Toni Morrison's Sula Essay example

The town prejudicially perceives Sula’s actions as evil. Once people had a preconceived negative perception of Sula, a rumor was started that she slept with white men. Their disdain is shown here, "There was nothing lower she could do, nothing filthier." (113). It was a great offense if a women slept with a white man. Along with rumors being started about her, false speculations were made as well. Because Sula had all her teeth, no childhood diseases, and looked younger than her age, people in Medallion used this as evidence to conclude she was evil. They believed it was proof that "..she was free of any normal signs of vulnerability." (115). Sula was somebody people had never experienced before. She was almost too different. This difference was translated by the community as evil and strange. People of Medallion projected their fears of the unknown to their expanding hatred for Sula. This aura of mystery and difference is what attracts Ajax to Sula.

Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, examines a wide range of topics, delving particularly into morality, the black female experience, and friendship. The narrative follows childhood best friends, Nel and Sula, as they navigate life in the Bottom, a black community in Ohio. Although inseparable as children, even undivided after accidentally killing a two-year-old boy, they follow divergent paths as adults. Nel leads a life of conformity; Sula does the opposite. An enigma to all, society tries to make sense of Sula through her birthmark. It is a blank slate onto which people project whichever meaning most suits them. The different ways characters perceive Sula’s birthmark reveals more about the interpreter

Although Nel thinks of herself as the "good" one and considers Sula the "bad" one, at that point you

Sula wanted nothing to do with a husband that would betray her and cheat on her and come home and just be horribly mean to her.  I think the biggest emotional obstacle Sula endured was watching her mother burn to death. Sula went through an obstacle course of emotions and relationships.  Poor choices were made, which led to her ultimate demise, however, her demise was her own choice. It was pretty ironic how the dislike for Sula brought the community together. With their dislike for Sula they forgot about the problems they had with each other.

Her mother and grandmother, who obviously favor her brother, essentially ignore Sula. Hannah, her mother, is a very sexual woman who enjoys the company of many men in town to the disapproval of Sula. Because of her mother’s actions, Sula views her with an indifferent and callous sense of hostility. Still, Sula reacts in a negative way when hears her mother say, “‘I just don’t like her’” in reference to her daughter. (57) The difference between loving someone and liking someone is made clear here. It develops the idea of a mother’s ambivalent love. When a child is aggravating, it can be frustrating to love them. But for Hannah, she simply does not like the person Sula is becoming. This realization, for Sula, removes her from

This is seen in Paul D, who loses his sense of self worth and place, in Denver, who loses the joy of companionship, and Sethe, who loses the line of morality when it comes to how far she should go in her love for her family. As a result, these characters act out just as cruely in order to protect what it precious, proving that when a person is the vicitim of a heinous crime, they do everything in their power to protect themselves or others and prevent the same acts from ever happening

She too sleeps with only the husbands of other women. Sula has never witnessed a healthy relationship between a man and a woman. This is regarded by the community as terrible. Sula uses the men she sleeps with for pleasure, taking no consideration as to how the men feel. She refuses to have such patriarchal relationships as Hannah did. Hannah may indeed have received pleasure from the men she slept with but she remained the submissive participant in her relations. "Hannah rubbed no edges, made no demands, made the man feel as though he were complete and wonderful just as he was- he didn’t need fixing..." (p 2012). Sula, on the other hand, has a need to feel in control right down to the mechanics of her affairs. "And there was the utmost irony and outrage in lying under someone, in a position of surrender, feeling her own abiding strength and limitless power." (p2048). She not only took sex from men as pleasure, but sought out to claim power over them. "Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow." (p2044). This made the women upset and furthered their hatred for Sula. Sula had power by sleeping with these very same men who held power over submissive wives. The town regards all of Sula’s actions as evil. They called her a "roach" and a "bitch", but above that spread a nasty rumor that she slept with white men. "There was nothing lower she could do, nothing filthier." (p2043). Though it is mentioned in

Sula says “I did not hold my head stiff enough when I met him and so I lost it just like the dolls”(136). For a second, she became the woman that the Bottom wanted her to be. The Bottom saw Nel as good because she conformed to this standard, and saw Sula as evil because of her promiscuous and non traditional lifestyle. However, here Sula is showing that she too can show these traits that the people in the Bottom see as correct and virtuous. The fact that Sula and Nel both possess the traits that defined them as either good or evil, shows that they actually cannot be defined as either, just as Eva describes “Just alike. Both of you. Never was no difference between you two”(169). Their similarity erases the harsh line drawn by the people of the Bottom as to what good and evil looks like, making it apparent that morality is not black and white but more ambiguous. Good cannot be the direct opposite of evil, if those who represent good and evil are both good and evil themselves. The idea that Sula is evil while Nel is good is torn down in Nel’s mind as well, as near the book 's end she reflects on the death of Chicken Little. Morrison writes “All these years she had been secretly proud of her calm, controlled behavior when Sula was uncontrollable...Now it seemed that what she has thought was maturity, serenity, and compassion was only the tranquility that follows a joyful stimulation. Just as the water closed peacefully over the turbulence of Chicken Little 's

she had” (Morrison 83). In the book Sula by Toni Morrison, Nel represents the women who follow all the social conventions and normative expectations. Nel and many women in our society are taught how to survive in this patriarchal society and their desperation for freedom and equality are rubbed down when they were young. On the other hand, the main character Sula is a self-defined woman. Sula is a representation of extreme individualism since she remains single and has sexual relations with countless married and single men. She also sends her grandmother to an elderly home and does not care about the feelings of the people around her. Morrison uses Sula to

Sula dislikes her disheveled house, and wishes that she could live in a household as clean as that of Nel. Sula?s positive view of Nel?s home challenges Nel to see it in a new light, teaching her to appreciate. This concept stays current throughout the early years of their relationship, each opening the other?s eyes to new idea and ways of living and as they do their friendship grows stronger. The two become practically inseparable, living completely symbiotically and depending on each other for everything. However, this relationship is destined to change.

In the novel Sula by Toni Morrison, the idea that Sula and Nel are different is proven multiple times. Throughout the entire novel, the stark contrast between Nel Wright Greene and Sula Peace is shown, starting from their childhood, when they first met. From even before the two friends had met, the difference was clear; the household that Nel lived in was overly clean and strict, while the household Sula lived in was entirely the opposite, with it being noisy, busy, and messy. As little girls, Sula and Nel create their own rules for their friendship; "In the safe harbor of each other's company they could afford to abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their own perceptions of things” (55). However, their close friendship is tested when Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband, Jude, which stops Nel’s relationship with Jude and her friendship with Sula.

In comparing good and bad, Sula says, ”Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it" (Morrison 145). Good and bad continue to be compared throughout the book’s entirety. For example, Eva's burning Plum is a complex convergence of practicality and maternal love. It is far too complicated to conclusively define the act as being good or bad. The situation surrounding Chicken Little’s death is an equally ambiguous situation about which Nel and Sula’s feelings aren’t clear. Sula then, on her death bed, Lastly Sula, upon her

Being oppressed by her mother, Nel has an attraction to Sula’s carefree environment, which, unlike her own lacks any oppression. Likewise, Sula has an attraction to Nel’s peaceful and orderly environment. They both desire something that the other has, and that’s where such a strong attraction comes from. Together, they are perfect. Nel finds in Sula the youthfulness and the fun she’s missing, and Sula finds order and stability in Nel.

For Sula, there is no "other" against which she can then define herself. Having rejected her community and her family, she wanders, trying somehow to define who she is. Sula turns to Shadrack, the local madman, at first because she worries that he saw what happened to Chicken Little, but then because his words truly do comfort her.

Unlike all the other women in the story, Sula is tough and does not let others interfere with her. She lives her life by her own rules and standards. The people in the town notice that "except for a funny-shaped finger and that evil birthmark, she was free of any normal signs of vulnerability" (115). Again, the rose symbolized Sula's growth and carefree way of life.