Beginning early in her life, Nel’s hopes and aspirations for her future are controlled by other people. As a child, Nel’s actions were dictated by her controlling mother: “Under Helene’s hand [Nel] became obedient and polite” (Morrison 18). Throughout her childhood, Nel never gets the opportunity to truly experience being a kid; she was raised in an obsessively clean, quiet, and orderly home. Morrison explains this in saying, “Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until she drove her daughter’s imagination underground” (18). To gain some control in her life, a young Nel tells herself, “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me” (28). This declaration empowers Nel as she attempts to take control of her …show more content…
On the contrary, Sula is given too much freedom as a child, a controlling force in itself as she never has any structure in her life. Although this freedom allows Sula to create her own identity and make a life for herself apart from society’s expectations of her as a woman, it also prevents her from knowing what it would be like to have a normal life. Due to the constant presence of noise, disorder, and commotion at home, Sula favours the quiet “oppressive neatness of [Nel’s] home” (29). This speaks to Sula’s character because although she is viewed as impulsive and emotional, she can “sit on [Helene’s] red-velvet sofa for ten to twenty minutes at a time - still as dawn” (29), simply observing the calm around her. This shows that Sula yearns for the sense of order she never experiences in her own home. *CONCLUSION AND TRANSITION TO NEXT …show more content…
As Nel reaches adulthood, her previous affirmation to stay true to herself does not remain constant. As an adult, Nel becomes the embodiment of the societal expectations placed on her as an African-American woman; she is married, has never left the Bottom, is a stay-at-home mother, and regularly attends church. Similarly to the other black women in Medallion, she has turned into a submissive housewife with no dreams or ambitions of her own. Nel’s “me-ness”, the sense of control she swore to keep forever, begins to deteriorate when she marries Jude. In complying to his proposal, Nel hopes for Jude’s aspirations to become her own. In reality however, she abandons her own ambitions by embracing and validating her mother’s and the black community’s conventional ideals of happiness: getting married, becoming a mother, and having absolute devoutness to one’s husband. When Jude leaves her after having sex with Sula, the life Nel has so carefully built for herself crumbles, as does her façade of control. The perfect life she was supposed to live is now in shambles. In her adult life, Sula makes it her personal mission to become everything the women in Medallion are not: independent, self-controlled, and unique: “Eva’s arrogance and Hannah’s self-indulgence merged in her and, with a twist that was all her own imagination, she lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and
The form of this work is influenced by the fact that Janisse is a woman. She feels a deep connection with the land where she was raised. “The landscape that I was born to, that owns my body” (Ray 13). She definitely expresses her feelings of injustice for the environment much differently than a man would. She also focuses on her desire to not accept her role as a typical woman. Not only as a child did she refuse to act like a little, sweet, innocent girl, but when she grew up, she defied the norm and attended college – and she had a passion for science which is also uncommon in most girls. “When I was eighteen and away from my town, I dived recklessly and surely into the world, not because it was a form of rebellion, as people might think, but as a form of healing and revival.” By this we can see Ray’s desire to go off by herself and take a risk. She took the plunge and control of her life becoming independent.
“He expected his story to dovetail into milkwarm commiseration, but before Nel could excrete it, Sula said she didn’t know about that” (Morrison 103). Jude assumes Nel will just feel sorry for him automatically. Her expected response is described as milky, warm, and able to be excreted, like a mother nursing a baby. Women are expected to be the caretakers, never stating their real opinions. “In a novel populated by mothers, maternal imagery abounds: the image of Nel ‘excret[ing]’, ‘milk-warm commiseration’ for her husband” (Morrison and Lister 246). Women are expected to be maternal beings at the mercy of their husband and children and are not given the option of taking another route. This imagery highlights that black women do not have the power to choose a different path easily and are merely looked at as only having the power to be potential mothers, nothing
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
Sula by Toni Morrison is a compelling novel about a unique, self-confident woman. As in many other books, each secondary character in the story serves as a vehicle to explain the main character. Hannah, Sula's mother, is dominated by the element of air; she is free spirited, frivolous and child-like. On the other hand, the element of fire is prevalent in Sula, who is impulsive, hot-tempered and passionate. Despite the differences between the two, Hannah's lifestyle intrigues and influences her daughter. The effect Hannah has on Sula is reflected in many of her daughter's perspectives and actions. As a result of the ubiquitous presence of fire within her, in contrast to her mother's blithe spirit, Sula carries all of Hannah's immorality and actions to a more extreme level. Both women have promiscuous tendencies, do not have close friendships with women, and become easily irritated by Eva. The difference is that Sula's fiery character leads her to act more cruelly than her mother.
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.
In the novel Sula by Toni Morrison imagery is used throughout the story to help the reader identify the theme. Imagery can be found all through the story, to make the theme more clear for the reader. For instance when Eva kills Plum imagery shows how cleansing is a main theme in the novel. “He opened his eyes and was what he imagined was a great wing of an eagle pouring wet lightness over him. Some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing, he thought. Everything is going to be alright, he said. ” This quote of imagery supports the theme of cleansing because instead of Plums death being painful it is almost as if he is being reborn. His death is described as a blessing cleansing his mistakes of the past. In this novel imagery is used to show
Conformity and defying social norms were a common theme this week. In Toni Morrison’s book Sula, Sula Peace actively opposes gender roles. She does this by doing what she would like to do without the burden of her town’s expectations. Sula enjoyed sex and disregarded all of the opinions of the townspeople around committing adultery. Eli commented that it was even more unacceptable in that time period, but Sula’s main priority is being authentic. Even though she urged men to cheat she was still a risk taker and lived spontaneously, which was even more forbidden for a black woman and like Lauren said, the men were also to blame, not just Sula. Not many people in the Bottom share that trait because they are afraid of social isolation. For example, Nel didn’t stray far from the status quo due to her upbringing. Nel’s mother taught her to be proper and follow the set of rules given to her. Her mother often reminded her to “pull her nose” (28) so Nel could have a more appealing nose. On the other hand, Sula lived in an unconventional household with a constant flow of different people coming and going out of the house. Since she was not exposed to a father figure, she was not tainted by patriarchal expectations of the genders. She didn’t witness
Through the negative experiences that she has had with motherhood, Sula does not want to become a mother. She sees Hannah’s sadness and frustration with Eva and recognizes her poor relationship with Hannah and does not want to repeat it. Sula’s insufficient relationship with her mother is exposed when Sula watched her mother burn and die. Sula does not attempt to help her mother, she only stands silently and watches her mother die. Eva notices this but, “remained convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested” (78). This shows her lack of care for motherhood. She does not have kids and dies without having any. But during her life, she ends up in a similar situation as her mother She focuses only on men and people begin to hate her for this. She begins to take friends’ and neighbors’ husbands the same way Hannah did. Sula even turned on her only friend, Nel, and took her husband too. She is the reason that Nel’s husband left her. Sula adopted the same principles as her mother, and Hannah was shaped by Eva.
...ut men, family ties and financial stability would be difficult to obtain, which were necessary to secure an identity in the early south. Early Southern women were ultimately forced to identify themselves by the males to which they were tied. Three female characters from the works read thus far, struggled without men to identify them. For Désirée, her past and family heritage proved too much to overcome. Without the surname provided by her husband, Désirée was without an identity to call her own and gave way to societal code. Yet, due to their internal fight for self-satisfaction, Lena and Janie were able to overcome their lack of identity by establishing their own without the aid of a male. In conclusion, identity is attainable for some women. However, it takes a Southern woman dedicated to her own beliefs to overcome such obstacles and return stronger than before.
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.
Although Mrs. Forrester is able to end her life as a happy person, before that the reader witnessed a huge shift in her attitudes toward life. In large part, was due to the difficult transition from the Old World to the New World that Mrs. Forrester endured. At first, Niel finds Marian as the ideal women who represented the Old World but failed to realize it was a false image. With that, he is at a lost when he cannot save the “old” Mrs. Forrester. Mrs. Forrester leads to becoming what the reader knows as the acclaimed lost lady who confronts the realization that times have changed especially as Mr. Forrester passes.
...inds that she can be happy and content having her own life, without being treated like a doormat by others. She is finally truly happy with her life and the way it is going, except for one thing. Her life is complete when, after years of wondering about her sister, and then years of waiting, Nettie finally comes home, bringing “their” children, and Adam’s wife from Africa. As Celie puts it, “I feel a little peculiar around the children. For one thing, they grown. And I see they think me and Nettie and Shug and Albert and Samuel and Harpo and Sophia and Jack and Odessa real old and don’t know much what going on. But I don’t think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.”(295) With her long lost sister, and her kids reunited with her after so much time, there really wouldn’t be any other way to feel besides young again, except for maybe an urge to make up for lost time. Now that she’s being treated like she should be, it should be easier to make up the time to her family, because she can be herself, and be happy about it. That’s saying a lot after all she’s been through, and Celie will surely make the best of her from this point on.
However in Sula, the friendship of two also has the change during adulthood when Nel is disappointed with closeness of Sula with her husband. But twenty-five years after Sula's death, Nel realizes that she has wasted all of her opportunities for self-discovery and happiness. In Nel's final moments with Sula, Morrison calls into question the priority of Nel's marriage over her friendship with Sula, for Sula asks of her having sex with Nel's husband,
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.