What I Contributed to Sula?

“Sula” really leant itself to coming up with many discussion topics. Finding how to have eight people work together, bounce off ideas, and get everyone in class to participate was a difficult, but not impossible. At the end, the group worked well together because we all contributed.
As to what I contributed to the group was topics at hand when we had no idea where our direction of discussion was headed. In the brain-storming process, I gave ideas (that were and were not ultimately used). Some ideas that were not used were the ideas of xenophobia, especially with the Sula and Shadrack characters whom the town distanced themselves from for varying reasons. I also made sure we steered the course with keeping with “Radical Romance,” which the novel made simple with its topics, themes and issues.
Ultimately, we chose binaries. I suggested “The Bottom/Valley” binary and the one that I researched, which was “Traditional/Non-traditional Gender roles” in the book. I picked out four passages from the book and did the questions for the gender portion of our discussion as well.
In one of our get-togethers I also brought up potential theories we could use, such as Derrida’s differance, and DeBouvoir’s quote “a woman is a womb,” which I did not discuss in class. Another theory I mentioned was Saussure’s “Sign,” but it became too convoluted to use.