Mallory Lewis

14 February 2016

English 101- Phillips

"Sweetness"

Toni Morrison's "Sweetness" explores the recurring themes of race and motherhood to express the common hardships of growing up as a dark-skinned individual in a society driven by racial discrimination. Morrison uses point of view, diction, syntax, and tone to depict the life of a light-skinned mother raising a dark-skinned child in a society filled with harsh racial intolerance. Morrison explores race and motherhood in this short story through the eyes of Sweetness to portray the negative impact of racial discrimination on the upbringing of children like Lula Ann. 

Morrison conveys these themes of race and motherhood thorough a narrative short story told in first person. The narrator of the short story is a light-skinned mother who tells a story of her own personal experience giving birth to and raising a dark-skinned baby. The narrator blames all of the hardships she encountered while raising her child strictly on Lula Ann's darker skin color. The first person point of view is significant because the narrator speaks as if she is talking to an active audience. In this piece, she directly asks questions and continues to tell her story while pausing to remember details form her past experiences of mothering a dark-skinned child. For example, she pauses when describing Lula Ann's hair. She says, "it's different- straight but curly", pausing in between her thoughts as if she is trying to remember details. Morrison engages the audience by directly questioning her audience in sentences like, "Can you imagine how many white folks have Negro blood hiding in their veins?" The syntax Morrison includes helps contribute to the personal account being told my Lula Ann's mother, Sweetness and also develops and informal testimonial mood. 

The structure of the text is a little long and repetitive. Although some portions of Sweetness' story seem unnecessary, they are crucial in developing and delivering Morrison's message. Including stories about Sweetness' grandmother's impact on her mother, Lula Mae is crucial in representing a parallel situation to the one of Lula Ann. Sweetness tells about how her grandmother passed for white and how she married a white man, then never spoke to her children ever again. Regardless of attempts to send her mother letters, they would always be sent back to Lula Mae. Sweetness compares this to her mother, who could also pass as white but chose not to. Similar to Lula Mae and her mother, Sweetness tells how she also would letters from her daughter with no return address. This is significant because it shows how their relationship was not unusual for other light-skinned mothers and dark-skinned daughters. 

In addition to first person point of view, Morrison's use of diction and syntax help convey the period of time in which the short story was written. Vocabulary used in the short story is significant because it helps paint a picture of the narrator as well as the story she is telling. The jargon used in the story contributes in expressing the narrator's culture, origin, and the time period because of language she uses. For example, sentence fragments such as "ain't nobody" and "ain't never" are used to develop Sweetness' character. Improper sentence structures with frequent pausing and juxtaposed words make the syntax significant in addition to the diction in the sentences. 

Morrison uses the word "tar" to describe Lula Ann's skin color in contrast to "yellow" to describe Sweetness' skin color. The word tar has a negative connotation and is associated with something dirty and gross whereas the word yellow is actually a color that is soft and somewhat happy. In addition to the use of words with negative connotation, Morrison emphasizes the darkness of Lula Ann's skin with the repetition of the word black to bring attention to the theme of racism and the impact of Lula Ann's skin color. 

Juxtaposition of words creates a contradictory statement. Describing Lula Ann's hair as "straight but curly" makes her seem unordinary and different. The words Morrison use alienate Lula Ann's character. Lula Ann's mother says, "ain't nobody in my family anywhere near that color". This sentence is an additional example of how Lula Ann is alienated and separated from the rest of her family solely because of her abnormally dark skin color. 

The word "embarrassed" is used to describe her feelings when Lula Ann was born. Sweetness says she went crazy for a second and "held a blanket over her face and pressed" possibly in attempt to suffocate and kill her dark-skinned child. She explains how she switched to bottle-feeding as soon as returning from the hospital because of the embarrassment she would receive if she breast-fed the baby in public. The diction Morrison uses is harsh and makes the reader feel bad for Lula Ann because of the troubles her skin color provoked.

In addition to description of her own view of Lula Ann, Morrison includes reactions from Lula Ann's father Louis, who "looked at the baby like she was from the planet Jupiter". This comparison to an outer-space planet strengthens the alienation of Lula Ann's character. 

Instead of calling her a normal name any daughter would call their biological mother, Lula Ann is told to call her mother "Sweetness" because "it was safer". It is ironic that Lula Ann calls her mother Sweetness because of the situation they are in. Sweetness is a more romantic and somewhat seductive name that expresses something pleasurable and happy whereas the relationship between Lula Ann and her mother is nothing but the opposite of sweetness. 

Even when Lula Ann is gown up, this barrier is still present in their relationship. Lula Ann's addresses her mother as "S" in a letter. Similar to the relationship between Sweetness and her mother, Lula Ann and her mother experienced continuation of a barrier within their relationship. Once Lula Ann was old enough, she escaped her mother's harsh child rearing. The narrator tells how Lula Ann sent Sweetness money and letters with no return addresses and refers to herself as the bad parent being punished for the way she brought up Lula Ann. 

The tone used in this portion of the short story is significant because Sweetness sounds sarcastic and not very serious or regretful for the ways she brought up Lula Ann. Sweetness justifies her mothering techniques multiple times saying they were to teach a lesson or to protect Lula Ann. Instead of being apologetic, she jokes around and says she is thankful for the money so she can buy a fresh set of cards to play with. 

The narrator's comparison to her mothers experience with her grandmother is a parallel relationship between mother and daughter is an example of repetition and emphasis of the struggles of race and motherhood. The reference of different Bibles and bathrooms for colored people puts discrimination of race into perspective. Morrison refers to the discrimination again when talking about the separation of groups of people in neighborhoods and schools to hold onto dignity and to avoid being harassed in public. Referring to her parents, she mentions how "neither one of them would let themselves drink from a 'Colored Only' fountain, even if they were dying of thirst". This exaggeration of "dying of thirst" is significant in showing how her parents would in no circumstances succumb to support the racial segregation. Including these specific details helps the reader understand the impact of this racial discrimination in every day life. 

Throughout the short story, the narrator's tone changes. Sweetness starts out sounding defensive in the beginning by saying "It's not my fault. So you can't blame me". She sounds as if she was completely powerless in the situation although it was her choice to give birth to a child. Her tone then changes to one that is shameful from embarrassment in the middle of the story. Then, she admits to her irritable tone because of her regret in raising Lula Ann the way she did. However, she quickly justifies her regretful tone by saying she raised her the right way so that Lula Ann be prepared for situations she would inevitable encounter as a dark-skinned young female. In the end of the story, the narrator's tone is sarcastic and bitter towards the idea of Lula Ann being pregnant. The story concludes by her sarcastically saying, "Good luck, and God help the child" as if there is no hope in Lula Ann successfully raising her child. 

Repetition is significant in the short story because it emphasizes the important messages that convey the themes of race and motherhood. Throughout the short story, the narrator says, "it's not my fault" multiple times. When Sweetness says this, she is referring the abnormally dark skin of the child she gave birth to. This repetition is significant because it makes it seem as if she is trying to justify her own innocence. Lula Ann's mother repeats herself in saying "I had to protect her" to justify her parenting techniques. 

Blaming her parenting techniques and marriage issues on Lula Ann's skin-color develops the message that race can deteriorate. She justifies protecting Lula Ann by saying, "all because of skin privileges". This is significant because she does not justify the ways she raised Lula Ann with the purpose to raise her daughter the right way, but to only protect her from racial discrimination and to prepare her from the nasty words she might encounter. 

Lula Ann's mother admits to the barrier between their mother-daughter relationship when she says, "at first I couldn't see past all that black to know who she was". This shows how the color black symbolizes a barrier that blinds Lula Ann's mother from her relationship with her child. Morrison uses metaphors such as "her color is a cross she will carry" to expresses the burden her skin color will be in Lula Ann's life. Comparing Lula Ann's skin color to "a cross she will carry" implies that skin color is something that is just as important as religion in society. Making reference to a cross also implies that skin color is something that is meaningful and bold, or something that everyone will notice. 

An essential message that Sweetness emphasizes in the end of the short story is centered on the one lesson Lula Ann taught her, "what you do to children matters". Morrison includes this message clearly to represent the significant impact of discrimination on motherhood and raising a child. 

Morrison's purpose for writing this short story is to portray the impact of skin color and racial discrimination on motherhood. Multiple similar scenarios across generations in Lula Ann's family show that racial discrimination had similar impacts over time. However, Morrison includes a change in this trend at the end of the short story. Sweetness tells the audience about improvements in racial discrimination now that Lula Ann has grown up. Morrison includes this to suggest improving trends in the patterns of race and motherhood. 

Although Morrison's short story is told by Sweetness to summarize her knowledge on motherhood and race, this story fits a much bigger picture. Morrison's short story epitomizes the situations many African Americans faced during racial discrimination. Morrison ends with a conclusion that suggests ignition of the civil rights movement but then still warns Lula Ann to be careful because there will still be hardships during the upbringing of any dark-skinned child in a society driven by racial discrimination.
