Shadrack, Plum, and Sula are characters whose vitality is on the threshold of life or death due to past situations they are unable to handle. .
Death is a permanent cessation of all vital functions: the end of life, as stated in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Death is introduced in the beginning of the novel via the eyes of Shadrack, a major character, while in combat in .
World War I. Shadrack experienced death in an emotional and psychological form after the war. Shadrack witnessed, a soldier's head sever from his body after being shot in combat. After this sight, Shadrack suffers from shell shock syndrome, which is modernly known as known as post-traumatic stress disorder. .
Emotionally Shadrack was affected by the inability to cope with the horrid visual sights and pressure situations of World War I. The war has left him in a state of shock, even when he is away from the battlefield. After the war, Shadrack is recuperating from the injury of his hands but is still suffering from post war trauma making his mental health poor. When Shadrack was conscious enough to view his ugly, grotesque hands he immediately went into a state of psychological death. He began to act erratically making the hospital staff restrain him in a straightjacket. A straightjacket is often used to keep a psychologically challenged patient restrained from doing injury to themselves or others. .
After returning to his hometown of Medallion, when he is prematurely released from a mental hospital, Shadrack institutes a holiday called National Suicide Day on January 3, 1920. This is a day when he can feel secure about death. It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of it .
(Morrison 14. All other references to Toni Morrison's Sula will be indicated by page reference to this text). One can infer that Shadrack was unable to cope with the reality of death in a psychological and emotional aspect.
