Sula by Toni Morrison - Essay Example

Toni Morrison – Sula Race and gender have always been two important elements of literatures dealing with social structures. In this context several Caribbean women writers have composed fine works encompassing these issues and have mainly used oral styles of narration. Toni Morrison, one such Caribbean writer, composes her fiction in order to incorporate racial shame and trauma. In fact, ‘Morrison seems driven to speak the unspeakable in her fiction…. violence in fiction is “always verbally mediated”’ (Bloom, 140) Morrison is engaged in both hiding and revealing secrets and hence represents the approach of the culture towards “shame and trauma”. Her novel ‘Sula’ depicts several aspects of a social structure and gender is the main concern here. The author defends the shameful secrets and pain revealed in her work and tries to involve the emotion of the readers. Apart from dealing with race and gender the story shows the importance of the self and how “the self” is unfolded metaphorically through the character of Sula especially when it is juxtaposed by Nel’s character. The story centers on two female protagonists, Sula and Nel whose personalities could perhaps combine to become one complete woman but neither seems to realize this. The characters of Sula and Nel are entirely opposite and so are their family backgrounds, yet they did share a bond in their childhood, which grows weaker with time as their individualities shine through. Sula’s sense of independence and lack of submissive nature is contrasted by Nel’s need to be protected and hence seeking for a conventional role in the society. Sula stands against all conventions and develops relationships with many married men. She does not abide by any convention and hence is marked as the evil within the community of Afro Americans who lived at the bottom of the hill. The term hellfire is used to signify the evil in her. Nel on the other hand is married, settled and seeks protected environment to survive. Sula is averse to marriage because she according to her it means submission to the patriarchy. Both are therefore extremists in nature and their approach to life. A considerable blend of these two natures would perhaps give rise to a respectable personality. For instance, Sula could settle with Ajax who had a true liking towards her and Nel could have been somewhat more upright especially when she broke off the friendship with Sula because of her husband’s affair with her. She thinks like a conservative woman who is only concerned with traditional position and respect in the society. Sula’s consciousness of the self is appreciable in this respect and her love for the self is evident, as she does not care about anything but her pleasure. However she dies with a lonely heart and her pride keeps her away from sharing her life with anyone. Sula’s rash actions arising out of self-indulgence could be dampened by Nel’s sensibility as stated by Sula – “You always had better sense than me. Whenever I was scared before, you knew just what to do” (Morrison, 101). While Sula never realizes that they are incomplete without one another, Nel realizes the common bondage between them but only when it is too late. The two girls complemented one another and together they could be happier than alone. Nel found the only “respite” in the company of her friend Sula who was in contrast with her strict and conservative parents – “Her parents had succeeded in rubbing down to a dull glow any sparkle or splutter she had. Only with Sula did that quality have free rein, but their friendship is so close, they have difficulty distinguishing ones thoughts from the others” (Morrison, 83). Sula is confident while Nel needs constant reassurance from Jude who is apparently attracted to her. This very development takes her gradually away from Sula emotionally. Once again Sula does not need such assurance and hence she never feels the need for the attention Nel gets from Jude. Rather, Sula wants “Nel to shine”. At the wedding, when Nel and Jude are romantically engrossed in each other, Nel finds Sula standing in the doorway and smiling and Nel feels that Sula is amused somewhere within. This gives a hint of amazement on her part. Sula never feels it her responsibility to please anyone unless she derives some pleasure from it. So it is quite natural for her to be amused at the way Nel cared for Jude and perhaps she wonders what pleasure Nel would get in the long run in exchange of her submission to the patriarchal social relation. She is amused at her submission; something that Sula cannot bring herself to do. Yet when Sula returns Nel is happy because it is Sula “who made her laugh, who made her see old things with new eyes, in whose presence she felt clever, gentle and a little raunchy. Sula, whose past she had lived through and with whom the present was a constant sharing of perceptions.” (Morrison, 95) Her love for the self is evident as she responds to her grand mother’s proposition for her marriage – “I dont want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.”(Morrison, 92) She deserts her grandmother and sends her away to the church though she is not in that bad a state. The reason, as she explains to Nel is that she feels threatened by her and worries that she might burn her down or harm her. She sends Laura (the housemaid) out of the house because she does not like her intruding around things. Her love for the self turned her into a selfish person at times who would impulsively desert her loved ones. On the contrary her pride makes her quite dangerous as she says that she plans to destroy the town. She thinks that half the town deserves to be dead. The author uses common words and oral techniques realistically in order to reveal ‘the self’ revealed through Sula’s nature, the woman who was called “a roach” and “bitch by the people who recall Sula watching her mother burn to death and do nothing about it. This is contradicted with the nature of Nel who is sensible and does not approve of Sula’s action against her grandmother. Once again Morrison reveals shame and trauma through the character of Sula who on one hand causes the trauma and ignores the shame caused by her actions. Sexual interactions are one of the strongest demonstrations of a woman’s approach to life – dominant or submissive. Nel’s happiness and sexuality depends upon Jude’s approval and company, and she is ready to do any kind of work only to have sexual fulfillment from any man especially when she is deserted by her husband – “I could be a mule or plow the furrows with my hands if need be or hold these rickety walls up with my back if need be if I knew that somewhere in this world in the pocket of some night I could open my legs to some cowboy lean hips but you are trying to tell me no..” (Morrison, 111). Sula never cares for anything and has relationships only when she gets some enjoyment. She would not take the pains to please the man by toiling or serving him. She only knows herself and lives for herself. This is also evident when she condemns her grandmother for throwing her life out for insurance money. She is simply happy to keep her soul satisfied and never cares for anyone else. Sula’s character shows how sexual freedom brings about self-satisfaction and pleasure to the self – “And there was utmost irony and outrage in lying under someone, in a position of surrender, feeling her own abiding strength and limitless power. But the cluster did break, fall apart, and in her panic to hold it together she leaped from the edge into soundlessness and went down howling” (Morrison, 123). She does not like the position of surrender. She likes change and thought hell is constant – “The real hell of Hell is that it is forever” (Morrison, 107) and hence lay the husbands once and then ditches them. This gives her the sense of power and domination over men and he enjoys this feeling. According to Duvall, “the identity of the novel’s most artistic consciousness, Sula, Is constituted through her attempts to manipulate. The social codes that prescribe and proscribe her sexual pleasure.. which suggest Morrison’s reading Virginia Woolf, … challenges the presumptive heterosexuality of various relationships in Morrison’s second novel” (Duvall, 49) From the above discussion we find that Sula is an insensitive woman who even hurts Nel by stealing her husband away. Yet the author Morrison justifies Sula’s action by bringing in her household where women who thought that all men were accessible and available bring her up. Hence she has no intention to harm Nel when she engages into an intimacy with Jude. She returns to Medallion (her home town) for Nel. Unlike her she realizes that a lover could not be her friend – “She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be--for a woman. … There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was” (Morrison, 121). Therefore the author explains and justifies her main character, which has been contradicted, with the character of Nel who even describes her friend after he death and despite her hatred still recalls the spent they spent together. Sula is analyzed in the light of the metaphoric existence of the self within every individual and the need to satisfy it. Works cited Duvall, John Noel, The identifying fictions of Toni Morrison, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Bloom, Harold, Toni Morrison, Infobase Publishing, 2005 Morrison, Toni, Sula, Plume, 1965 Read More