Identity in Sula
Many works of contemporary American fiction involve one individual's search for identity in a stifling and unsympathetic world. In "Sula," Toni Morrison gives us two such individuals. In Nel and Sula, Morrison creates two individual female characters that at first are separate, grows together, and then is separated once more. Although never physically reconciled, Nel's self discovery at the end of the novel permits the achievement of an almost impossible quest - the conjunction of two selves. Morrison says she created Sula as "a woman who could be used as a classic type of evil force" and that she "wanted Nel to be a warm, conventional woman." She says "there was a little bit of both in each of these women... if they had been one woman... they would have been a rather marvelous person. But each one lacked something the other had." Morrison, thus, creates two completely different women yet allows them to merge into one. The sustainment of the two selves as one proves difficult and Morrison allows them to pursue different paths. But the two women's separate journeys and individual searches for their own selves leads to nothing but despair and Sula's death. Nel's realization that they were only truly individuals when they were join
Morrison portrays Sula and Nel as binary opposites at the beginning of the novel. In our first view of Nel she is as conventional and conforming as a young lady can be: Under Helene's hand the girl became obedient and polite. Her mother calmed any enthusiasms that Nel showed until she drove her daughter's imagination underground. (p.18) In this passage Nel is merely an extension of her mother with no autonomy of her own. Helene's hand is the iron fist of authority from under which Nel cannot release herself. Morrison makes it clear here that Nel is a calm and unimaginative girl who conforms completely to her mother's strict orders. Sula, on the other hand, comes from a totally different background. She is her own person as she has "none of her mother's slackness" (p.29) and, unlike the "oppressive neatness"(p.29) of Nel's house, lives in a woolly house, where a pot of something was always cooking on the stove; where the mother, Hannah, never scolded or gave directions; where all sorts of people dropped in; where newspapers were stacked in the hallway, and dirty dishes left for hours at a time in the sink, and where a one-legged grandmother named Eva handed you goobers from deep inside her pockets or read you a dream. (p.29) ed as one allows them to merge once again. Nel and Sula gain a bond which no married couple can ever achieve in this novel - one that creates one person out of two individual selves. The loss of this bond leaves each woman completely fragmented and leads to SulaŐs death. NelŐs recognizes this fact at the end of the novel: "All the time, all the time, I thought I was missing Jude." And the loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. "We was girls together," she said as though explaining something. "O Lord, Sula," she cried, "girl, girl, girlgirlgirl." (p.174) This close-knit relationship breaks down, however, when Nel elects to recreate a similar relationship with a man instead of maintaining this one with Sula. Instead of Nel and Sula being joined to create one person, Nel and Jude "together would make one Jude." (p.83) Both Nel and Sula's conjoined personalities return to what they once were - in
Some common words found in the essay are:
Sula Nel, Nel Sula, Sula Morrison, Nel Sula's, Nel Morrison, Chicken Little's, Little Looking, Chicken Little, Jude Nel's, Shadrack Nel, nel sula, morrison makes, incident nel, chicken little's body, morrison creates, evil merge, person nel, lines evil, serenity compassion, evil force, type evil force, lines evil merge, maturity serenity compassion, allows merge,
Approximate Word count = 1453
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
