Sula

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Nel is the only character in the novel who openly admits her own shame. She feels shame when Jude leaves her. Nel feels this shame because her status as a wife and mother is destroyed. Her inability to conform to the community’s expectations causes Nel to feel ashamed. Birds Although Sula moves between many different characters’ perspectives, it is almost entirely told from the point of view of women living in the Bottom. Often, the men in the novel can’t be “pinned down” for long: their jobs keep them away from home ( Wiley Wright), or their desire for independence leads them to abandon their families ( Jude Greene, BoyBoy, etc.). As a result, it’s no surprise that Morrison offers many insights into the lives of women and their role in their communities.

Boy Boy’s name sets him up as an immature, irresponsible father who abandons his children to pursue his own boyish and selfish pleasures. He is nowhere near a match for Eva when it comes to responsibility and adulthood. Boy Boy may represent the losses inherent in the move toward the North and the city, as he leaves behind his family and heritage. Eva’s response to his abandonment also may demonstrate that hatred, as much as love, can keep a person from moving forward in life. Cecile Sabat The teacher is the Deweys’ first instructor. She is annoyed that the boys are registered under the same name and the same age, but is sure that she will be able to distinguish them from each other. Much to her surprise, she confuses the boys and has trouble distinguishing them from each other. Teapot John L. is a high school companion of Nel and Sula’s who is rumored to have attempted to have sex with a woman’s hip. Jude Greene Hannah is a diluted, more relaxed version of Eva. She teaches Sula her views on sex, but Sula takes them, along with everything else she learns from the women of her family, to a new and different level. Of the three women, Hannah has the weakest, most passive personality. Helene Sabat Wright The Bluest Eye": Critical Overview 4 A Collection of Criticism related to "The Bluest Eye" plain 2021-06-30T11:46:33-04:00Sula is centrally concerned with questions of right and wrong in interpersonal relationships forged by bonds of kinship, marriage, and, not least of all, friendship. What does it mean to be good? What is evil? What does it mean to be a friend? What is love? How might we learn from each other? Because Sula is a novel and not a treatise, potential answers to these questions await the reader in the form of character and situation rather than explicit philosophical argument” (264). When she awoke, there was a melody in her head she could not identify or recall ever hearing before. “Perhaps I made it up,” she thought. Then it came to her — the name of the song and all its lyrics just as she had heard it many times before. She sat on the edge of the bed thinking, “There aren’t any more new songs and I have sung all the ones there are. I have sung them all. I have sung all the songs there are.” She lay down again on the bed and sang a little wandering tune made up of the words I have sung all the songs all the songs I have sung all the songs there are until, touched by her own lullaby, she grew drowsy, and in the hollow of near-sleep she tasted the acridness of gold, left the chill of alabaster and smelled the dark, sweet stench of loam. The community’s contempt for Sula reaffirms its character as just, appropriate, and, most crucially, apart from her. Upon Sula’s return to town after a lengthy sabbatical, the danger she poses inspires individuals in her immediate vicinity to deepen their bonds momentarily: “Once they recognized the root of their tragedy, they were free to defend and love each other. They began to value their spouses and wives, to safeguard their children, to restore their houses, and to band together in common against the demon in their midst “(Morrison, 1998, p. 118). In comparison, upon Sula’s demise,

Smith, Valerie. “‘Circling the Subject:’ History and Narrative in Beloved.” Gates and Appiah 342-55.I’m me,” she whispered. “Me.” Nel didn’t know quite what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant. “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me.” Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear. Sula is disconnected from her mother and grandmother and seems genuinely attached only to Nel. She does not sleep with Nel’s husband, Jude, to be malicious. She is merely curious about the man. She does not expect that the relationship with Jude will change her friendship with Nel. A