"Crazy He Calls Me, Sure I'm Crazy" - Carl Sigman

In both Sula and Beloved, Toni Morrison creates male characters that have been greatly scarred by what they have experienced and witnessed. Most characters in both of these novels have all seen terrible things, but there are a few select men in each novel who are so heavily affected by their experiences that they somewhat lose their sanity. Shadrack and Halle, from Sula and Beloved, were both completely changed after they had witnessed some horrible event.

Shadrack was a character in Sula who went off to world war one and came back shell shocked and became obsessed with bringing order to the world. He creates a holiday called national suicide day in order to make death less random by planning the day of his death. Along with creating this holiday he is more withdrawn from society and is regarded as crazy by most of the characters in the novel. All of his madness stemmed from his experience in World War One. Halle, from Beloved, was the husband of the Sethe and one of the children of Baby Suggs. He worked hard to buy his mother's freedom and was a loving husband to Sethe until, one day he witnessed Sethe getting raped, and he became completely catatonic. Both Halle and Shadrack were completely changed by what they witnessed.