Friendship in Sula Essay

Only two characters, Nel and Shadrack, maintain a static interpretation of Sula’s birthmark, revealing their alienation from society at large. Nel’s unchanging perception of Sula’s birthmark as a stemmed rose highlights her own need for consistency.

The climax of the story is when Nel finally confronts Sula. Each girl carried demons, guilt, and frustration over their lives and their choices. Nel finally vents her anger and pain and asks for an explanation from Sula. Nel's " thighs were truly empty and dead too, and it was Sula who had taken the life from them" (Morrison pg. 110-111). After leaving Eva at the home, Nel is so upset that she heads to Sula's grave. She sadly thinks about how none of the townspeople mourned her death. Nel calls out for Sula and it is then she finally forgives her for cheating with Jude. She starts crying, for the first time in years. Nel finally finds peace by grieving for Sula. When reading that part I think it was then that she realized it was Sula who she was missing & not Jude. When reading the story I couldn’t help but feel mixed emotions for Sula. It was a combination of sadness for all

Nel and Sula’s relationship is a complex one, which allows for the novel to become incredibly in depth and driven by interesting characters. Sula’s relationships with her mother and grandmother are opposite of Nel’s relationship with her mother. This is, perhaps, why their personalities differ so much once they reach adulthood. Both become their mothers.

She too sleeps with only the husbands of other women. Sula has never witnessed a healthy relationship between a man and a woman. This is regarded by the community as terrible. Sula uses the men she sleeps with for pleasure, taking no consideration as to how the men feel. She refuses to have such patriarchal relationships as Hannah did. Hannah may indeed have received pleasure from the men she slept with but she remained the submissive participant in her relations. "Hannah rubbed no edges, made no demands, made the man feel as though he were complete and wonderful just as he was- he didn’t need fixing..." (p 2012). Sula, on the other hand, has a need to feel in control right down to the mechanics of her affairs. "And there was the utmost irony and outrage in lying under someone, in a position of surrender, feeling her own abiding strength and limitless power." (p2048). She not only took sex from men as pleasure, but sought out to claim power over them. "Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow." (p2044). This made the women upset and furthered their hatred for Sula. Sula had power by sleeping with these very same men who held power over submissive wives. The town regards all of Sula’s actions as evil. They called her a "roach" and a "bitch", but above that spread a nasty rumor that she slept with white men. "There was nothing lower she could do, nothing filthier." (p2043). Though it is mentioned in

Despite being presented as opposites of good and evil, Nel and Sula are actually quite similar, as both Nel and Sula posses the traits that defined the other, effectively blurring the lines between good and evil. As young girls, Nel pushed herself to become friends with Sula in the first place as “Nel, who regarded the oppressive neatness of her home with dread, felt comfortable in t with Sula, who loved it and would sit on the red-velvet sofa for ten to twenty minutes at a time… As for Nel, she preferred Sula’s wooly house”(29). As a child, Nel yearned to be free and independent, and to be her own individual self separate from who her mother expects her to be. Sula however already lives this life of living in a non-traditional home and

After getting married, Sourdi and Mr. Chhay moved a state away to Iowa, putting an even larger strain on Sourdi and Nea’s relationship. Sourdi did not want to get married to Mr. Chhay as she was still in love with Duke, but it wasn’t in Sourdi to fight back and go against her mother’s wishes— something Nea would have easily done. Nearly two years after Sourdi got married, Nea picks up a call from Sourdi one evening

As Nea interacts with the other characters, she is always brash and rarely takes the time to understand their side of a situation. In many cases, she lies to manipulate people and her situation to achieve her selfish goals. Nea fakes her remorse about attacking the customer just to please her sister: “I was glad I’d stabbed that man. I was only crying because life was so unfair.” (72) When Nea needs to find a way to Sourdi’s home she lies to Duke about the severity of the situation because she knows deep down that it is not as bad as she wants to believe. If Sourdi was in trouble, it would ultimately mean that Nea could get her sister back. Nea fabricates this story to make up for the loss she felt when Sourdi moved on and abandoned her. She would rather believe that it was someone else who caused her sister to mature and move on than to believe it was her own fault or that

“Saving Sourdi” by May-Lee Chai, discusses a classic plot of the metamorphosis from childhood to adulthood. In her story, the two main characters Sourdi and Nea develop in stark contrast to one another. Nea, the younger sister, has difficulty growing up and maturing as her own life, as well as her sister’s life, progresses. Her naivety, aggression, and anxiety influence her decisions throughout the story in a negative way. Chai’s character is easily believable and relatable, everyone has had a point in their lives where they didn’t want to grow up, handled a situation poorly, or realized that their relationship with someone has changed

The relationship first starts to take a turn for the worst when Sula accidentally kills a local boy named Chicken Little, by throwing him into the river. The town never finds out who is responsible for his death, mostly due to the girls silence. Though Nel played no roll in Chicken Little?s death, she stands by Sula and tells no one about what she saw that day at the river. At his funeral, ?[the two] held hands and knew that only the held hands and knew that only the coffin would lie in the earth, the bubbly laughter and the press of fingers in the palm would stay aboveground forever? (Morrison 66). Nel?s silence in support of Sula is the first instance when Sula takes advantage of Nel, relying on her in order to survive.

During this time of their separation, the strength of their friendship appears evident. They both long to still be friends, to talk again. However, Nel sees this event as a true betrayal of friendship from Sula, while Sula sees what happened as casual and not a big deal.

Their attraction toward each other grows stronger each year, eventually becoming so strong that they become one. “Their friendship was so close; that they themselves had difficulty distinguishing one’s thoughts from the others” (Morrison 83). Throughout this book we see Sula and Nel as one, as the people did that knew them. Even Eva at some point says to Nel, “You. Sula. What’s the difference” (Morrison 168)? Eva makes this reference to Nel and Sula being as one when she is taking about Chicken Little drowning in the river.

In the story "marriage is a private affair" the main character Nneameka finds himself growing into an honorable young man as he develops a sense of courage to stand up against society, and defend the people he loves. This brings into focus one of the major themes of the story which I believe is staying true to yourself and doing what you think to be honest and pure despite what others may think, and in the end everything will work out. For Nneameka the theme was developed throughout the whole story from beginning to end in multiple ways. Whether it be through dialogue, events in the story or the overall plot Nneameka's character helped reveal and develop the theme tremendously. In the beginning of the story you find that Nneameka is constantly wrestling with himself on how to tell his father about Nene and their engagement.

For Sula, there is no "other" against which she can then define herself. Having rejected her community and her family, she wanders, trying somehow to define who she is. Sula turns to Shadrack, the local madman, at first because she worries that he saw what happened to Chicken Little, but then because his words truly do comfort her.

Because of the sexual confidence Hannah Peace has, Sula must disguise her difference, just like her grandmother Eva had too. Eva’s drastic measures were repeated by Sula an act of survival and denial of powerlessness and vulnerability. Nel and Sula are regularly picked on by the same group of boys, causing Sula to take matter into her own hands. At one point, Sula takes out a knife and cuts off part of her finger saying, “ ‘If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?’ ” (54-55). This severe act if Sula’s moment of self-recognition of her connection to her grandmother Eva. Here, Sula realizes that she has to fight against her own vulnerability, and establish her identity, hereby following her grandmother Eva’s example. Though this moment shows Sula’s inner strength, it can never disguise her enough of being different from the rest of her community. Just as Eva and Hannah, Sula continues the unpreventable, mature line of breaking past the typical gender roles of the time. Eva’s overly independent attitude and removal from caring and mothering a daughter correctly, leaves her daughters with unlearned, societal caretaking skills. This results in Sula’s highly inappropriate and unnecessary act of clumsy caretaking within her relationship with Nel. Yet, it is understandable because Sula has never been taught normal and conventional means for problem solving. The denial of motherly love from

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