A Bird's Eye View

The third person omniscient point of view of Toni Morrison's Sula is the framework for a complex story.  There is a copious amount of characters in the novel and the unbiased third person perspective allows readers to delve into the novel and discover who each character is holistically.  The events which take place throughout the novel are  shocking and impactful for readers.  Due to the fact that these events are presented through the eyes of an outside onlooker, readers acquire a deep understanding of the events themselves rather than being persuaded by a certain character's biased opinion to view an event in a certain way.

Throughout the novel, several characters die in seemingly grotesque and horrific ways.  The first major death in the novel is Plum who is set afire by his mother and burns to death.  During this scene the reader does not entirely understand what is going on because they cannot see into Eva's mind and view her inner thoughts to understand what she is doing.  Without understanding why Eva is burning her son, the event seems horrible, cruel, and baseless and readers are left with feelings of confusion regarding why a mother would burn her son.  In the moment it seems that Hannah is the only other person besides Eva who understands what is going on as "the two women did not speak, for the eyes of each were enough for the other" (Morrison 48).  Readers are left to wonder what each woman is thinking behind their eyes and why they know what each other is thinking.  This scene would have been entirely different if it had been in the first person through the eyes and thoughts of either Hannah or Eva.  Seeing their inner thoughts would have provided clarity for the event.  Readers would probably have felt sympathetic towards Eva with the knowledge, in the moment, of why she did what she did.  A great amount of suspension builds up as readers are left with thoughts about why the horrible and shocking event occurred.

 The third person point of view plays a key role in the scene when young Chicken drowns in the river.  Sula and Nel are the only two characters during this scene and readers are not able to see exactly what each girl is thinking.  During the scene "they expected him to come back up, laughing.  Both girls stared at the water" (Morrison 61).  Readers are left to ponder what each girl is thinking and feeling during this time as they stare into the water because of the third person point of view.  If this scene had been told from either Sula or Nel's perspective, readers would have taken away different feelings.  The presentation of the event would have been more biased.

Soon after, Hannah lights herself on fire and jumps out the window.  This too seems just as random and gruesome as Plum's death and without knowing what Hannah was thinking before she set herself on fire, readers have no sense of why a person would do such a thing.  During this scene, the third person point of view captures the big picture of what is going on.  Readers experience the neighbors running to get water, Eva jumping out the window, and the two women in the hospital.  Readers are unable to see what Eva is thinking when she jumps out of the window which allows readers to think for themselves about why she may have done that.  Due to the fact that readers experience the scene from a sort of birds eye view, the perspective on the event is very broad and a bit confusing.  At the conclusion of the scene Eva discusses how "...Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested" (Morrison 78).  This moment builds up a lot of tension as so many thoughts are racing through the reader's mind.  Readers are questioning why a child would watch their mother burn with interest.  It does not seem normal but, because readers see this from the third person point of view, there is no explanation.

The third person point of view allows readers to experience these strange and intense events without being influenced by a certain character's point of view.  It allows each reader to form their own opinions about each character and come to their own conclusions about the nature of each event.  This style of narration builds suspense and pushes forward the plot in an engaging and well-rounded way.