Sula having sex, the two former best friends are estranged. However, in the days and weeks following the event Nel can’t help but think about Sula and what she would do or say about different situations. Ironically even as Nel hurts and suffers because of Sula’s actions, she still wants to turn to the person who hurt her for advice, consoling, and camaraderie.
The Sula Effect (Situational Irony)
According to the residents of the Bottom, Sula’s return marks a period of danger, discontent, and fear in the hills of Medallion. Once she comes back, a series of weird events, combined with her promiscuity with the Bottom’s men, make her an easy scapegoat for all the town’s misfortunes. Ironically, the pressure that Sula unknowingly and unwittingly puts on her neighbors makes them try harder to be kind and caring to each other. For example, mothers once brusque and sharp with their children become coddling and patient. Wives who were typically fed up with their husband’s philandering ways begin to cherish them and even soothe their egos once Sula casts them aside. And once Sula dies, the effect her presence causes in the Bottom wears off. Mothers are once again impatient with their children, daughters who quietly and obediently took care of their elders when Sula was alive begin to complain again, and wives no longer coddle their husbands. No realizes it, but instead of being a detriment to their lives, ironically Sula’s presence and the tension she caused improved their lives. Alternatively, her death causes the Bottom’s “affection for others [to sink] into flaccid disrepair” (Morrison 185).
Everyone Loves You (Verbal Irony)
“I mean, everything in the world loves you. White men love you. They spend so much time worrying about your penis they forget their own. The only thing they want to do is cut off a nigger’s privates. And if that ain’t love and respect I don’t know what is. And white women? They chase you all to every corner of the earth, feel for you under every bed. I knew a white woman wouldn’t leave the house after 6 o’clock for fear one of you would snatch her. Now ain’t that love?” (Morrison 128).
Sula’s words to Jude in this quote are an example of verbal irony because she means the exact opposite of what she’s saying. She understands why Jude is bitter about his life as a Black man, but instead of commiserating with him and allowing him to wallow like Nel does, Sula tries to make him laugh with her ironic and sarcastic words.
Eve and Plum (Irony of Fate)
As Eve often iterates, Plum was her beloved youngest child, her sweet Plum, her baby boy (Morrison 92). So when Eve feels obligated to kill Plum because his emotional and psychological scars are too much for him to cope with, the situation is ironically tragic on a cosmic level. As a mother, Eve feels the urge to protect and love her children unconditionally, but in her mind she must forsake this urge in order to ease her son’s suffering. This is morally tragic, because like Shadrack Plum suffered from debilitating PTSD from World War I. Unfortunately the U.S. government did nothing to help rehabilitate either man, and so now Plum’s mother must take matters into her own hands. Such a situation causes readers to question the fairness of the universe, which is the very definition of cosmic irony, or irony of fate.
