Sula Thesis

Toni Morrison’s, Sula, is a story that takes place over 40 years in Medallion, Ohio The story follows the lives of Nel and Sula from their first encounter with each other during childhood through their adult lives. It is the story of two girls who become women and two friends who become enemies. It is a friendship that is founded in secrets, death, blood, and agreements and understandings of who one another is. That is until one becomes a the submissive, stereotypical, family and community focused mother and the other becomes a fiercely independent, traveling, single adult with radical and definitive views that make her a pariah. In this novel, Toni Morrison writes Nel and Sula first as aligned compliments to each other, but later against one

The second event being her accidental participation in the death of Chicken Little a young classmate of Sula and Nel’s. In explanation of these events Morrison writes, “The first experience taught her there was no other that you could count on; the second that there was no self to count on either. She had no center, no speck around which to grow…She was completely free of ambition, with no affection for money, property or things, no greed, no desire to command attention or compliments-no ego. For that reason she felt no compulsion to verify herself-be consistent with herself” (Morrison, 118-119). These events for Sula are the foundation of where her individuality is internally manifested. The main event for Nel is the departure of Sula for a ten-year period. During this absence of Sula, Nel conforms to the expected societal role she is supposed to settle into. She meets Jude, gets married, has children, and before she knows it she is the epitome of the angel in the house. “These women represent both the hidden and presumed shameful aspect of womanhood and the independent, feminist aspect” (Galehouse, 353). It is at this point that the traditional submissive woman figure paradoxically is set against the bad/new woman throughout the

Sula “contextualizes herself by herself; her disinterest in children, a spouse, a job, and a home is, ultimately, a gesture toward creative agency and authority that the other characters in the novel do not make” (Galehouse, 342). It is this self-authorship that Sula holds that challenges the community’s collective identity. Sula lives day by day, resisting employment, companionship, even assistance, until she has no one and nothing left. Upon her return after ten years she enters Medallion for the first time simultaneously with a plague of robins. The community sees her as some sort of physical manifestation of evil. The community bashes her and abhors her ways not realizing the good she brings to the community. “Once the source of their personal misfortune was identified they had leave to protect and love one another. They began to cherish their husbands and wives, protect their children, repair their homes, and in general band together against the devil in their midst” (Morrison, 117-118). Sula inadvertently and unknowingly is the catalyst for all the good change in the community despite her being an outcast and despite her being their idea of the devil. And once Sula was dead and gone, all the good that she brought that no body noticed dissipated and became dead and gone with