Film and literature comparison across media

¶ … Ghosts of the Past

The Haunting of Ethnic Writers: Sula and the Sixth Sense, a Literature-Film Comparison

Although she is typically known for her monumental contribution to ethnic literature, Beloved, Toni Morrison has infiltrated the world of contemporary writers with nine shockingly poignant novels that address issues such as conventionalism, racism, and the strong ties to one's past. In high schools and colleges everywhere, Beloved has earned a mandatory readership not only because of its literary techniques, but also because of the rich folk story it tells and Morrison's ability to give slavery and the era immediately following the Civil War not only dry dates, names, and places, but also a soul through Beloved, her daughter, and her lover, all of whom are haunted by the past.

But the haunted lives that Morrison dissected in her most celebrated novel were nothing new to the ethnic writer. In Beloved, Morrison's archetype of the strong, black female heroine is haunted by a real ghost -- her baby that died in its infancy. Readers cannot go more than a few pages without something being blamed on the ghost or without the ghost's mentioning. In her second and equally powerful novel, Sula, however, the topic of haunting is not forgotten. In this novel that "established her as a literary force," Morrison uses another death to symbolize haunting, especially a haunting of the past (Wesselman). In this novel, Nel and Sula, two childhood friends who could not grow up more differently, are haunted by the memory of the past, one moment in particular -- Sula's accidental drowning of a young boy named Chicken Little. As the only witnesses of the accident, Nel and Sula keep quite about the incident, which haunts them throughout their adult lives. Even after Sula's death, Nel is haunted by the death of the young boy, and at the end of the novel, that haunting is used in order to allow her to make a personal discovery.

Although Sula is not a book about ghosts nor about haunting, like many ethnic writers, Morrison uses ghosts as an effective theme to introduce the dependence on the past, especially for African-Americans, who must deal with a much more eventful and harrowing type of past. Though it is used artfully in order to suggest a theme in Morrison's works, the theme of ghosts, haunting, and the supernatural is by no means contained to Morrison's realm. In fact, Winsbro notes that the theme is common among ethnic writers, remarking about her recognition of " the great extent and variety of ethnic works dealing with empowerment through self-definition in relation to one's beliefs in the supernatural" (10). Sula certainly meets this definition, as Nel is empowered by her haunting at the end of the novel.

In addition to reinforcing the significance of Morrison's novel, however, Winsbro's study suggests that other ethnic writers in different venues share a similar interest in ghosts and the supernatural. One of those writers, M. Night Shyamalan, an Indian screenwriter and movie producer, has written and directed a host of films dealing with the supernatural, including Signs, a paranormal film that focused primarily on humans' reactions to life on other planets, the Village, where an entire town manifested their fear of modernity into fictitious, supernatural creatures, and Lady in the Water, a folk story dealing with a mythical aquatic creature. One of Shyamalan's films, "The Sixth Sense," however, can be closely compared to Morrison's novel in regards to its treatment of the theme of ghosts and hunting, and what theme suggests about good and evil. In this film, child psychologist Dr. Malcome Crowe, is profoundly impacted by a crucial moment in his life -- upon returning home from a ceremony in which he was honored, he finds a crazed ex-patient in his home wielding a gun. Crowe soon manifests this haunting of the past, which follows him throughout his days, into this work with a young boy, Cole Sear, who claims he is also haunted -- by real ghosts, or "dead people." This subject shares many similarities with Morrison's Sula. In fact, by comparing the characters of Nel and Dr. Malcome Crowe, in addition to their hauntings, readers can conclude that both the novel and the film make suggestions about past's power to haunt in the present.

By comparing the characters of Toni Morrison's Nel and M. Night Shyamalan's Dr. Malcome Crowe, one can detect a host of similarities. Most importantly, both Nel and Crowe are profoundly affected by one night in their pasts. For Nel, the event is presented in her childhood, though the reader is able to follow her throughout her life, witnessing how Chicken Little's death affects her, even as an adult. Crowe's encounter with Vincent Grey, however, happens relatively recently in the course of the movie, when the character has had only a few months to deal with the situation. Despite the differences in time frame, both Nel's encounter with Chicken Little and Crowe's encounter with Vincent Grey produce guilt in the hearts of Nel and Crowe. In fact, in both cases, the encounters create not only a feeling of guilt for the sufferers, but also a feeling of extreme guilt that is associated with harming a child. Both Nel and Crowe can be accurately described as running a child's life. For Nel, this occurs as she witnesses and does nothing about Chicken Little's death, a young woman paralyzed by the fear of what would happen to her if she confessed. Crowe, on the other hand, effectively ruined Grey mentally, unable to help him with his suffering from hallucinations. In both cases, guilt is brought on through premeditated fault on the part of Nel or Crowe -- Nel's involvement in Chicken Little's death was an accident, and Crowe intended to help a childhood Grey with his psychological skills -- but both events still shape the main characters' lives profoundly.

In addition to the fact that both encounters involve children and guilt, they also both involve death. In Nel's case, it is the accidental drowning death of Chicken Little, not the actual action of playfulness -- Sula swings the child on her arms -- that leads to the death, which haunts her. Similarly, Crowe's encounter with Grey produces Grey's death, an image that continues to haunt him through the few months he deals with his haunting. Later, the audience learns that the encounter also produces his own death.

Thus, both Nel and Crowe experience traumatic events that haunt them throughout their lives, and the way in which both deal with the hauntings is similarly comparable. In the beginning of her novel, Morrison presents Nel and her best friend Sula, after whom the novel is named, as polar opposites. Nel is drawn, although she questions, a conventional way of living, while Sula, under the guidance of those who raised her, has a much wilder heart and seeks to find an unconventional way of life. By establishing these women as polar opposites and friends, Morrison suggests the ability for more than one lifestyle to coexist harmoniously. In the wake of the traumatic event of Chicken Little's death, however, the friends are torn apart. Nel settles traditionally with a husband and Sula removes herself from the Bottom, living a wild existence and having many affairs. When Sula returns to the Bottom, she is criticized as evil, especially after her affair with Nel's husband, and Morrison suggests that two lifestyles can no longer live in harmony.

Similarly, in Crowe's attempt to deal with the traumatic shooting that changed, and actually ended, his life, the psychologist is torn from the person with whom he has the most important relationship in his life -- his wife. Like Nel and Sula in the wake of trauma, the two are unable to continue living a normal existence. In this scenario, however, the rolls are actually reversed. Like Nel, Crowe's wife attempts to live the conventional existence after the shooting, tying to get back into a normal way of living without letting the incident loom over every moment in her life. Crowe, on the other hand, undertakes more Sula-like behavior. Although he does not invest himself into wild living and affairs after the incident, his life changes dramatically. He finds he is unable to relate to everyday events, and is, instead, constantly obsessed with the accident. In addition, he manifests his preoccupation with the accident into Cole Sear, the young man whom he devotes all of his time to helping.

Thus, ethnic writers Toni Morrison and M. Night Shyamalan, use similar characters having similar experiences in order to establish a theme of haunting and ghosts. Both Morrison and Shyamalan include characters who have had a traumatic event and are haunted by that event throughout the duration of the story. Not only are the characters similar in that they experience a traumatic event, however, but the events themselves, and the way with which the characters deal with them, suggest a great degree of similarity. In fact, both events involve guilt, children, and deaths, and the characters react to both events by becoming separated from their most trusted confidants. Although the events and characters' reactions to them have their differences in the interest of plot variety, similarities between the cases far outweigh the differences.

Not only are the events that Nel and Crowe experience and their reactions to them similar, but also both characters have striking revelations at the end of their stories that suggest the importance of the events. In Nel's case, the remembering "the death of chicken little" allows her to "[reconfigure] a number of long-held memories" (Matus, 69). One of those memories, and probably the most poignant is that of Sula. After coming back to the Bottom, Nel is less than friendly with her former confidant. In fact, she joins the rest of the town in labeling Sula and her wild ways as evil, a predicament that helps unite the town. Although Nel and manage a brief reconciliation before Sula's death, the force of the reconciliation does not occur until after Nel is reminded of Chicken Little's death. Faced with the memory of the traumatic event, Nel treks to Sula's grave, realizing that she misses her friend despite the lifestyle that Sula lived. Thus, through the memory of the traumatic event, Nel is able to experience the stark realization that she misses Sula and could have accepted her lifestyle, regardless of their differences.

Like Nel, Crowe experiences a similarly shocking revelation in regard to his traumatic event in "The Sixth Sense." After aiding Cole in overcoming his fear of helping the ghosts he sees, Crowe realizes that he is dead himself, having been killed by Vincent during the traumatic event that opened the movie. Fueled this knowledge and his success with helping Cole overcome his own fears and help his ghosts, the former psychologist is able to bid farewell to his wife and move on. Though Crowe's realization is a bit different than Nel's, stemming from both is aid to Cole and the traumatic encounter with Vincent, the implications of the realization suggest that not only has Crowe accepted his situation, but also he has learned the universal truth that one always has a chance to make up for the actions that cause one guilty feelings in life. For Crowe, those guilty feelings were aroused because of his inability to help Vincent and the time that was not spent with his wife. Because of his realization, Crowe is able to rectify both of these sources of guilt by helping Cole and reassuring his wife as she sleeps.

Thus, readers of Sula and viewers of "The Sixth Sense" can determine that the two works of fiction share many similarities. Not only are the characters of Nel and Crowe similar, but also similar are the traumatic events that they experience. At the beginning of both stories, both experience a traumatic event involving a child, guilt, and death that haunts them for the rest of their days. Both attempt to deal with the event by pushing away a loved one, and both end their stories with a dramatic realization brought on by the event. Because both Morrison and Shyamalan ethnic writers, the similarities between the novel and the film can be used to make a series of inferences about the themes and works of ethnic writers.

For instance, that both used the subject of haunting is significant. Although Morrison's treatment of the theme of haunting was in a more psychological vein, while Shyamalan's was more traditionally supernatural, both authors used the subject of haunting to convey the importance of the past. For both Nell and Crowe, the intrusion of the past was almost more predominant in their lives than the treatment of the present. Many scholars have suggested that this theme is popular not only for ethnic writers, but also for modern and contemporary writers, but ethnic writer's use of the technique has a variety of important explanations. The use of the presence of the past, or a haunting, conveys the importance of the past and its inability to ever be completely forgotten. Both Morrison and Shyamalan suggest this through different venues. As an author, Morrison completes this theme through constant references to the past and a storyline that follows the main character as she grows, but still focuses on the past as if it were occurring. Shyamalan's ability to use film treats the subject in a different way. By using flashbacks and nonlinear sequencing, the filmmaker suggests that the past is always with the audience, just as it is always with Crowe. Because ethnic writers must often deal with a past that is filled with hardships and significant moments, the importance of this theme in ethnic literature has been and should continue to be conveyed.