Sula by Toni Morrison - Essay Example

The author concentrates on the certain part of the town which is called 'The Bottom', which mean the bottom of life and society. The main character of the novel, Sula, grew up actually in that place. During her childhood she was surrounded by people, who refused to contain themselves in the social norms. Sula was born in a female-centered domain with Hannah her widowed and sexually free mother, with Eva her grandmother, who had her leg amputated, and with boarders and relatives taken into the house situated at 7 Carpenter's Road up in the Bottom.

Reading the novel, one can see enormous influence of family on the personality: "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 emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless their pleasure pleasedher"1. Since her early childhood, Sula Peace seemed to people strange girl because of the rose tattoo near her eye and because of the disorder among her household.

Sula lives in a "woolly" house of "throbbing disorder" with few, if any rules. The characters around Sula exist as a point to compare the different ways the community treats those who are different. For example, Shadrack and Hannah are outcast from the community in the bottom as well as Sula; nevertheless they are not regarded with such fear or resentment as the town feels towards Sula. Shadrack returned shell-shocked from the war and then led quite immoral lifestyle frequently drinking and behaving as a bum.

He was considered crazy, but wasn't disgraced, as he was a male. However Hannah had frequent affairs with married men after the death of Sula's father, she was known as a kind and generous woman and even respected. Sula, in turn, has never experienced a healthy relationship between a man and a woman. She was taught to view sex as at the source of pleasure. This certainly affected Sula's adult life; she had romances only with other women's husbands. Such behaviour was regarded as a delinquency.

Opposite to Hanna Sula was not a submissive participant in her relations with men, but felt as an equal. She used her lovers only for pleasure, taking no consideration as to how the men feel. She always gained limitless control over them - actually this caused hatred, scorn and nasty rumors among the women, who had no real power over their husbands. Sula looked after herself and because she had all her teeth, had had no childhood diseases and looked younger than her age the town acknowledged that she was a real evil.

She embodied the things that had never been seen in the community before; the community, in turn, labelled her as wicked as people had fear about unknown. Thus, for the inhabitants of Medallion, Sula was an example of evil. After Sula returns from her ten year long absence from Medallion, she starts even more promiscuous lifestyle. She is considered a "slut" among the community. Nevertheless, after her return, the members of community start behaving better and more carefully than they had before.

Women began to take care of themselves and their children and to cherish their