Twisting the Plot in Toni Morrison's 1922 from Sula and John Doble's The Mind Reader

"She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;"
- Theodore Roethke (332)

In contemporary literature, authors often find it essential to create twisting plots that offer many surprises throughout the text. These twists in the nature of the plotline have become necessary to keep the focus of a modern audience whose attention span grows ever shorter by the minute. Authors such as Toni Morrison and John Doble represent this contemporary trend in their works. The fictional natures of Morrison's and Doble's works allow them to pursue plot shifts. Particularly, in the excerpt "1922" from the novel Sula and in the short story "The Mind Reader," the authors create interest in plot twists that develop out of the use of eccentric characters, ambiguous dialogues, and sexual innuendos.

In Sula, one way Morrison lays the foundation for the plot shifts is by creating and developing eccentric characters. Morrison accomplishes this development through the use of historical background. For example, the time setting Morrison uses is the 1920's, a time in which whites and blacks had not yet been integrated. Morrison uses this historical background and the 1920's perspective of blacks to portray an eccentric quality about the character Shadrack. We see this when she describes Shadrack as, "the only black who could curse white people and get away with it" (Morrison 532).

Knowing the historic background in which blacks were subordinate to whites, the reader can easily see Shadrack's affinity against the ordinary since he fails to yield to these unwritten cultural rules. Morrison also uses the same tactics with regard to the character Ajax. While setting the stage for the action in the plot, Morrison introduces Ajax when Nel and Sula walk past Ajax and a group of men. Knowing the conservative natures of people in 1920's, the reader is then surprised by Ajax's comment, "pig meat" (527). However, Morrison uses this background to shroud the undeveloped character of Ajax and set the stage for the reader to be surprise when they find out the girls' ages. Using historical conceptions, the author misdirects the readers in order to create a more shocking surprise.

Also, Toni Morrison furthers the effectiveness of her plot twists by creating ambiguous dialogue with the eccentric character. After the development of the mysterious nature of Shadrack, Morrison uses ambiguity to her advantage when she writes Shadrack's only dialogue in this excerpt in a matter of only one word. Following Chicken Little's death in the river, the main character Sula seeks Shadrack to find out if he has seen this horrible event. At this point, Morrison offers Shadrack's response when she writes simply, "Always" (Morrison 532). The ambiguity of this response is surprising because neither Sula nor the audience understands whether he means, "I'll always keep your secret" or "you'll always owe me for this" in perhaps a sexual way.

The same ambiguity is tied to Ajax's call of "pig meat" when the two girls walk past (527). The reader isn't sure of the intended meaning of the term. To an unknowing reader the term may be synonymous with "fresh meat" or perhaps a reference to a young girl ripening in her beauty. The uncertainty this gives to the reader is a subtle hint that the initial conjecture that the girls where of age may be false. Morrison's mysterious dialogue is yet another subsection of the complete plot shifts in her work.
Furthermore, the author Morrison included sexual innuendo in the text as a means to complete the surprise to the reader. After the establishment of Shadrack's mysterious nature and the use of ambiguous dialogue through him, Morrison puts the final touch on the plot twist by surprising the reader with hints of sexual misdeeds.

This occurs when Sula flees Shadrack's house and seeks comfort in her friend Nel's arms. At this point, Nel offers the sexual portion of the surprise when she asks Sula, "where's the belt to your dress" (Morrison 533). The question leads the reader to wonder if Shadrack may have involved himself sexually with the young girl or if Morrison may be foreshadowing such events. Also, the author uses the character Ajax as another means to imply sexual mystery when she writes, "Pig meat. The words were in all their minds" (527).

The ambiguity of the term pig meat is easily dissolved upon further inspection of the text. The reader can discern that in this instance the author is implying the men think that the two girls are entering the stage of sexual growth and they are prime targets for the future. This implication is shocking to the reader and shows the sexual undertones of the text much the same as the incident with Shadrack. In all, if Morrison had excluded one of these elements of surprise, the twist would have lacked fullness. However, using all three methods, Morrison completes a full about-face shift in the plot that fully captures the reader as intended.

Just as Morrison does in Sula, John Doble creates a basis for his full plot twist by creating an unconventional and peculiar character in his short story "The Mind Reader." In much the same manner as Morrison, Doble's creation of an unusual quality in one of the characters revolves around a historical basis. In "The Mind Reader," Doble's eccentric character is Jeffrey who by all accounts seems to "need help (psychologically)" (Doble 29). Doble creates Jeffrey's strangeness out of a historical background that involves the Vietnam War, in which Jeffrey fought and undoubtedly obtained psychological scars. This background allows Doble to form a hint of psychological mystery about Jeffrey's mindset. We see this when Doble leads into the story with an in-depth description of the narrator's take on the War. Doble describes the War and events surrounding it as events "with an unreality about them" and as "serious, deadly serious" (Doble 16).

Such "unreality" and psychological unrest is often associated with Vietnam War veterans. This common conception among audiences allows Doble to create imply that Jeffrey is an enigma and that his mindset is unstable. Morrison's use of the conceptions of a particular historical time period was advantageous to her development of a plot twist. Likewise, Doble also used the audiences' conceptions about the War time period to work in his favor. The use of these methods easily allows the authors to begin to twist their respective plots and maintain the interest of audiences.

John Doble's "The Mind Reader" also makes use of dialogue ambiguity. Much the same as Morrison's novel, Doble's story has a second stage of plot twisting that stems from the author's eccentric character and his use of short dialogue toward another character that leaves that character in a state of wonder or confusion. In "The Mind Reader" while Jeffrey is experimenting with the young hippy girl in the bar, he tells her several times, "I know," in response to her unasked questions (Doble 21).

By providing the foundation of Jeffrey as an enigmatic personality, Doble is able to use that to make the ambiguous comments Jeffrey makes even more unclear to the reader. This allows Doble to setup the final portion of the plot twist in which clarifies Jeffrey's psychological instability in the last scene of the story. Doble's "I know" parallels to Morrison's "Always" and "Pig meat" in its tactical value toward creating a plot shift. Both use the same technique of ambiguity to setup the audience for further surprises in the plotline.

Doble's subtle use of sexual innuendo also impacts his plotline and keeps the reader interested. Doble includes sexual undertones when Jeffrey is well into his mind games with the young girl from the bar. The reader first notices them when the girl asks, "what in God's name do you want," and Jeffrey replies, "what do you think" (Doble 26). The girl, along with the reader, thinks that Jeffrey has made sexual implications toward her. This innuendo allows Doble to finish the surprise at the conclusion of the story when Jeffrey reveals his entire psychological game.

The sexual innuendo that Doble uses is similar in value to the story to that which Morrison uses in Sula. In both stories, the authors set up the conclusive surprise by using sexual undertones toward characters that are in need, Sula for reassurance that her secret is safe and the hippy girl for guidance in life. In both cases, the authors use characters that show a need coupled with sexual innuendo to offer the final surprise that captures the attention of the audience and completes the plot shift.

In conclusion, in Sula and "The Mind Reader," the authors capture the attention of audiences by creating plot twists out of the use of eccentric characters, ambiguous dialogues, and sexual innuendos. Comparatively, the two authors have paralleling works that use the same style and methods to create plot twists. Both authors effectively setup the conclusive twist by developing characters such as Shadrack and Ajax from Sula and Jeffrey from "The Mind Reader."

Once the authors developed these characters, the setup continued by each of the characters demonstrating their mysterious natures with ambiguity in their dialogues. Finally, the plot twists were completed by both authors through the use of sexual undertones. Developing plot twists in such a way is tremendously useful for authors looking to keep the attention of a modern audience.