“Sula" by Tony Morrison is the story of a friendship between Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who are opposites in the way of relating to other people, to the world around them, and to themselves. Nel is rational and balanced; she gets married and gives in to conformity and the town's expectations. Sula is an irrational and transient character. She follows her immediate passions, completely unaware of the feelings other people might have. However, Nel and Sula are able to function well only when they are together because they complete each other as opposites. However, as separate entities, Sula and Nel are vulnerable and isolated from the rest of world; Sula because she is impulsive and disregards the feelings of other people, and Nel because she overlooks her own.
The personalities of Nel and Sula form as a result of their childhood family atmosphere. Sula's unusual exorbitance results from an eccentric upbringing that openly accepts and welcomes transience. The narrator describes Sula's house as a "throbbing disorder constantly awry with things, people, voices and the slamming of doors . . ." (52), which suggests a family accustomed to spontaneous disruptions and fleeting alliances. Sula decides that "sex is pleasant and frequent, but otherwise insignificant." (44) Sula grows up in the atmosphere of an emotional separation between mothers and daughters in her family. The mothers provide only the physical maternal support but lack in the emotional attachment to their children. Sula overhears her mother, Hannah, say, "I love her [Sula]. I just don't like her, that's the thing." (57) Hannah's words act as a determiner of Sula's defiance. Hannah and Eva, her mother, are also alienated. "Under Eva's distant eye, and prey to her idiosyncrasies, her own children grew up steadily." (41) This dissatisfaction causes Hannah to ask Eva, "Did you ever love us?" (67) "I know you fed us and all. I was talking 'bout something else. Did you ever, you know play with us?" (68) Eva leaps out of the window to "cover her daughter's body with her own" (75) to save her from a fire; she raises her children single-handedly and even sacrifices her leg to get an insurance because she does not have enough money to feed her children. Proud of keeping her children alive through the roughest times, Eva does not re...
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... only mooring." This loneliness is "somebody else's lonely. Made by somebody else and handed to [Nel]." (144) Without Sula, Nel needs to adhere to another people, she does not have desires and motives of her own.
Nel is Sula's connection to other people, while Sula is Nel's connection to herself. Neither has a firm footing without the other. Without Nel, Sula becomes alienated from other people by acting extremely eccentric, and Nel looses her individuality and does what is expected of her without Sula. "Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male they had set out about creating something else to be." (52) In "Sula," Toni Morrison dwells on the dream of a new, strong, African American woman. She challenges conformity and traditional rules of society. If old restrictions are never defied, new and better rules would never come. In this book, this image is contained in Sula and Nel together; each of them is a part of the image. By splitting the qualities of a whole and complete personality into two, Toni Morrison stresses how necessary both components are to the image of the new, strong African American woman.
Sula and Nel came from very contrasted families. Sula's mother was widowed, and "had a steady sequence of lovers, mostly the husbands of her friends and neighbors"(42). She did not have many woman friends, because most of them disliked her for her attitude towards her relationships. Growing up in an environment where her mother had so many different men taught Sula that "sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable"(44). Nel's mother on the other hand, strived to be the pillar of the black community. She was a woman who "won all social battles with persistence and a conviction of the legitimacy of her authority"(18). She was a woman who tried her hardest to fit into an ideal social mold, and she taught her daughter the 'right' way to live.
Given the title of the novel, Sula Peace is a complex and thought provoking character in Toni Morrison’s, Sula. Her thoughts and actions often contradict, leaving the reader unable to decipher whether Sula should be praised or demonized. As a child, Sula grows up in a chaotic household that is run by strong-willed women. Because of this constant commotion, Sula loves quiet and neat settings, which is shown through her behavior at Nel’s home. In the novel it says, “She had no center, no speck around which to grow” (Morrison 119). This quote points out how much her home life as a child affects her behavior as an adult. Her mother, Hannah, has almost no sense of right and wrong. Her promiscuous behavior is observed by Sula and sets the foundation
Helene was raised by her grandmother because she mother was a prostitute in the New Orleans. When Helene has a family of her own, she refuses to make her background be known. Helene raises Nel with fear because she doesn’t want her to have the lifestyle she grew up in. Helene controls Nel’s life and makes her see the world how it is. Nel and her mother go on a train to New Orleans to attend the funeral for her great grandmother. On the train, Nel witnessed racial situation between her mother and the white conductor. “Pulling Nel by the arm, she pressed herself and her daughter into the foot space in front of a wooden seat… at least no reason that anyone could understand, certainly no reason that Nel understood,” (21). Nel was very uncomfortable throughout the trip and wasn’t able to communicate with her mother because she never learned how to since her mother was not supportive of her. Nel views her mother very negatively for the way she raised her. Nel starts to determine her life and great her identity when she became friends with Sula. The effect of negative maternal interactions on an individual is explained by Diane Gillespie and Missy Dehn Kubitschek as they discuss
In the novel Sula, there were other important characters besides Sula. The character in this book I would like to focus on most is Eva Peace. Eva is a woman who has a disability but remains strong, and this will be the focus of this paper since it wasn’t focused on so much in the book.
Sula’s friendship with Nel is extraordinary. Nel is the child of the strict mother Helene. As children, the two friends have very different families. Nel is brought up very strictly, as Sula is not. She is portrayed as an abnormal character, compared to Nel who is seen as normal. Although Nel is normal, she never has the opportunity to be child and play. She always is required to have the proper personality. As she says, “I’m me... me” (Year 1920). ...
When she first appears in the short story, Nea instantly displays aggressive behavior in order to protect her sister from a man. She seemingly protects her older sister from a threatening man by stabbing the man with a knife. Nea tries to justify her rash behavior by say that, “he was hurting Sourdi!” (Chai 282). Throughout the short, Nea continues to defy rules and act impulsively due to her protective nature of Sourdi and sees her sister’s relationship with men threatening her own as the story progresses.
It is normal for two organisms in nature to have a symbiotic relationship in which both rely on each other in order to mutually benefit. However, sometimes one organism becomes greedy and decides to unfairly take more instead of equally sharing with their symbiotic partner. By doing so, the relationship becomes parasitic. Toni Morrison's Sula, focuses on this exact transformation in the friendship between Sula Peace and Nel Wright from their close childhood to their diverging paths as adults in their hometown of Medallion. The symbiotic relationship between Sula and Nel began during their childhood.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
The relationship between Nel and Sula begins during their adolescent years. Though they are complete opposites, they seem to work well with each other, depending on one another for comfort and support. The two spend almost all of their time together, learning from one another and growing as a result. They take solace in the presence of one another, finding comfort in what the other finds bothersome and using the lifestyle of the one another to compensate for their shortcomings. When Sula first visits Nel's home, "Nel, who regarded the oppressive neatness of her home with dread, felt comf...
Sula by Toni Morrison is a very complex novel with many underlying themes. Some of the themes that exist are good and evil, friendship and love, survival and community, and death. In Marie Nigro's article, "In Search of Self: Frustration and Denial in Toni Morrison's Sula" Nigro deals with the themes of survival and community. According to Nigro, "Sula celebrates many lives: It is the story of the friendship of two African-American women; it is the story of growing up black and female; but most of all, it is the story of a community" (1). Sula contains so many important themes that it is hard to say which one is the most important. I agree with Marie Nigro when she says that Sula is a story about community. I believe that community and how the community of Bottom survives is an important theme of the story. But I do not believe that it is a central theme of the story. When I think back on the novel Sula in twenty years, I will remember the relationship and friendship between Nel and Sula. I will not remember the dynamics of the community.
Nel is able to express her feelings and emotions when she is with Sula, which is good because she can’t do that at home because she has to be the obedient one. They understand each other completely, they never argue or compete with each other. Their relationship is invaluable; they met each other at the time where they both needed it the most. Their friendship is not dependent on obligation, compassion, or love, but on their conjuction of sameness and autonomy. At this point they are together because they want to, not because they have to or need to be. When Sula and Nel meet it’s the time when they realize that their spot in society is disadvantage, “because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be” (Morrison, 50). They are best friends mainly because they grew up in the same neighborhood, they are the same race, gender, and age. They understand the needs of each other and each other’s problems. They experience the intimacy they were looking for in each
In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, the theme of the story is good versus evil. It’s embodied into the story in various forms to question what defines right and wrong. Good versus evil is presented in forms that are understood on the surface and beneath the surface which gives it multiple meanings. The relationship between Sula and Nel is the main expression of this theme, however, there are also many other contributors such as color schemes, gender and race differences, and life and death. This theme sheds light on the significance and interpretation of issues of everyday reality which includes controversies related to identity struggles, super natural forces, the impact and relevance of upbringing on development, family structure, and racism. Morrison demonstrates the importance of good versus evil with her writing in the way that she overlaps them and interprets them as products of one another. The friendship of Sula and Nel creates a presence of good and evil within their relationship to each other and their community.
Nona is the driving force of the film that has a much more dramatic journey than Mae and Chressy: from a carefree, spontaneous girl to someone with great inner resolve. Chressy’s moment of catharsis has a big impact on Nona’s perspective. Nona now has to accept that there is no ‘black prince’ and that her eldest sister is actually her biological mother. The close-up on Nona’s face shows her tears and emotions, which proves that change is a continually evolving process whether it’s good or bad.
Sula has a feminist spirit and refuses to melt into the typical mold of a woman. She "discovered years before that [she was] neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to [her]" (52). Because of this she decides to lead her life on her own terms. Sula encounters both racism and sexism and is placed in a situation in which she has no release for her wild spirit. She cannot live out in the world with the freedoms of a man, but doesn't want to live as a stereotypically sheltered woman either. In attempting to break these boundaries she is hated by the town and viewed as an "evil" person by the community in which she lives.
There are many aspects of story that come together to create a complete narrative. A lot of the tools used by writers are intentional and serve the purpose of driving home certain aspects of the story or creating and engaging, and entertaining narrative. Toni Morrison—the author of Sula—is no different. Morrison employs many writing techniques and tools in her narrative Sula. It is important for the reader to be aware of and understand some of these narrative tools that the author uses because it allows the reader to gain a better understanding and appreciation for the narrative. In Sula a few narrative techniques that allow for the argument of women experiences to shine through are the use of a third person narrator, and gaps; throughout the story these tools allow the reader to become interested in and focus in on women experiences.