Essay on Sula by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, examines a wide range of topics, delving particularly into morality, the black female experience, and friendship. The narrative follows childhood best friends, Nel and Sula, as they navigate life in the Bottom, a black community in Ohio. Although inseparable as children, even undivided after accidentally killing a two-year-old boy, they follow divergent paths as adults. Nel leads a life of conformity; Sula does the opposite. An enigma to all, society tries to make sense of Sula through her birthmark. It is a blank slate onto which people project whichever meaning most suits them. The different ways characters perceive Sula’s birthmark reveals more about the interpreter

'Recitatif', by Toni Morrison, is a profound narrative that I believe is meant to invite readers to search for a buried connotation of the experiences that the main characters, Twyla and Roberta, face as children and as they are reunited as adults. Some of the story?s values and meanings involving race, friendship and abandonment begin to emerge as the plot thickens; however, more messages become hidden and remain unrecognized, even until the very last sentence.

Two young girls, coalescing on a grass-laden field while lying on their stomachs, dig a hole in unspoken harmony. A picture of youth and innocence, this scene depicts an innocuous moment which the two girls share as a result of their juvenescence--or does it? In Toni Morrison 's Sula, this scene, among others, appears at first to be both irrelevant to the novel’s underlying theme and out of place with regard to the rest of the plot. Yet, when analyzed further, the literary devices that Morrison uses in these scenes bring readers to a vastly different conclusion. These scenes serve as windows into the mind of Morrison and even into the larger themes present in the text. So, perhaps two girls sharing a seemingly casual experience is not as

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

In Toni Morrison’s Sula, gender heteronormative relationships are demonstrated in a very punishable manner. The two main characters Sula Peace, and Nel Right share a very strong, well connected friendship. The two of them are a mirror reflection of each other, with the same desires. Heteronormative institutions in the book do not seem to be stable for the most part. Hannah Peace, the single mother Sula, lives a disordered life in her household while Helene Wright belongs to a conservative and peaceful life, but her husband is never around. With the two daughters of both families being part of each other’s lives, they create a friendship that shows the privilege for female-female bonds over male-male bonds.

As Morrison progressed as a writer one can definitively view her evolution not only as a writer but as a thinker. In Sula, the reader can view an author who is quintessentially confused by the system of segregation. Specifically, one could contrive that Sula is Morrison’s attempt to examine the aspects in which segregation helped cement African-American culture, but once America was desegregated the same communities that were empowered by oppression were decimated by the white communities’ extraction of African-American culture. Whereas within Love, one can view a Morrison not content with African-American proliferation under the banner of segregation, but hatred for the powerful individuals of the community that reinforced the system of segregation and oppressed their own community in the effort to gain not only money, but power. As one thinks about the multi-faceted layers of segregation within Toni Morrison’s writings, one can view a political activist who felt content in her youth, rationalizing the evils of this world, yet in the present an enraged woman content with not only the removal of white prosperity within segregation, but African-American elite prosperity upon the literal blood of African-American

Sula dislikes her disheveled house, and wishes that she could live in a household as clean as that of Nel. Sula?s positive view of Nel?s home challenges Nel to see it in a new light, teaching her to appreciate. This concept stays current throughout the early years of their relationship, each opening the other?s eyes to new idea and ways of living and as they do their friendship grows stronger. The two become practically inseparable, living completely symbiotically and depending on each other for everything. However, this relationship is destined to change.

     Community is an important concern in both black and women's literature. The racist and patriarchal nature of American society, what Morrison refers to as the master narrative of our culture, places blacks and women and especially black women in a position of powerlessness and vulnerability. Communities serve as a protective buffer within which black women must function in order to survive. However both Hurston and Morrison identify and criticize how the patriarchal nature of the master narrative is present in black communities. The male-female hierarchy in the black community mirrors not only the patriarchy of the dominant white culture, but also the white-black

Throughout all of history there has been an ideal beauty that most have tried to obtain. But what if that beauty was impossible to grasp because something was holding one back. There was nothing one could do to be ‘beautiful’. Growing up and being convinced that one was ugly, useless, and dirty. For Pecola Breedlove, this state of longing was reality. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin was the definition of beauty. Pecola was a black girl with the dream to be beautiful. Toni Morrison takes the reader into the life of a young girl through Morrison’s exceptional novel, The Bluest Eye. The novel displays the battles that Pecola struggles with each and every day. Morrison takes the reader through the themes of whiteness and beauty,

While society's view of evil is really based on the disapproval of anything that would break down way society works, Sula's view of evil is based on a different goal and she acts according to a different set of standards. In other words, "Sula was distinctly different" (118). Sula "had been looking all along for a friend" (122) and that is the goal she is really trying to reach. In sleeping with many men, she is sort of looking for a release for her "misery and...deep sorrow" (122). She is trying to find a friend who she can

Toni Morrison’s Sula, is a powerful novel surrounded around the lives of black female characters and how their day to day lives help shape the community around them. Morrison depicts the struggles of gender, friendship, and suffering through the lives of these characters. Most importantly, she tells a story about “The Bottom” (which was a black community) and how these characters struggled with prejudices and racism from the wealthier community “The Medallion.” Morrison incorporation of sex in the text helps to give the story depth. The attitudes towards sex in this novel helps the reader to understand the characters and how sex is a generational trauma that

Toni Morrison’s novel Sula explores black female life and relations conceived both within and outside sexist and racist influences and mediation. Morrison explores individual characters defined by racial and gender stereotypes while also presenting a focused rumination on a radical black female experience devoid of these oppressive classifications. Through the character Sula, Morrison creates a black female identity based on subjectivity, uninfluenced by the community’s societal gender expectations and lifestyle. Even though Sula possessed self-agency and autonomy, never adhering to her community’s standards, her self-assertion remains solely outside the racist and sexist environment and black community; she ultimately holds power over herself but she is unable to assert that power in “Bottom” as she is suppressed and ostracized, contained by avoidance and being characterized as “devil” and “witch” until she dies contently, knowing she lived freely, yet alone (hooks 150). Morrison’s presentation of Sula’s ostracization as a direct consequence of her ability to constitute

Modern technology had introduced a myriad of interesting, yet multifaceted complex fabrics that make-up the rich tapestry of America. Following the documentary group Noisey, as they investigate the relationship between drill music that promotes murder and gang activity and the suburbs that syphon off this form of musical violence, as the community attempts to keep the violence off the streets of the south side of Chicago, one whitness a blending of culture and power into a ballet of visual substance that leaves the viewer craving more. Much like Noisey, Toni Morrison’s Sula explores the act of white people from the Valley extracting the “Eden” that the Africa-American Community has established within the throws of segregation.

African- American folklore is arguably the basis for most African- American literature. In a country where as late as the 1860's there were laws prohibiting the teaching of slaves, it was necessary for the oral tradition to carry the values the group considered significant. Transition by the word of mouth took the place of pamphlets, poems, and novels. Themes such as the quest for freedom, the nature of evil, and the powerful verses the powerless became the themes of African- American literature. In a book called Fiction and Folklore: the novels of Toni Morrision author Trudier Harris explains that "Early folk beliefs were so powerful a force in the lives of slaves that their masters sought to co-opt that power. Slave masters used such

Throughout Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, The two themes of racism and sexism are introduced. “The Bottom” is the African American society of which the novel is based off of. The town, itself, seems to even be a symbol of racism since it was only established because of an act of racism. The people in “The Bottom” are subjected to racism on a daily basis, however throughout the novel it becomes clear that even they because racist as well. The racism shown in the comments and actions characters of the novel allow the readers to infer the reason why the town folks, themselves have become similar to the racists they hate. It can be looked as a technique used to survive the harsh and traumatic events that happen in their lives, which is why the racism is still present even at the end of the novel. Nel Wright and Sula peace are the two main characters of the book. Both are African American females who are subjected to racism and sexism because of their gender and race. In the novel, both women are described as complete opposites, which is shown through their friendship. Their friendship is described, because of their differences, to be the perfect balance. In the balance, Nel is depicted as the “good” character since by social norms she is perfect. This is shown through her life choices such as being a mother and a submissive housewife. Sula, on the other hand is far from the norms of her town. Throughout the novel, Sula