A Multifaceted Interpretation of SulaIn The Apocalypse in African American Fiction, Maxine Lavon Montgomery weaves a multifaceted interpretation of Toni Morrison's Sula. Montgomery argues that "drawing on an African cosmological system, Morrison argues that although life in modern America is chaotic, it is possible to escape life in the West and return to the days of non-Western beginnings of the black community” (74). Although Montgomery presents a very detailed argument advancing several significant ideas that deserve recognition, his final conclusions go beyond what can be clearly argued in Sula. Montgomery's first major title in "Modern Chaos and Ancient Paradigms" (75) outlines his belief that "natural chaos and ancient paradigms" (75) disasters, unexpected deaths, and continued racist oppression bitterly remind us of the dimensions almost tragic aspects of life, because to be black in America is to experience calamity as an ever-present reality, to live on the edge of the apocalypse” (75). She supports this claim with the origins of the Bottom...