Sula Toni Morrison's Sula is a novel that has a theme about the nature of evil. The story follows the lives of two black female friends who present differing views on evil. On one hand, we have society's conventional view of evil represented by the character of Nel and also seen in the Bottom's disapproval of Sula. The other view of evil is seen through the character of Sula and through her actions, which conflict with traditional society. The friendship of Sula and Nel is how the author conveys her message about evil in the relationship. In the relationship the two different conceptions of evil mix and create an essentially neutral mixture. By looking at Nel's and Sula's friendship and the two different views of evil that they have, the author shows us the subjective and relative nature of evil and how friendship can overcome any evil. In the Bottom, the dominant view of evil is society's conception. Its guidelines for good and bad behavior can be seen through society's reaction to Sula. Her return to the Bottom after being gone for ten years is greeted with the same way one would greet a pest, a plague or an illness. The novel shows society's negative view of her when it describes how Sula arrived "accompanied by a plague of robins" (Morrison 89). Her time spent in the Bottom is grouped with other evils the "floods, white people, tuberculosis, famine and ignorance" (Morrison 90) and her stay in the town is called the "evil days"(89), because the town views Sula as an evil force. The reason the town saw her as evil is because of her sexual habits. Sula herself knows that the townspeople "despised her and ... framed their hatred as disgust for the easy way she lay with men"(122), because being faithful in a marriage is one of the town's most important principles. Even worse is the one "unforgivable thing", the accusation that "that Sula slept with white men"(112), offending the town's racial pride. Not only are the residents horrified by her sexual openness, but they are also offended by her directness. To annoy her neighbors, Sula "came to their church suppers without underwear" (114) and even more, "they believed she was laughing at their God" (115). Once again, we see through the town's disapproval of Sula what it holds dear. If that wasn’t enough, she angers the town even more by openly mocking their beliefs. Sula's crime is not... ... middle of paper ... ... in their midst" (117-118). Toni Morrison is proving that evil is a concept that is different for everyone, and that no one person has a right over its definition. But besides all the talk about the differences between good and evil, there is a stronger force at work in the novel. For Nel and Sula, and all their trials together, they last because of their deep friendship. The concept of evil is raised in their friendship. Despite their different views on what evil is, Sula and Nel reconcile in the end, as Nel realizes that what ultimately matters is their friendship. At the end of the novel, Nel feels a sense of sorrow. However, she realizes that "all the time, I thought I was missing Jude" (174), when in fact she was missing Sula, her closest friend for almost her whole life. Ignoring her opinion about Sula's actions with Jude, she longs for the Sula saying, "We was girls together. O Lord, Sula, girl, girl, girlgirlgirl", a cry with "circles and circles of sorrow" (174). Nel realizes that what mattered wasn’t really how she and Sula differed but rather it was the strength of their friendship which overcame any conflicting conceptions of evil that they might have had.
Organisms in nature rely on one another for their well being. However, sometimes those organisms become greedy and decide to take in the relationship, instead of sharing with their symbiotic partner. Through this action, it takes on parasitic characteristics. In Toni Morrison's work, Sula, Sula Peace and Nel Wright demonstrate how a symbiotic relationship goes awry. When one partner betrays the other, by taking instead of giving, the other partner suffers. Nel and Sula's relationship suffers because Sula unfortunately takes actions that lead to partaking in a parasitic relationship where she begins to wither away. Nel refuses the parasitic lifestyle and relationship, which causes Sula to wither away. In the midst of her death, Sula finally realizes that she needs the symbiotic relationship with Nel to survive. The interactions between Sula and Nel began symbiotically; however, it develops into a parasitic one with the dependence of Sula on Nel.
Pessoni, Michele. “‘She was laughing at their God.’: Discovering the Goddess Within Sula.” African American Review 29 (1995): 439-451.
Toni Morrison's Beloved Throughout the novel Beloved, there are numerous and many obvious reoccurring themes and symbols. While the story is based off of slavery and the aftermath of the horrible treatment of the slaves, it also breaches the subject of the supernatural. It almost seems like the novel itself is haunted. It is even named after the ghost. To further the notion of hauntings, the characters are not only haunted by Beloved at 124, but they are haunted by their past, and the novel is not only about ridding their home of the ghost, but releasing their hold on what had happened to them in worse times.
In the book Sula by Toni Morrison, Morrison’s ambiguous link between good, evil, and guilt, she is able to show that these terms are relative to each other and often occur mutually. In her comparison of good and evil, Sula states that "Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it" (145). Good and evil are being compared as if they are equal and that is how the book is structured. For instance, Eva's burning of Plum is a complex conjunction of motherly love and practicality and cannot be described as simply being a good act or a bad one. The killing of Chicken Little is a similarly ambiguous situation from which Sula and Nel's feelings are unclear. Lastly Sula, upon her death bed, questions what it means to be good and suggests that it what may be considered bad could in reality be good. Both in the syncopated style of Morrison's writing and the morally ambiguous portrayal of characters, cause the reader to question morals and think about them on a larger scale.
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.
Trauma: an emotional shock causing lasting and substantial damage to a person’s psychological development. Linda Krumholz in the African American Review claims the book Beloved by Toni Morrison aids the nation in the recovery from our traumatic history that is blemished with unfortunate occurrences like slavery and intolerance. While this grand effect may be true, one thing that is absolute is the lesson this book preaches. Morrison’s basic message she wanted the reader to recognize is that life happens, people get hurt, but to let the negative experiences overshadow the possibility of future good ones is not a good way to live. Morrison warns the reader that sooner or later you will have to choose between letting go of the past or it will forcibly overwhelm you. In order to cement to the reader the importance of accepting one’s personal history, Morrison uses the tale of former slave Sethe to show the danger of not only holding on to the past, but to also deny the existence and weight of the psychological trauma it poses to a person’s psyche. She does this by using characters and their actions to symbolize the past and acceptance of its existence and content.
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
In 1983, Toni Morrison published the only short story she would ever create. The controversial story conveys an important idea of what race is and if it really matter in the scheme of life. This story takes place during the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. The idea of civil rights was encouraged by the government but not enforced by the states, leaving many black Americans suffering every day. In Morrison’s short story Recitatif, Morrison manipulates the story’s diction to describe the two women’s races interchangeably resulting in the confusion of the reader. Because Morrison never establishes the “black character” or the “white character”, the reader is left guessing the race of the two main characters throughout the whole story. Morrison also uses the character’s actions and dialogue during the friend’s meetings to prove the theme of equality between races.
Toni Morrison’s novel Sula is rich with paradox and contradiction from the name of a community on top of a hill called "Bottom" to a family full of discord named "Peace." There are no clear distinctions in the novel, and this is most apparent in the meaning of the relationship between the two main characters, Sula and Nel. Although they are characterized differently, they also have many similarities. Literary critics have interpreted the girls in several different ways: as lesbians (Smith 8), as the two halves of a single person (Coleman 145), and as representations of the dichotomy between good and evil (Bergenholtz 4 of 9). The ambiguity of these two characters allows for infinite speculation, but regardless of how the reader interprets the relationship their bond is undeniable. The most striking example of their connection occurs right before the accidental death of Chicken Little. In the passage preceding his death, Nel and Sula conduct an almost ceremonial commitment to one another that is sealed permanently when "the water darkened and closed quickly over the place where Chicken Little sank" (Morrison 61):
As she discussed in her TED Talk “The Danger of Hiding Who You Are,” she hid for a while so she did not have to face discrimination based on her sexual orientation. As Kayla said “Sula was comfortable with being different. Morgana was first afraid to be different because society is homogeneous.” What makes Bailey different from Sula is that Sula was content with her nonconformity, ever since she was young. When being harassed by a few boys Sula showed them her courageousness by cutting her own finger (54). Especially in the early 1900s, women are expected to be submissive and polite. Sula is more worried about her and Nel’s safety than these
The people of the Bottom in Medallion, Ohio “knew Shadrack was crazy but that did not mean that he didn't have any sense or, even more important, that he had no power” (Morrison 15). In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, Shadrack is a brief, but largely considerable character. His significance stems from the fact that he personifies one of Morrison’s main themes in the novel, which is the need for order, as well as that he serves as human embodiment of the community’s repressed feelings. As is often the case with any introverted emotion, the townspeople’s eventual acceptance of Shadrack causes both liberation and grief. However, Shadrack is not a sage, omnipotent being; he is merely an undiluted representation of the thoughts which others within the community cannot and will not express.
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.
If ignorance is bliss, then why is it human nature to uncover the truth? In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the character Denver uses knowledge to feed her craving in hopes that it will fill the void her mother unsuccessfully tried to satisfy with the blood of the past and too little milk. To understand these truths one must accept that Beloved is a physical representation of the past, Sethe embodies the present, and Denver exemplifies the future. Throughout the novel these three characters interact on a superficial level, but each action has a deeper underlying influence on the other. This is why Denver’s assumed motive of using the attachment she forged with Beloved to develop a closer relationship with Sethe is cursory. When in fact it was for fear of her own life, that Denver’s intended to extract the information from Beloved, of what triggered Sethe to kill killed her.
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.
They began to lose touch with each other. Nel got married and Sula left because she claimed there was nothing left for her in the Bottom, since Nel is a devoted mother and wife. Sula felt as if Nel was putting her on the sidetrack instead of the main road, which hurt her a little. According to society every woman’s main desire should be toward creating life and building a family. This is a true statement in many cases; however, when it comes to Sula it is far from it. Nel is the definition of the ideal woman while Sula is not. Sula doesn’t desire to have children or get married, her main concern is her and Nel’s friendship. When Sula loses her relationship with Nel because Nel builds a symbiotic relationship with someone else Sula is now willing to leave and find a new life somewhere else. Ten years later she returns to the Bottom because she didn’t find what she was looking for. Sula comes back a little upset to find out that her best friend is just as boring as all the other women in town. She is now doing the same exact thing as everyone, she “had given herself over to them” (Morrison, 118). Nel’s promise she made when she was child was broken the day she married Jude Green. She promised that she was going to become herself. He is the exact same as Wiley Wright, Nel’s father, both of them are more concerned with economic success rather than family