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The Black Community : Sula

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The Black Community Sula further investigates the repressive white society 's influence on the black community and examines the corruptive forces which compel the members of the black society to reject and alienate one of their own people. The life of Sula Peace, while growing up in the black community of Medallion in the 1920s, is shaped by her experiences with family and friends. A strong sense of feminine identity is displayed in this independent young woman and when she returns to Medallion as an adult, she is feared and treated as an outcast because of her refusal to conform to the anticipated norms found in black society. Sula‟s best friend from childhood, Nel Wright, assumes the traditional role of wife and mother as an adult and yet, risks losing her own identity in the process. Therefore, the focus of Sula is the workings and struggles of the internal black society while it simultaneously centers on an in-depth analysis of the marginalized roles of blacks and women within the black community. The setting for Sula is a small town in Ohio, located on a hillside known as “Bottom”. Here again is evidence of the oppressive white society manipulating and mistreating the black community as a white slave owner promises his slave fertile “bottom” land as well as his freedom. However, the slave is deceived into believing that the land on the hillside is “rich and fertile...the bottom of heaven [and is] the best land there is” (Morrison, Sula 5). The white community

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