[SOLVED] Trace the use of three symbols in the novel and explain their connection to a theme in the novel – Writing

I would like a 700 word essay following the Topics and Instructions for Essay document attached. Must use some quotes from artilces that are attachedEssay Assignment 1: Documented Literary Analysis
Your literary analysis essay will be on the novel Sula by Toni Morrison. You can choose from any of the
topics listed below.
Your literary analysis should be between 2 ½ and 3 pages (not just 2 pages) not including the Works
Cited page, should be double spaced in Times New Roman 12-point font and must include:
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A clearly articulated thesis that states, somewhere in your introduction, the assertion (position,
interpretation) that your paper will prove
An introduction, a minimum of 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion
At least two quotes from the novel itself that are integrated into your discussion
At least two citations of outside sources (such as literary criticism on the novel, preferably from
articles from the MDC databases)
Topic sentences that focus the discussion in the body paragraphs
Examples, details, explanations in the body paragraphs that clearly support your thesis
Clear connections between ideas from paragraph to paragraph and within paragraphs
Proper MLA style format in the heading, in the in-text citations, and in the Works Cited page
(see the template for the heading and margins in this lesson)
Works Cited page includes articles from two sources and from the novel for a minimum of three
total listed sources
Standard usage, grammar, and mechanics
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
➢ You will submit your final draft through the Turn-it-in drop box designated for this purpose in
the course. Please be aware, that although Turn-it-in does allow for similarities for quotations
up to 24% of your paper, any similarity above 24% is considered too high for an original paper
and will be flagged as plagiarism.
➢ You can get help with your paper at any of the campus writing centers (see the link in the course
with this information), and you can also receive online help via SmartThinking, the online
tutoring service provided by the College. This service is available by clicking on SmartThinking in
the left-hand menu bar of the course under Tools & Resources.
Choose from the following topics:
1. Analyze the ending of the novel. What are the “circles of sorrow” that Nel experiences? Is the
ending pessimistic, optimistic, or something else altogether?
2. Nel and Sula’s friendship is central in the novel. What role does this friendship play in Nel and
Sula’s lives and what point is Morrison making about the role of life-long friendships in the
formation of identity?
3. How do people who are intensely individualistic fare in the novel? Is it possible to break away
from the values of the community and to be one’s own person? Answer the question with
reference to at least two of the novel’s characters.
4. How and by whom is love expressed in the novel? In what ways is the love in the novel a ease
the suffering of the characters? How is love not enough to appease the characters in light of
their suffering?
5. In what ways are the various characters in the novel alienated from the community? How do
they cope with their loneliness, their preoccupations, and other after effects of feeling
abandoned?
6. Compare and contrast the journey of self-discovery for two characters in the book. Remember
to take a position in your thesis that establishes the significance of the comparison and contrast.
7. Contrast Nel’s relationship to her mother and Sula’s interaction with her mother. Remember to
take a position in your thesis that establishes the significance of the contrast.
8. Trace the use of three symbols in the novel and explain their connection to a theme in the
novel.
9. What does Shadrack’s character teach us about the after effects of war and the ways mentally ill
people can be ostracized from a community?
10. Although no one has ever joined Shadrack on National Suicide Day, in the chapter titled 1941,
much of the town marches toward the tunnel where they have not been able to get work and in
their rage, the try to “kill, as best they could, the tunnel they were forbidden to build” (160).
What is the significance of the event at the tunnel and the resulting deaths there?
Sula
by Toni Morrison
prostitute. The couple has a daughter, Nel, whom
Helene raises with a firm hand. When Helene’s
grandmother falls sick, Helene reluctantly returns
to New Orleans with Nel. She is reprimanded on
the train for walking through the “white only”
compartment. When Helene is reprimanded by
the conductor, she responds with a dazzling smile.
The black soldiers on the train look at Helene with
hatred and Nel resolves to “always be on her guard”
(22). When they arrive, Mrs. Sabat is already dead.
Helene’s mother is there. She hugs Nel but Helene
keeps her distance. They return to Medallion and
Nel feels that she has changed. She looks in the
mirror and recognizes herself as Nel, rather than as
merely Helene’s daughter. This gives her the courage to befriend Sula Peace, a girl at school whose
family her mother dismisses as “sooty” (29). When
Sula visits, Helene accepts her; Sula has none of
the “slackness” of her mother, Hannah (29).
Sula lives in an ever-expanding house, ruled over
by her one-legged grandmother, Eva. Eva’s husband Boyboy left her with three children: Hannah,
Pearl and Plum. She left them with a neighbor
for eighteen months and returned with only one
leg and money. She built her own house, took in
tenants and retreated to her bedroom. She took in
three boys and named them all Dewey. Although
they are of different ages and ethnic backgrounds,
they embrace their collective identity. Another tenant, Tar Baby, is believed to be “half-white” (39).
Content Synopsis
“Sula” opens by introducing us to a place in the
hills called “the Bottom” that was once inhabited
by black people (“Sula” 3). The land has been
stripped of its trees to make way for houses and
the Medallion City Golf course. The narrator
remembers the Bottom as a place where strangers
would hear a “shucking, knee-slapping, wet-eyed
laughter” without noticing the pain beneath it (4).
The hilly land on the Bottom was difficult to manage. The citizens joke that slaves were tricked into
taking it by their masters who lived on the “rich
valley floor” but promised their slaves the best
land at “the bottom of heaven” (5). In 1920 the
residents of the Bottom were preoccupied with
two of their citizens: Shadrack and Sula. Shadrack
founded National Suicide Day when he returned
from the war, traumatized by witnessing a soldier’s
face being blown off. Although suffering from
shellshock, Shadrack was released from the hospital. Unable to function properly, he was arrested
for intoxication. In the jail cell he saw his reflection
in the toilet bowl. His “blackness” told him who
he was and he slept peacefully (13). On his way
back to Medallion, Shadrack decided to dedicate
one day a year to his fear of the “unexpectedness”
of death (14).
Other citizens include Wiley Wright and his
wife, Helene Sabat. Helene was raised by her
Catholic grandmother. Her mother was a Creole
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He lives on cheap wine and seems intent on killing
himself. Sula’s father dies when she is young.
Hannah sleeps with the husbands of her friends
and neighbors. Plum served in the war and returns
after years of traveling, still clearly traumatized.
One night Eva pours kerosene over her son, lights
a stick and throws it onto his bed.
Nel and Sula walk to the ice cream parlor under
the gaze of men. A man named Ajax says the words
“pig meat” as they walk by. When some boys
threaten them, Sula takes a knife and slashes off
the tip of her finger. The boys retreat. One day Sula
overhears Hannah saying that she loves Sula but
does not like her. Sula and Nel meet a boy called
Chicken Little. He and Sula climb a tree. When
they descend, Sula picks him up and swings him
around. He slips from her hands and lands in the
river where he drowns. The girls run to Shadrack’s
house across the river to find out if he saw the
accident. Sula is about to ask him if he saw what
happened and he smiles at her and says the word
“Always” (61). Sula runs out of the house and
cries. She is thinking of Shadrack and the sense
of “promise” encapsulated by the word “Always.”
Nel and Sula attend Chicken Little’s funeral.
Hannah asks Eva why she killed Plum. Eva
responds that Plum wanted to crawl back into her
womb when he returned from war. She killed him
so that he could die like a man. A few days later,
Eva sees Hannah on fire in the yard. She rushes out
to save her but it is too late. As Eva lies in shock
she recalls seeing Sula on the porch, simply watching her mother burn. The action moves to Nel’s
wedding. Jude Greene proposed when he learned
that a new road was being constructed to transport
merchants to Medallion. When he is passed over
for “thin-armed white boys,” he turns to marriage
as a “posture of adulthood” (82). Nel’s wedding
day is the last time she will see Sula for ten years.
In part two, Sula returns. Eva asks her when
she is going to get married and have children and
Sula replies that she does not want to make anyone
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but herself. They argue, accusing each other of
watching their loved ones burn. Sula sends Eva to
an old people’s home. Nel is shocked that Eva is in
a home run by white people. Sula says that she was
scared of being burned and had nowhere else to go
but home. Jude enters and complains about work.
Sula challenges him, joking that he should be flattered that “everything in the world” worries about
black men (103). Nel and Jude laugh. The narrative
perspective shifts to the first person: Nel recounts
finding Sula and Jude naked on her floor. Jude saw
her and cast her the same look of resentment as
the soldiers on the train to New Orleans. Sula sat
naked on the bed, as if waiting for them to argue
and be done. Jude departed, leaving only a tie. Nel
tries to avoid the gray ball in the corner of her eye
which represents her pain. Unable to release her
grief for the loss of her husband and friend, Nel
mourns over the emptiness of her thighs. The community turns against Sula when it learns that she
put out Eva and took Jude only to reject him for
other men. The men of Medallion ensure that Sula
is cast out forever when they hear that she sleeps
with white men. Accidents begin to happen around
her. Suspicion grows when one of the citizens sees
Shadrack tip his hat at Sula. Sula has no sense of
compunction towards Nel; she presumed that she
could sleep with Jude because they had always
shared everything. She is disappointed that Nel has
capitulated to the town’s narrow values. She sleeps
with lots of men but finds that sex compounds her
loneliness until Ajax comes to her door with an
offering of milk bottles. With Ajax, Sula begins
to understand the meaning of “possession” (131).
Ajax tells her that Tar Baby has been arrested for
an offense committed by the mayor’s niece. He had
been stumbling along the road, drunk, and she had
swerved to avoid him, hitting another car. When
Ajax complained, he was arraigned. When Sula
offers him sympathy, Ajax decides to leave. Sula
is haunted by his absence. She realizes that she has
“sung all the songs there are” (137).
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Sula
Three years after Sula slept with her husband,
Nel calls on her. Sula is suffering from a mysterious illness. Nel asks why she slept with Jude. Sula
tells her that she needed him to fill up a space in
her head. Nel is shocked that Sula did not even
love Jude. Sula refuses to live by Nel’s standards of
good and bad. She predicts that the world will love
her when these standards lose their currency. Nel
leaves and Sula dreams of the Clabber Girl Baking
Powder lady who beckons to her but disintegrates
when she approaches Sula. The baking powder
chokes Sula and she wakes up, in pain. She imagines jumping out of the window and finally being
alone. She remembers the word “always” and tries
to recall who promised her a “sleep of water” with
that one word (149). As Sula dies, she looks forward to the time when she will tell Nel about the
ease of death. The community sees Sula’s death as
a good omen. Their optimism is compounded by
the construction of a new old people’s home and a
tunnel across the river. However, there is a sudden
frost that October. The citizens are housebound and
fall ill. When the frost thaws, a restlessness sets in.
Those who had blamed Sula for their misfortunes
have no one to “rub up against” (153). Meanwhile
Shadrack has begun to feel lonely. He looks at a
purple and white belt that Sula left behind and
remembers saying the word “always” to reassure
the girl of permanency. He sees Sula’s body in a
coffin at the undertaker’s. After this, he gives up his
daily routine. He reluctantly prepares for National
Suicide Day. This year, the community joins his
parade. They march to the mouth of the tunnel that
they were not allowed to build and smash the materials. Many of them perish on their way down the
tunnel, including Tar Baby and the Deweys.
The action leaps forward to 1965. Black and
white people have begun to integrate. The community in the Bottom has dissolved as more people
have moved to the valley. The hilly land has become
more valuable so that black people cannot afford
to move back. Nel remembers the boys of 1921
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fondly. She has failed to have lasting relationships
with men and her love for her children has dwindled. She visits Eva who asks her why she killed
the little boy in the river. Nel tells her that Sula
killed him and Eva reminds her that she watched
the little boy die. She says that Plum tells her these
things. She remembers the death of Chicken Little
and wonders why she did not feel guilty. She visits Sula’s grave. She recalls how nobody went to
collect Sula’s body when they heard that she was
dead. Nel herself had to call the mortuary. When
Nel leaves the cemetery, she sees Shadrack. He
recognizes her as a face from the past but cannot
identify her. Nel sees a ball of fur scatter in the
breeze. She realizes that all this time she has been
missing Sula, not Jude.
Symbols & Motifs
Clothes and colors take on symbolic significance
in “Sula.” Brights colors figure individuality, often
distinguishing those who are marginalized by society. Rochelle, Helene’s prostitute mother, wears a
canary yellow dress. Sula wears a purple and white
belt. When Sula dons a green ribbon, however,
Ajax reads this as a sign of her burgeoning dependence on him. The color red signifies death: shortly
before she dies, Hannah has a dream in which she
wears a red wedding dress. She is consumed by
flames, her dying body surrounded by smashed
tomatoes.
The novel abounds with omens and presentiments. Before she dies, Sula dreams of the Clabber Girl Baking Powder lady disintegrating in her
hands. “[E]xcesses in nature” mark disturbances
in Medallion (89): a plague of robins accompanies
Sula on her return and an October frost follows her
death. Spring arrives in January and unexpected
gales of wind bring no rain or lightning.
Names are clearly significant in “Sula.” Some
critics have objected to Morrison’s treatment of
black men in the novel. Names such as Dewey,
Boyboy and Chicken Little suggest their infantile
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qualities. In the prelude to the novel, Shadrack is
identified as a foil to Sula. His narrative emulates
that of his biblical namesake whose faith saved
him from death and won him recognition.
Morrison’s symbols are characteristically ambiguous and their significance changes as the novel
unfolds. The gray ball symbolises Nel’s pain at
Jude’s betrayal. At the end of the novel a soft ball
of fur fragments and Nel recognizes her pain for
what it is: her longing for Sula. Sula’s birthmark—a
stemmed rose that stretches from her eyelid towards
her brow—figures her connection with the natural
world and symbolizes her vitality and nonconformity; it gives her face “a broken excitement and
blue-blade threat” (52). When the community learns
that she has slept with Jude and put out Eva, they
read the mark as a sign of evil. However, when
Shadrack encounters Sula, he sees a tadpole over
her eye: a sign of friendship and the mark of the fish
he loves.
In a novel populated by mothers, maternal imagery abounds: the image of Nel “excret[ing], “milkwarm commiseration” for her husband (103); the
milk bottle which Ajax drains before handing it to
Sula, the one woman who can match his mother’s
self-sufficiency; Nel’s intuition that her children’s
love has dried up because their mouths “quickly
forgot the taste of her nipples” (165).
The final image of “Sula” reflects tensions
embodied by the novel’s structure. Morrison leaves
us with the sound of Nel’s cry; it has “no bottom
and no top, just circles and circles of sorrow”
(174): this image figures the primacy of circularity
and repetition over the tyranny of linear time and
the hierarchical social structures which marginalize the citizens of the Bottom.
Societal Context
Before reaching its final chapter, the novel stretches
from 1919 to 194l. Morrison dramatizes some of
the effects of racist ideology on American society throughout this time span. The bargeman who
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d­ iscovers Chicken Little’s body only retrieves him
because he is a child; he reflects that if he had been
an old black man, he would have left him there.
The bargeman immediately presumes that the
child has been drowned by his parents and wonders if “those people” will “ever be anything but
animals” (63). When he considers the smell that
the body will make, he dumps the body back in
the water. Racial prejudice manifests itself in the
treatment of Tar Baby. The community thinks that
he is “half white,” but Eva identifies him as “all
white,” insisting that she knows her own blood
when she sees it (39). When the mayor’s daughter
causes an accident involving Tar Baby, the police
beat him and leave him in soiled underwear. They
also identify Tar Baby as white, and tell Ajax that
“if the prisoner didn’t like to live in shit, he should
come down out of those hills, and live like a decent
white man” (133). Jim Crow laws prevail on public
transport. Helene, a Creole woman, and her daughter Nel find themselves in a “white only” carriage
on the train to the South. Helene walks through
the compartment to the “colored only” door and is
scolded and humiliated by the conductor. In retaliation, Helene gives him a most dazzling smile.
The black soldiers in the compartment look at the
Creole woman with resentment. When they reach
Birmingham, there are no longer toilet facilities for
black people and Helene and Nel have to squat in
the grass at the station houses.
In its final chapter, the novel moves forward
to 1965. The 1960s are generally regarded as a
time of progress for African Americans. The Civil
Rights Movement fought for and won the right to
vote. Morrison both registers and queries the value
of this ‘progress’: “Things were so much better in
1965. Or so it seemed” (163). Black people work
behind the store counters. A black man teaches
mathematics at the local junior school. Strangely,
Nel compares the new look of the young people to
the look of the Deweys, who never found a role in
society. Communities have dissolved, as families
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Sula
become more insular, cutting themselves off from
their neighbors.
The novel also dramatizes the effects of hegemonic gender ideology. Some critics have identified “Sula” as a feminist novel. As young girls,
both Nel and Sula are aware that they need to ­create
new narratives to escape the constraints of race
and gender ideology: “Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor
male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something
else to be” (52). White standards clearly influence
Helene; she tells Nel to pull her nose to counter
its flatness and to straighten her hair. Through her
friendship with Sula, Nel comes to reject these
standards. Sula refuses to live her life according to
social determinants. She sees no fulfilment in the
life of the wife and mother. Instead, she sets about
inventing a new, unfettered identity, incurring the
hostility of the community. Some readers and critics have queried Sula’s credentials as a feminist
figure, questioning the extremity of her views and
her ‘betrayal’ of Nel.
Historical Context
By heading each chapter with a date, Morrison
constantly reminds us of the significance of the
historical context. The horrors of the First World
War haunt the novel; Shadrack and Plum are
deeply traumatized by their experience; soldiers
who fought for America sit in the “colored only”
compartment of the train to New Orleans. The
novel was written during the Vietnam War. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. described this conflict as
“the white man’s war, the black man’s fight,” to
draw attention to the disproportionate number of
African-Americans serving and dying in Vietnam.
Patterns of repetition and circularity counter the
sense of unremitting chronology furnished by the
dates. The narrative reveals that time is anything
but linear and that history repeats itself. In 1927,
the “fake prosperity,” a hangover from the war,
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leads the black people to hope for new jobs (81).
The construction of the River Road gives them this
hope but all the jobs go to white men. A decade
later, they are let down again when the tunnel is
constructed and the work is given to white men.
Although “Sula” ends on an image of circularity,
Morrison has compared the novel’s structure to
that of a spiral (Tate 128). Narrative lines not only
repeat themselves, but also advance and retreat,
continuously rising and falling.
“Sula” dramatizes both the dangers of living in
and ignoring the past. The people of the Bottom
are unable to relinquish their vision of the past
and move forward. The joke about the origin of
the Bottom serves as a constant reminder of the
oppression of black people. A slave owner promised his slave good land in the hills, telling him
that it is blessed land from “the bottom of heaven”
(5). When the slave arrived there, he found that
the hilly land required “backbreaking” work (5). The
citizens of Medallion are reluctant to let go of
the past because this requires finding new ways
to live and conceive the self. Sula reflects: “If
they were touched by the snake’s breath, however
fatal, they were merely victims and knew how to
behave in that role … But the free fall, oh no, that
required—demanded—invention” (120).
However, the novel does not fully endorse Sula’s
commitment to the moment. In “Rootedness: The
Ancestor as Foundation,” Morrison writes: “I want
to paint out the dangers, to show that nice things
don’t happen to the totally self-reliant if there is
no conscious historical connection” (Evans 344).
Sula’s narrative of alienation and her disturbing
vision of the future reveal these dangers.
Religious Context
The opening description of the Bottom and the
joke about its origins establishes the parabolic
tenor of the novel. However, the novel challenges
the strict categories which form the basis of western religion, revealing how religious belief can be
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used as an exclusionary force. Fear informs the
town’s religious faith. At Chicken Little’s funeral,
the congregation senses that “the only way to avoid
the Hand of God was to get in it” (66). Morrison
exposes the dangers of such a narrow, either/or
vision. The citizens of the Bottom accept evil without questioning it or trying to change it: “they let
it run its course, fulfill itself, and never invented
ways either to alter it, to annihilate it or to prevent
its happening again” (90). They align the evil of
racial oppression with accidents or misfortunes
such as tuberculosis and famine (90). They show
little interest in forgiveness and interpret the freak
occurrences reminiscent of the Old Testament
selectively.
As white people call on their own interpretations of religion to justify racial oppression—the
bargeman is confounded by the “terrible burden
his own kind had of elevating Ham’s sons” (63)—
so the citizens of Medallion draw on biblical discourse to justify their exclusion of anyone who
challenges their dichotomized conception of right
and wrong. Sula eludes definition so she must be
the devil, the fourth face of God; when Shadrack
arrives resembling a prophet with a new message,
he is dismissed as mad; Ajax’s mother is an “evil
conjure woman” (126); Mrs. Sabat raises her granddaughter “under the dolesome eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary” to protect her from her mother’s
wild blood (17). Through Sula, Morrison offers a
counter-argument to such narrow definitions. Sula
reflects that for Nel to escape the role of victim
embraced by the town, would require “invention”
beyond the town’s imagination (120). However,
when she is betrayed by her husband and friend,
morality becomes the main constituent of Nel’s
identity: “Virtue, bleak and drawn, was her only
mooring” (139). Sula challenges her moral code,
telling her that “Being good to somebody is just like
being mean to somebody” (144–5). In a ­disturbing
vision, she talks of a time when these categories
will no longer apply: when “the old women have
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lain with the ­teenagers,” “the whores make love to
their grannies,” and ­“Lindbergh sleeps with Bessie
Smith” (145).
Although the novel does not endorse Sula’s
vision, her death exposes the inadequacy of the
town’s moral vision. The citizens interpret Sula’s
death as a good omen but they soon realize that
their moral system was contingent upon their
outrage at Sula’s behavior: “… mothers who had
defended their children from Sula’s malevolence
… now had nothing to rub up against. The tension
was gone and so was the reason for the effort they
had made” (153).
Scientific & Technological Context
The people of the Bottom welcome news of urbanization but in the final chapter, Morrison reveals
how ‘progress’ and ‘advancement’ have eroded
community life. As “[o]ne of the last true pedestrians,” Nel is a lonely figure, “walk[ing] the shoulder road while cars slipped by” (166). Technology
ousts nature and alienates people. Trees are cut
down and towers for television stations are erected.
People live in “separate houses with separate televisions and separate telephones” (166).
Biographical Context
Toni Morrison is one of America’s most eminent
novelists. She has garnered a formidable array
of awards and honors, including the 1993 Nobel
Prize for Literature. Born Chloe Anthony ­Wofford
in 1931, Morrison was raised in Ohio after her
parents moved there from the South. She attended
Howard University in Washington D.C. and Cornell
­University, where she wrote her Master’s thesis on
Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. In 1965 she
joined Random House and worked in publishing while writing. Morrison’s first novel, “The
­Bluest Eye,” evolved from a short story and was
­published in 1970. “Sula” followed in 1973. Her
third novel, “Song of Solomon” (1977) interweaves ­African-American folktales with American
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Sula
history; it won the National Book Critics Circle
Award. “Tar Baby” appeared in 1981. Her next
three novels form a thematically linked trilogy:
“Beloved” (1987), “Jazz” (1992), and “Paradise”
(1998). “Beloved,” her most acclaimed novel, was
made into a film, produced by and starring Oprah
Winfrey. The novel retells the true story of Margaret Garner, a black slave who killed her daughter to
save her from slavery. In 1992, Morrison published
“Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination,” a hugely influential work of literary
criticism. She published her eighth novel, “Love,”
in 2003.
Morrison views the collaboration between
reader and writer as essential to the creative
process; she states that she wishes the reader to
“work with the author in the construction of the
book” (341). Her novels are characterized by their
polyvocality, lyricism, and alinear, fragmented
structures. Prevalent themes include: race and
gender ­ideology; sexuality; standards of beauty;
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memory and loss; identity and community. She
has written books for children, including the
“Who’s Got Game?” series. Morrison has two
sons from her marriage to Harold Morrison.
She is Robert F. Goheen Professor, Council of
Humanities, Princeton University. She is a member of numerous bodies, including the National
Council of the Arts and the American Academy
and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Rachel Lister, Ph.D
Works Cited
Morrison, Toni. “Rootedness: The Ancestor as
Foundation.” Black Women Writers:
A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Marie Evans. New York:
Anchor, 1984. 339–45.
——. Sula. 1973. London: Picador, 1991.
Tate, Claudia. Black Women Writers at Work. New
York: Continuum, 1984.
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Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Morrison’s representation of Sula.
Why does she present her heroine from a
third-person perspective only? How might
our conception of Sula differ if she were
given narrating privileges?
2. Morrison dedicates “Sula” to her two
sons. She opens the dedication with the
declaration that, “It is sheer good fortune to
miss somebody long before they leave you.”
Using the dedication as a starting-point,
explore Morrison’s treatment of the themes
of absence and loss.
3. “… she felt no compulsion to verify herself—
be consistent with herself.” Identify and
discuss moments when you were puzzled by
Sula’s actions.
4. “Hell is change” (Nel in “Sula”). Discuss the
different attitudes to change presented in the
novel.
5. “A bright space opened in her head and
memory seeped into it.” Discuss the represention and function of memory in “Sula.”
6. “You say I’m a woman and I’m colored.
Ain’t that the same as being a man?” By
what means does Morrison challenge identity categories and oppositions in “Sula?”
7. Discuss Morrison’s dramatization of trauma
in “Sula.”
8. “Being good to somebody is just like being
mean to somebody.” Discuss Morrison’s
treatment of morality in “Sula.”
9. Take one of the following scenes from Sula
and discuss its significance to the novel as
a whole: Helene’s smile and the reaction of
the soldiers; Sula cutting off her finger tip;
Shadrack’s encounter with Sula; the communal parade on National Suicide Day.
10. “She had clung to Nel as the closest thing
to both an other and a self, only to discover
that she and Nel were not one and the same
thing” (119). Discuss the close relationship
between Sula and Nel. How do their choices
and actions impinge on each other’s identity?
Essay Ideas
1. “The Peace women simply loved maleness,
for its own sake.” Explore Morrison’s representation of masculinity in “Sula.”
2. “I don’t want to make somebody else. I
want to make myself.” Discuss Morrison’s
treatment of maternity in “Sula.”
3. How does Morrison represent the tension
between isolation and contact in “Sula?”
243-250_Sula.indd 250
4. To what extent might one define “Sula” as a
feminist novel?
5. Morrison compares the structure of “Sula” to
the shape of a spiral. Taking this analogy as
a starting-point, examine Morrison’s formal
and narrative strategies.
11/10/13 2:48 PM
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ClassicNote on Sula
Table of Contents
Biography of Toni Morrison (1931–2019) …………………………………………………………………………………
1
Sula Study Guide ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
4
Sula Summary………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
5
Sula Characters ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Shadrack………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Nel Wright……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Helene Wright ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Wiley Wright ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Cecile Sabat……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Sula……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Hannah Peace …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Eva Peace ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Pearl Pece ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Ralph (Plum) Peace…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Suggs………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
BoyBoy …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Deweys……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Tar Baby ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Henri Martin…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Rochelle…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Ajax (A. Jacks, Albert Jacks) ……………………………………………………………………………………………
Patsy and Valentine …………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Chicken Little…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Jude Greene……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Rekus…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Teapot ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
7
7
7
7
7
7
8
8
8
8
8
8
9
9
9
9
9
9
10
10
10
10
10
Sula Glossary …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Acquiesce ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Aesthetic………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Conjure Woman………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Contemplate …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Contempt ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
11
11
11
11
11
11
i
Creole ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Defile…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Delirium ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Fastidious ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Idiosyncrasy …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Interminable …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Intricate …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Keloid……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Mulatto ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Rapport………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Scuttle……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Shrouding ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Vagrancy………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Vulnerability…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Womanizer …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
11
11
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12
12
12
12
12
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12
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13
13
Sula Themes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Race………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
War ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Shame……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Absent Fathers………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Motherhood ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Death …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Religion …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
14
14
14
14
14
15
15
15
Sula Quotes and Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
16
Sula Preface Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………
19
Sula 1919 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
21
Sula 1920 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
22
Sula 1921 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
24
Sula 1922 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
27
Sula 1923 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
30
Sula 1927 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
32
Sula 1937 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
34
ii
Sula 1939 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
37
Sula 1940 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
40
Sula 1941 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
42
Sula 1965 Summary and Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………….
45
Sula Symbols, Allegory and Motifs…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Three Beets (Symbol) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Tunnel (Symbol) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Premonitions (Motif)……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The Gray Ball (Symbol)…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Sula and Nel (Allegory) …………………………………………………………………………………………………..
47
47
47
47
48
48
Sula Metaphors and Similes……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Street Pup (Simile) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Wet Light (Metaphor)………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Jewels (Simile) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Something Newly Missing (Metaphor)………………………………………………………………………………
Spiders (Metaphor)………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
49
49
49
49
50
50
Sula Irony………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Nel Thinking of Sula (Situational Irony) ……………………………………………………………………………
The Sula Effect (Situational Irony) ……………………………………………………………………………………
Everyone Loves You (Verbal Irony) ………………………………………………………………………………….
Eve and Plum (Irony of Fate)……………………………………………………………………………………………
51
51
51
51
52
Sula Imagery ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The Bottom ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Plum’s Death ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The Hottest Day …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
War ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
53
53
53
53
54
Sula Chronology of Sula………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
55
Sula Literary Elements…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
57
Sula Links ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
60
Sula Essay Questions ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
62
iii
Sula Quizzes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Quiz 1 Answer Key…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
64
68
Sula Quizzes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Quiz 2 Answer Key…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
70
74
Sula Quizzes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Quiz 3 Answer Key…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
76
80
Sula Quizzes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Quiz 4 Answer Key…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
82
86
Sula Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
88
Evil and Conformity in Toni Morrison’s Sula……………………………………………………………………………..
89
Toni Morrison: The Manifestation of Tough Love in Sula……………………………………………………………
94
Copyright Notice…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
17
iv
Biography of Toni Morrison (1931–2019)
About the Author
Chloe Anthony Wofford, later known as Toni Morrison, was born in Lorain, Ohio, on February 18, 1931.
She was the daughter of a shipyard welder and a religious woman who sang in the church choir.
Morrison had a sister, Lois, and two younger brothers, George and Raymond. Her parents had moved to
Ohio from the South, hoping to raise their children in an environment friendlier to blacks. Despite the
move to the North, the Wofford household was steeped in the oral traditions of Southern African
American communities. The songs and stories of Chloe Wofford’s childhood undoubtedly influenced her
later work; indeed, Toni Morrison’s oeuvre draws heavily upon the oral art forms of African Americans.
Although Toni Morrison’s writing is not autobiographical, she fondly alludes to her past, stating, “I am
from the Midwest so I have a special affection for it. My beginnings are always there . . . No matter what
I write, I begin there . . . It’s the matrix for me . . . Ohio also offers an escape from stereotyped black
settings. It is neither plantation nor ghetto.”
Toni Morrison’s writing was also greatly influenced by her family. Her grandparents had relocated to
Ohio during the national movement of blacks out of the South known as the Great Migration. After
leaving their farm in Alabama, Morrison’s mother’s parents (Ardelia and John Solomon Willis) moved to
Kentucky, and then to Ohio. They placed extreme value in the education of their children and
themselves. John Willis taught himself to read, and his stories became the inspiration for Morrison’s Song
of Solomon (1977).
Morrison was an extremely gifted student, learning to read at an early age and doing well at her studies at
an integrated school. Morrison, who attended Hawthorne Elementary School, was the only African
American in her first-grade classroom. She was also the only student who began school with the ability
to read. Because she was so skilled, Morrison was often asked to help other students learn to read. She
frequently worked with the children of new immigrants to America.
Morrison’s parents’ desire to protect their child from the racist environment of the South succeeded in
many respects: racial prejudice was less of a problem in Lorain, Ohio than it would have been in the
South, and Chloe Wofford played with a racially diverse group of friends when she was young.
Inevitably, however, she began to experience racial discrimination, as she and her peers grew older. She
graduated with honors in 1949 and went to Howard University in Washington D.C. At Howard, she
majored in English and minored in classics, and was actively involved in theater arts through the Howard
University Players. She graduated from Howard in 1953 with a B.A. in English and a new name: ‘Toni
Wofford’ (Toni being a shortened version of her middle name). She went on to receive her M.A. in
English from Cornell in 1955.
Biography of Toni Morrison (1931–2019)
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After a teaching stint at Texas Southern University, Toni returned to Howard University and met Harold
Morrison. They married, and before their divorce in 1964, Toni and Harold Morrison had two sons. It
was also during this time that she wrote the short story that would become the basis for her first novel,
The Bluest Eye.
In 1964, Morrison took a job in Syracuse, New York as an associate editor at Random House. She
worked as an editor, raised her sons as a single mom, and continued to write fiction. In 1967, she
received a promotion to senior editor and a much-desired transfer to New York City. The Bluest Eye was
published in 1970. The story of a young girl who loses her mind, the novel was well received by critics
but failed commercially. Between 1971 and 1972, Morrison worked as a Professor of English at the State
University of New York at Purchase while holding her job at Random House and working on Sula, a
novel about a defiant woman and relations between black females. Sula was published in 1973.
The years 1976 and 1977 saw Morrison working as a visiting lecturer at Yale and working on her next
novel, Song of Solomon. This next novel dealt more fully with black male characters. As with Sula,
Morrison wrote the novel while holding a teaching position, continuing her work as an editor for
Random House, and raising her two sons. Song of Solomon was published in 1977 and enjoyed both
commercial and critical success. In 1981, Morrison published Tar Baby, a novel focusing on a stormy
relationship between a man and a woman. In 1983, she left Random House. The next year she took a
position at the State University of New York in Albany.
Beloved, the book that many consider Morrison’s masterpiece, was published in 1987. Mythic in scope,
Beloved tells the story of an emancipated slave woman named Sethe who is haunted by the ghost of the
daughter she killed. The novel is an ambitious attempt to grapple with slavery and the tenacity of its
legacy. Dedicated to the tens of millions of slaves who died as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade,
Beloved could be called a foundation story (like Genesis or Exodus) for Black America. It became a
bestseller and received a Pulitzer Prize.
In 1987, Toni Morrison became the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of Humanities at
Princeton University. She was the first African American female writer to hold a named chair at a
university in the Ivy League. She published Jazz in 1992, along with a non-fiction book entitled Playing
in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. The next year, she became the eighth woman and
the first black author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. 1998 saw the publication of her seventh
novel, Paradise. In subsequent years she published Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God
Help the Child (2015).
One of the most critically acclaimed American writers, Morrison was a major architect in creating a
literary language for African Americans. Her use of shifting perspective, fragmentary narrative, and a
narrative voice extremely close to the consciousness of her characters reveal the influence of writers like
Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, two writers whom Morrison, not coincidentally, studied
extensively while a college student. All of her work also shows the influence of African American
Biography of Toni Morrison (1931–2019)
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2
folklore, songs, and women’s gossip. In her attempts to map these oral art forms onto literary modes of
representation, Morrison created a body of work informed by a distinctly black sensibility while drawing
a reading audience that cut across racial boundaries.
On August 5th, 2019, Toni Morrison died at the age of 88 in New York, creating a crater-sized hole in the
American literary landscape. But as Nikki Giovanni articulated in a 2019 interview with Democracy
Now!, “we will never lose Toni Morrison. She will always be here.” This is in part because of Morrison’s
staggering body of work, and also because of the legacy she leaves behind. Many of her peers and critics
commend Morrison not only for her creation of a literary language for African Americans, but also for
the way her writing privileged and displayed the interiority of Black America. Angela Davis credits
Morrison with teaching the world “to imagine enslaved women and men with full lives, with complex
subjectivities, with interiority,” and essayist Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah says by doing that, Morrison gave
Black America “a record of gesture and custom and being and belonging.”
Another aspect of Morrison’s legacy was the work she did as an editor for Random House, working
closely with black authors and publishing books by Muhammad Ali, Henry Dumas, Angela Davis, Huey
P. Newton, Toni Cade Bambara, Gail Jones, etc. By highlighting and uplifting not just her own voice, but
the voices of other black writers as well, Morrison left an indelible mark on American literature. In later
life, Morrison also left a political mark, penning political commentaries and even receiving the
Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012. As an author, editor, professor,
and political commentator, Toni Morrison wore many hats, and was a true luminary.
Biography of Toni Morrison (1931–2019)
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3
Sula Study Guide
Published in 1973, Sula is Toni Morrison’s second novel. Like her first novel, The Bluest Eye, this one
also deals with the life experiences of two black girls. Yet it does not merely address the childhood
experiences but follows the girls as they grow into adulthood. Sula was created out of Morrison’s desire
to “writ[e] a second novel…about people in a black community not just foregrounded but totally
dominant.”
Sula is set in the postbellum American South during a time when racial segregation continued to divide
white and black populations. Even veterans of World War I like Shadrack and Plum are treated
differently because of their skin color. Neither receives benefits after returning from war but are, rather,
left to wallow and remember their trauma. Shadrack is even expelled prematurely from a veteran’s
hospital to make room for other patients.
Morrison expressed concern when writing the book, which focused mainly on a black community for a
largely white readership. To address this she created the Preface, which buffered the reader’s introduction
to Shadrack’s internal crisis and shifted focus away from the pains inflicted on blacks by the war and
discriminatory structural institutions.
Though sales were not high, Sula was well received by literary critics. It was nominated in 1975 for a
National Book Award, and it won the Ohioana Book Award. A feature for the novel also appeared in the
women’s magazine Redbook.
Sula Study Guide
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Sula Summary
Morrison’s Sula is a story of motherhood, friendship, and love. It follows two girls, Nel and Sula, from
childhood to adulthood and describes the way their deep bond is tested by societal norms. Set in a mostly
black town in Ohio, the story explores the relationship between women in the segregated and patriarchal
South. Nevertheless, the novel champions the many strong female characters it features as leaders,
mothers, and property owners.
The narrator describes the town in which Sula is set by first announcing its destruction. Before it
describes all that existed in the Bottom, the novel is already lamenting its loss. Shadrack, a veteran of
war, who is physically injured and scarred by war, returns to Medallion a drunk and a rabble-rouser. His
concentration on death leads him to found National Suicide Day, a holiday to be observed annually on
January 3. On this day Shadrack parades down Carpenter’s Road with a cowbell and tells the people that
they may kill themselves or one another.
Helene and her daughter Nel travel to New Orleans to visit a dying relative. They experience the
difficulties of the segregated and discriminatory South while traveling. Helene and Nel meet Helene’s
mother in New Orleans, who did not raise Helene on her own because she was a prostitute. When the two
return Helene is glad to be separated from her shameful past and Nel is determined to one day be
“wonderful.” She begins this venture by befriending Sula against her mother’s wishes.
Sula and the Peace family descend from the matriarch Eva Peace. When she arrives in Medallion, Eva is
accompanied by her husband BoyBoy and her three children: Hannah, Pearl, and Ralph (Plum). They
move to Medallion when BoyBoy is offered a job assisting a white carpenter. However, BoyBoy
eventually abandons the family and Eva is forced to raise the children on her own. Exhausted and
impoverished, she leaves the children with a neighbor for eighteen months and returns with a mysterious
new prosperity and a missing leg. Eva uses her money to build a large home on Carpenter’s Road where
she accepts boarders and takes in children.
Sula and Nel become incredibly close friends in their youth. They do almost everything together and
complete each other’s sentences. The girls also come to share a dark secret when they participate in the
accidental death of a young boy named Chicken Little. Nel and Sula keep their involvement in Chicken’s
death a secret and after his funeral, their friendship continues as before.
Chicken’s death is accompanied by a few other deaths of major characters. Plum, returns from war with a
drug addiction. He regresses and behaves like a child. Eva, wanting her son to die a man if he could not
live like one, sets Plum on fire. Hannah is the next to die, burning alive after accidentally setting herself
aflame while trying to do laundry.
Sula Summary
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5
As Sula and Nel grow up, they remain close. Sula even plans most of Nel’s wedding when she marries
Jude Greene. However, after her wedding night the girls do not see each other for another ten years,
when Sula returns to Medallion after attending college and visiting other American cities.
When Sula returns, she has Eva placed into a nursing home. She enjoys reuniting with her childhood
friend and reminiscing about the past. However, after Sula has an affair with Nel’s husband, she is no
longer able to speak to Nel, and she spends her life in Medallion hated and judged by the people of
Medallion. Sula has a brief love affair with Ajax, an older man she knew of in girlhood. Ajax leaves,
however, when Sula shows signs of becoming committed. Sula is saddened by his departure and shortly
afterwards she falls ill.
Sula’s illness brings the two women back together, although they had not spoken since Jude left Nel.
They argue, and Nel becomes frustrated again by Sula’s attitude toward conformity and tradition. After
she leaves, Sula dies alone in the home on 7 Carpenter’s Road. After Sula’s death, the people of
Medallion are pleased but they behave differently. In her absence, they abandon their righteous
indignation and become slack in their roles as mothers, and daughters.
Sula’s death also changes Shadrack, who no longer wants to celebrate National Suicide Day. However,
he decides to carry his rope and bell for one more year. That January 3, many neighbors marched
alongside Shadrack until they arrived at the construction site that had long been forbidden to black
workers seeking jobs. Frustrated, some of the people begin to destroy the Tunnel, and they are killed
when it collapses on them.
The story ends in the year 1965. Nel is 55 years old, and all of her kids have grown up. She visits Eva in
the hospital and is forced to reflect on her role in Chicken’s death. Nel realizes that she was complicit in
his death and that she enjoyed watching him fall. At the novel’s end, Nel also realizes that she has
harbored a deep pain and sorrow about losing her friend Sula. She cries Sula’s name into the air in an
expression of grief and realization.
When she conceived of the book in the late 1960s, Morrison was surrounded by feminist discourse that
encouraged woman to unite with each other instead of competing. She wanted to show an example of the
culturally acceptable sisterhood that she remembers from growing up in a black neighborhood, while also
showing how that sisterhood can be strained by external forces.
Sula Summary
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6
Sula Characters
Shadrack
Founder of National Suicide Day, Shadrack is a veteran of war. A survivor of battle, Shadrack was
hospitalized for over a year before he returned to the Bottom. He lives in a shack previously owned by
his long deceased grandfather. On January 3 every year, in observance of National Suicide Day, he
parades through the Bottom with a cowbell and lets everyone know that they may kill themselves or one
another.
Nel Wright
Nel is the daughter of Wiley and Helene Wright. She befriends Sula in childhood. After graduating from
school, Nel marries Jude Greene.
Helene Wright
Helene is born behind the red shutters at the Sundown House, a place of prostitution. She is taken away
from her birth mother, Rochelle, a Creole prostitute, by her grandmother Cecile Sabat. Raised in a strictly
religious home, Helene grows up to be authoritative and devout. She marries Wiley Wright and gives
birth to daughter Nel after 9 years of marriage. The family lives in a nice house in the Bottom.
Wiley Wright
Wiley Wright is the great nephew of Cecile Sabat. He is also Helene Sabat’s husband and Nel’s father.
Wiley spends a lot of time away from home as chef on a ship company called the Great Lakes Line.
Cecile Sabat
Cecile is the great aunt of Wiley and grandmother to Helene. She raises Helene in a religious and strict
home and cautions her against taking after Rochelle, Helene’s mother. When Cecile falls ill and dies
Helene takes her daughter Nel with her to New Orleans to say her last goodbyes.
Sula Characters
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7
Sula
The daughter of Hannah Peace and granddaughter of Eva Peace. She is a close childhood friend of Nel
Wright. Sula has a birthmark on her eyelid that many think resembles a rose and a stem.
Hannah Peace
Hannah is Sula’s mother and Eva’s eldest child. Hannah is known in the Bottom for sleeping with many
men, married or unmarried. She dies in a tragic fire accident.
Eva Peace
Eva is the mother of three: Hannah, Pearl, and Ralph (or Plum). She mysteriously loses one of her legs
after she is left by her husband BoyBoy. Eva owns a large home on Carpenter’s Road where she houses
many boarders and family members.
Pearl Pece
Eva’s youngest daughter and namesake (her name is also Eva although she is called Pearl). Pearl is the
only one of Eva’s children who moves away from Medallion permanently. Pearl moves to Flint,
Michigan at age 14 with her husband.
Ralph (Plum) Peace
Ralph, nicknamed Plum, is Eva’s youngest and most loved child. He fights in World War I and returns
drastically changed by his experiences. He dies in a fire.
The Suggs
Mr. and Mrs. Suggs are neighbors of the Peace family. They assist Eva after she is abandoned by
BoyBoy, and they aid Hannah after the yard fire accident.
Sula Characters
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BoyBoy
BoyBoy was Eva’s womanizing and abusive husband. He moves Eva away from her home in Virginia to
Medallion at the insistence of his white employer. He abandons Eva and the children, leaving them
without money or food.
The Deweys
The Deweys are three children who are taken in by Eva in 1921. Eva renames all of three boys Dewey.
Each has his own physical characteristics and they are all different ages but they become very close to
one another and learn to love only each other. Despite their differences, it is hard for people to tell them
apart because they favor each other in thought and mannerisms. The Deweys remain the size of children
throughout their years and are last seen on National Suicide Day in 1941.
Tar Baby
Tar Baby is a small, soft-spoken man who boards in Eva’s house. He is rumored by some to have white
ancestry although Eva considers him to be entirely white. Tar Baby is called Pretty Johnnie at first until
Eva gives him a new nickname. He is a heavy drinker and is unable to maintain a job. Tar Baby spends
much time alone and does not eat much. He is the first to join Shadrack in celebrating National Suicide
Day.
Henri Martin
The man who alerts Helene of her grandmother’s sickness and also arranges things after Cecile’s death.
Rochelle
Rochelle is Helene’s Creole speaking mother from New Orleans. She is a former prostitute and smells
like gardenias. Helene and Nel meet Rochelle when they travel to New Orleans for Cecile’s funeral.
Ajax (A. Jacks, Albert Jacks)
Officially known as A. Jacks. Ajax is a 21-year0old man who is loved by women. He plays pool and is
envied for the way he curses. He is one of seven children and the son of a conjure woman. Ajax becomes
one of Sula’s lovers.
Sula Characters
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9
Patsy and Valentine
Friends of Hannah Peace. Both die during the tunnel collapse on January 3, 1941.
Chicken Little
Chicken Little is a little boy Nel teases for picking his nose. In a horrible accident, Chicken Little falls
into the river and drowns.
Jude Greene
Jude marries Nel at 20 years of age. He is a waiter and also sings tenor in the Mount Zion’s Men’s
Quartet. Jude abandons Nel and his children.
Rekus
Rekus is Sula’s father. He dies when she is three years old, leading to the family’s return to Medallion.
Teapot
A 5-year old boy who arrives at Sula’s house asking for bottles. When he falls down Sula’s stairs, the
neighborhood accuses Sula of pushing him.
Sula Characters
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10
Sula Glossary
Acquiesce
to give in, to agree
Aesthetic
regarding looks or appearance
Conjure Woman
a woman who uses magic to exert power
Contemplate
to look up on with deep thought or attention
Contempt
disrespect for something
Creole
both a people and a language used to describe some residents of New Orleans who descended from the
French who once settled there
Defile
to dirty or make unclean
Sula Glossary
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11
Delirium
altered mental state characterized by excitement and confusion and sometimes accompanied by
hallucinations.
Fastidious
difficult to please, possessing high standards
Idiosyncrasy
a unique characteristic or trait
Interminable
without end, unending
Intricate
complex or detailed
Keloid
a scar that results from an excess of fibrous tissue
Mulatto
one who has both white and black ancestry
Rapport
relation often characterized by conformity and harmony.
Sula Glossary
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12
Scuttle
bucket used to hold a supply of coal
Shrouding
a covering or something that obscures view, often for protection
Vagrancy
characterizes one who wanders and has no place to live.
Vulnerability
something that makes one open to pain or harm .
Womanizer
one who has sexual relationships with multiple women and often disrespects his partners
Sula Glossary
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13
Sula Themes
Race
Set in the postbellum South, the novel contains examples of lasting racism and prejudice. The division
between the hill and valley areas of Medallion along racial lines indicates that segregation dictates the
behaviors and lifestyles of the novel’s characters. Nel expresses insecurity about her mother’s mixed
blood and lighter complexion. As she travels to New Orleans with her mother Helene, she realizes the
uneven power dynamic that exists between whites and blacks. Race and racial prejudice pains the black
people of the Bottom, who are continually denied opportunities for employment in place of their white
neighbors.
War
Like another character in the novel, War acts as an agent of destruction. Two characters, Shadrack and
Plum, become victims of war when they return from it mere shells of themselves. The war brings the
men into contact with death (another major theme) in traumatic ways. Shadrack’s observance of National
Suicide Day is inspired by his experiences in war namely, his fear of death’s unexpectedness and
suddenness. Similarly, Plum’s experiences at War cause him to regress back into childhood and errant
behavior, such as theft and drug addiction. War also brings changes to the town of Medallion, affecting
the economy and availability of jobs.
Shame
At the novel’s end, shame is revealed to be an essential part of community. The shame people in
Medallion feel towards Sula and her actions motivates them to behave differently. They define
themselves against her as a symbol of shame. When Sula dies and the community members no longer
have an embodiment of shame, they begin to neglect their familial and maternal duties that they were so
eager to fulfill when Sula lived. Helene also feels shame about being born to a prostitute. In similar
fashion, she defines herself against her mother’s example and becomes extremely conservative and
judgmental.
Absent Fathers
Accompanying the overwhelming matriarchal structure of the homes, there is also an absence of fathers
in the novel. Men like BoyBoy and Jude are introduced in the novel, but each of them eventually
Sula Themes
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14
abandons his paternal role. Even Wiley who remains married to Helene throughout the novel is often at
sea and not present to be a father to Nel.
Motherhood
The novel describes the various stresses and sacrifices of motherhood and offers varied examples of
motherhood. Rochelle, Helene’s prostitute mother, is considered unfit to raise her, and she is instead
raised by her grandmother, Cecile. Just as Cecile raises Helene in a disciplined and strict home, so too
does Helene raise her own daughter, Nel, stifling her imagination and independence. Helene places her
own worth in Nel’s upbringing and succeeds in manipulating Nel into a traditional marriage. Eva, a
single mother, sacrifices greatly for her children. It is speculated that she sells her own leg for financial
security. Eva tells her daughter that she never loved her, which affects Hannah’s relationship with her
own daughter Sula. Sula is pained to hear her mother say that she did not like her, though she loved her.
Death
Death occurs frequently in the novel and strikes suddenly. Tar Baby, Plum, and Shadrack become
dependent on substances and appear to seek their own deaths. Shadrack is especially focused on death
and institutes National Suicide Day, an annual observance devoted entirely to death. Both Plum and
Hannah experience death by fire. When Nel mourns the departure of her husband Jude, the novel
suggests that instead of clinging to the past, she instead ought to give in to death. Sula presents death as a
companion to life and not an end to it. This is most evident when Sula speaks even after her heart has
stopped breathing.
Religion
The people of the Bottom insist that nothing “can keep them from their God.” Religion provides a moral
standard for the population. Those, like Sula, who do not observe or respect it are seen as devils by the
community. Religion also becomes indicative of social acceptability. Helene is taught to be devout by her
grandmother, so that she will not follow the model of her mother who was a prostitute. Nel also becomes
involved in the Church in her late adulthood, which leads her to the nursing home where Eva Peace
resides.
Sula Themes
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15
Sula Quotes and Analysis
“‘You think I don’t know what your life is like just because I ain’t living it? I know what every
colored woman in this country is doing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Dying., Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one
of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.’”
143
On her deathbed Sula expresses to Nel her thoughts about the accepted lifestyles and positions of women
in Medallion. Though Nel thinks Sula should have settled down and had children, Sula takes in pride in
her decision not to conform. She says that everyone is dying, but considers her route to death to be nobler
than that of her peers.
“‘I don’t know,’ her mother said. ‘I don’t talk Creole.’ She gazed at her daughter’s wet buttocks.
‘And neither do you.’”
27
After encountering her mother, Rochelle, in New Orleans for the first time since Childhood, Helene
seeks to distance herself further from this woman who brings her shame. Rochelle speaks in Creole to
Helene and Nel and is surprised to find that Helene has not taught Nel the language. Helene remarks that
neither she nor her daughter will speak Creole, the language of her estranged mother.
“It was on that train, shuffling toward Cincinnati, that she resolved to be on guard—always.
She wanted to make certain that no man ever looked at her that way. That no midnight eyes or
marbled flesh would ever accost her and turn her into jelly.”
23
When traveling with her mother on the train, Nel is disgusted by the woman’s behavior towards the white
conductor. Even worse are the scornful stares that Helene receives afterward from her fellow black
passengers. In this moment, Nel promises herself never to be the target of such hateful male gazes.
“The narrower their lives, the wider their hips.”
Sula Quotes and Analysis
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16
121
Again, Sula critiques the traditional choices of women in her society. She considers those with wide hips,
an indicator of motherhood, to have less meaningful lives than those without children.
“Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear.
Back in bed with her discovery, she stared out the window at the dark leaves of the horse
chestnut. ‘Me,’ she murmured. And then, sinking deeper into the quilts, ‘I want…I want to
be…wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful.’”
28-29
Returning from the trip to New Orleans with her mother, Nel decides that she will exist free from her
mother’s discipline and strictness. She returns with a newfound sense of individuality and proclaims a
desire to be “wonderful.” Nel tries to define herself in opposition to her mother. This confidence leads
her to befriend Sula.
“Nibbling at each other, not even touching, not even looking at each other, just their lips, and
when I opened the door they didn’t even look for a minute and I thought the reason they are not
looking up is because they are not doing that. So it’s all right. I am just standing here. They are
not doing that. I am just standing here and seeing it, but they are not really doing it”
105
Upon discovering her husband and her best friend having sex, Nel is initially confused and believes that
her eyes are deceiving her. Neither Jude nor Sula looks up when Nel enters the room. She takes this as a
sign that nothing wrong is occurring but is quickly proven wrong when her husband looks up and walks
out, announcing that he would come back for his things later.
“He fought a rising hysteria that was not merely anxiety to free his aching feet his very life
depended on the release of the knots. Suddenly without raising his eyelids, he began to cry.”
12
After being released from the Veteran’s hospital, Shadrack stumbles around the town. He is unable to
perceive things correctly and feels a throbbing pain in his head. Thinking that he must untie his
shoelaces, Shadrack sits on a curb to do so, but he is unable to untie them. Frustrated and afraid,
Shadrack begins to cry on the curb. He is later mistaken for a vagrant and removed from the curb by the
police.
Sula Quotes and Analysis
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17
“With the exception of BoyBoy, those Peace women loved all men. It was manlove that Eva
bequeathed to her daughters.”
41
All of the Peace women display an extreme love for men. Hannah sleeps with unmarried and married
men, which makes her somewhat resented by the women in the neighborhood. Though she takes no
lovers after BoyBoy, Eva also has many male visitors with whom she is sometimes flirtatious. Pearl is
the only Pearl woman who remains married and movies away to Michigan with her husband.
“‘All that time, all that time, I thought I was missing Jude.’ And the loss pressed down on her
chest and came up into her throat. ‘We was girls together,’ she said as though explaining
something. ‘O Lord, Sula,’ she cried, ‘girl, girl, girlgirlgirl.’ It was a fine cry—loud and
long—but it had no bottom and it had not top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”
174
At the end of the novel, 550year-old Nel departs from visiting Sula’s grave. Just after leaving, Nel passes
Shadrack on the road. She then stops and truly mourns the loss of her friend, realizing that the grey ball
that appeared after Jude left represented the sorrow and pain she felt about losing Sula. Only after Sula’s
death and many years living without her, Nel finally acknowledges that she misses the friend with whom
she shared so many childhood memories and an unmatchable bond.
“Her once beautiful leg had no stocking and the foot was in a slipper. Nel wanted to cry—not
for Eva’s milk-dull eyes or her floppy lips, but for the once proud foot accustomed for over a
half century to a fine well-laced shoe, now stuffed gracelessly into a pink terrycloth slipper.”
167
In her old age, Eva has lost some of the strength and stature of her younger years. When Nel visits her in
the nursing home, she is shocked by the transformation. The image is a reminder of Sula’s vengeful
decision to place Eva in a nursing home away from her large home and community. Eva’s fine taste is
dulled by the standard adornments given to her by the nursing home. It is as though Sunnydale has
changed the woman and stripped her of her earlier pride.
Sula Quotes and Analysis
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Sula Preface Summary and Analysis
Summary
The chapter begins by explaining the destruction of a neighborhood in Ohio. Known as the Bottom this
neighborhood was previously inhabited almost entirely by Black people and looked over a mostly White,
mostly wealthy, valley town named Medallion. The narration is given in the past tense, indicating that the
destruction of the Bottom is not imminent but rather that it has already passed.
In the preface, the narrator laments the loss of various local businesses and landmarks known to former
inhabitants of the Bottom that were razed to make way for the Medallion City Golf Course. With the loss
of these buildings and the departure of former inhabitants of the Bottom the neighborhood was
transformed into the suburbs.
A short anecdote included in the preface explains how the neighborhood came to be called the Bottom
despite it being elevated land in the hills. According to the story, a master told his slave that he would
receive freedom and land after completing a number of challenging tasks. Once finished with these tasks
the slave was granted freedom. Yet, because his master did not want to give up good land, the slave was
given “bottom land.”
Deceitfully, the master told his slave that the “bottom land” was the bottom of heaven. It was rich, fertile,
and arable land. Fooled, the slave and an entire community of Black people begin to inhabit the area.
Only later did they discover that the land the Bottom was in fact infertile and intemperate.
The preface also describes the musical nature of people in the Bottom. Singing and instruments could be
heard throughout the neighborhood. Visitors to the neighborhood might witness a woman dancing the
“cakewalk” in public for a crowd accompanied by harmonica and organ players. Despite this dancing and
singing, there is also mention of a lasting pain among the Bottom’s inhabitants, a pain that, according to
the narrator, can go unnoticed by visitors and outsiders.
Analysis
Sula is structured with an end at its beginning. The preface describes the destruction of the Bottom, the
setting of the story, before the reader even knows what existed there before its demise. The beginning is
characteristic of works written after the two World Wars. In this context, people began to view things as
fragments, chronology no longer occurred in linear fashion, and the idyllic landscape is shattered. Sula
mirrors this by beginning and ending in the same time period, creating a chronological cycle instead of a
linear passing of time.
Sula Preface Summary and Analysis
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Race as a theme is prominent in the introduction. There is a clear social stratification between whites and
blacks in the segregated Ohio community. This segregation exists in the modern day and in the past.
Even at the most recent point in the novel, blacks remain under the control of whites. Their communities
are destroyed for the construction of the “suburbs” and golf courses that they would not be allowed to
enjoy.
Race also plays a role in the fabled origin of the Bottom. According to local lore, a master takes
advantage of his power over a black slave and gives him less arable land for completing difficult tasks.
The black slave accepts the land and the lie the master tells him that the land is called “bottom land”
because it is the bottom of heaven. In truth, the land is less arable and less fertile than the valley land,
which is inhabited mainly by whites.
The preface foreshadows the destruction of a neighborhood. It sets up expectations through destruction
of what the Bottom will be like as it is thriving. The preface also foreshadows society’s confusion with
two main characters, Shadrack and Sula and reveals the meaning of the book’s title.
Morrison chooses to introduce the mainly black community in the Bottom through the point of view of a
white outsider. This man from the valley walks through the valley and describes his surroundings.
Morrison remarks on this by admitting that she needed to cater to her largely white readership by
including a familiar way to ease into the novel that is centered on the black community. To enter directly
into Shadrack’s story would make the story inaccessible and cause readers to focus on the wrong thing.
Sula Preface Summary and Analysis
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Sula 1919 Summary and Analysis
Summary
While fighting in World War I, Shadrack witnesses the brutal death of a soldier whose body continues
moving forward even after his head is severed. This encounter with death and Shadrack’s experiences in
war leave him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and later motivate him to found National Suicide
Day.
Though he is not fully healed and continues to have hallucinations and outbursts, the veterans hospital
decides to release Shadrack to make room for other patients. His illness is compounded when he reenters the world but is unable to properly perceive it.
Shadrack has many misperceptions and hallucinations. When he looks at his hands, they appear
monstrous, and the fingers extend grotesquely. Frightened by this effect, Shadrack is unable to wield or
view his hands. When he is released, Shadrack does not initially notice the people bustling about around
him and when he does they appear “like paper dolls” to him. Still affected by his experiences with death
at war, Shadrack imagines that the people can be easily swayed and swept away. After all, the paper
people were not firmly rooted to the ground, as Shadrack remarks, “a good high wind would pull them
up and away.”
When Shadrack arrives in the Bottom, the people are initially frightened. They are especially put off by
his observance of the self-created holiday, National Suicide Day. National Suicide Day is marked by a
march down Carpenter’s Road and encouragement to kill one’s self or one’s neighbor. Though it is
resisted at first, within a year, Shadrack’s madness becomes familiar to the inhabitants of the Bottom and
National Suicide Day is integrated into the community’s schedule.
Analysis
The point of view shifts in this chapter. The world is not seen from the eyes of a white man from the
valley. Instead, one of the novel’s main characters, Shadrack, provides a glimpse of war and its traumas.
Many themes of the novel are introduced in this chapter. Not the least of these is death.
While Shadrack is hospitalized, another theme of the novel emerges, that of racial discrimination. His
discharge from the hospital is strongly implied to be the result of the color of his skin rather than of
healing from his mental sickness.
At the same time, his hallucinations of the “paper doll” people symbolize the fragility of mortality and
human life. He founds National Suicide Day to erase the uncertainty of death for one day each year.
Sula 1919 Summary and Analysis
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Sula 1920 Summary and Analysis
Summary
When Helene Wright hears that her grandmother, Cecile Sabat, has fallen ill, she decides that she and her
daughter Nel will travel from Medallion to New Orleans to see her. The trip is difficult for Helene who is
hesitant to return to painful memories she left in New Orleans but she decides she must go to honor the
woman who raised her.
Twenty-five years earlier, Cecile had rescued Helene from the Sundown House, the center of prostitution
where she was born. With discipline and religion, Cecile raised Helene to avoid the example set by her
mother, a Creole prostitute. When Helene turned sixteen, Cecile also arranged the marriage of Helene
with her great-nephew Wiley Wright so that she could begin a life far away from the Sundown House.
When Helene has a daughter of her own, nine years after marrying Wiley, she also raises her in a home
of discipline and religion. The two are often on their own since Wiley spends most of his days on the
ship. Naturally, when Helene decides to leave for New Orleans she brings her daughter Nel along with
her. Wearing a newly sewn elegant dress, Helene hurries to the train station with her daughter. Seeing
that the train is ready to leave the two hurriedly jump onto the nearest car which turns out to be for
Whites only. A white conductor intercepts the pair on their search for the “Colored Only” car and rudely
chastises Helene in front of other passengers. Accustomed to witnessing this interaction the Black
passengers initially view the scene with disinterest until Helene sycophantically smiles at the conductor.
This action disgusts the passengers and humiliates Nel, who resolves never to let her guard down before
any man the way her mother did.
The train ride to New Orleans lasts a total of three days. On the last day, there is a marked change as the
women travel further into the South. Most noticeable is the lack of “Colored only” facilities, an absence
that forces the women to squat in the open at rest stops. Despite these challenges, the pair finally arrives
in New Orleans only to find that Cecile has already died. Upon arriving, they also find Helene’s mother,
Rochelle in Cecile’s house. Here, Nel meets the Creole Speaking woman who smells of gardenias for the
very first time and is struck by her scent and softness.
A return to Medallion brings joy to Helene who is glad to reestablish the distance between her and her
former home. Nel however reflects on the trip with a mixture of fear and fascination. Additionally, a new
sense of self is stirred within her. This newfound confidence and individuality prompts Nel to befriend
Sula, a playmate she was told to avoid because Helena disliked Sula’s mother. However, Helena’s
distaste for the child soon dissipates when Sula proves to be well behaved and mannered.
Analysis
Sula 1920 Summary and Analysis
Copyright © 2011 by GradeSaver LLC
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Helene Wright is born to a prostitute mother from whom she spends the rest of her life trying to distance
herself. Her grandmother Cecile Wright raises her in New Orleans until Wiley Wright arrives and is
pressured to marry her. Helene’s shame of her mother foreshadows the shame inhabitants of the Bottom
will feel towards Sula in later chapters. It is against her mother’s example that Helene defines herself,
becoming a woman of high standards and moral rectitude.
Helene passes along the same sense of goodness and superiority to her daughter Nel. Helene “dr[ives]
her daughter’s imagination underground” with her discipline and her religion. Nel becomes the vessel
through which Helene will redeem her own shameful past. Consequently, Helene makes it a point to
manipulate her daughter’s behaviors and actions, even determining whom she can play with at school.
When Cecile falls ill, Helene and Nel go to visit her on her sickbed. They arrive too late and find Cecile
dead but the trip there is rife with its own disappointments. On the ride, they incur many instances of
discrimination. Helene is chastised by a white conductor for entering the “whites only” car. When she
smiles at the conductor, Nel is shamed and is aware of the disgust of the black passengers. This moment
helps Nel define aspirations to be different from her mother. She is determined never to receive that gaze.
While Nel is discovering her own identity separate from her mother’s, Helene is also fighting the ties she
has to her own mother, Rochelle. Rochelle is present at the house when Nel and Helene discover that
Cecile has already died. She speaks in Creole to Helene and ogles at the granddaughter she had never
met. Nel is awestruck by Rochelle and her canary-like appearance. Nel is enraptured by that which her
mother distastes. In a dramatic show of distance, Helene denies her mother’s language, adamantly saying
“’I don’t talk Creole’” and telling Nel “‘And neither do you.’” With this, Helene creates another
separation between her and her mother while attempting to relate with her daughter. Because Nel does
not speak Creole, Helene roots out the linguistic traces of her past for generations to come.
When they return home from the trip Nel feels empowered by a new sense of individuality and identity.
She is “me,” undefined by her parents, defined only by herself. This discovery of self parallels that of
Shadrack. It prompts Nel to befriend Sula despite her mother’s disapproval.
Sula 1920 Summary and Analysis
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23
Sula 1921 Summary and Analysis
Summary
A native Virginian, Eva Peace relocates to Medallion at the urgings of her husband BoyBoy who decides
to move there for a job. Eva and BoyBoy have three children: Hannah, Pearl, and Ralph. However, after
five years of a tumultuous marriage full of adultery and abuse the couple separates when BoyBoy
abandons Eva and the children. With BoyBoy’s departure, Eva finds herself a single mother and is unsure
how she will sustain herself and her children. She receives help from various neighbors and contemplates
where she might find a stable source of money.
During this time, the youngest of Eva’s children, Ralph, begins to have problems with his bowels. When
the situation escalates, and threatens to be fatal, Eva lubricates her hand with lard and loosens his bowels
with her own fingers. In this moment, Eva begins to realize the sad reality of her condition. Two days
later, she drops off her children with a neighbor, Mrs. Suggs, and promises to return the next day.
However, Eva does not retrieve her children from Mrs. Suggs until eighteen months later. She returns to
Medallion with a wealth that is unaccounted for and only one leg. Seeking to explain Eva’s new wealth
and missing leg, the townspeople come up with a number of outlandish stories including one that claims
Eva sold her leg to a hospital for a $10,000 reward. After retrieving her children from Mrs. Suggs, Eva
decides to build a large home on the same road where she and BoyBoy first rented a cabin when they
arrived in Medallion.
In that three-story house, Eva hosts family, friends, and those in need of a place to stay. One afternoon
BoyBoy, who also appears to have acquired new wealth, arrives at the home to visit Eva. Unsure of her
feelings for her former husband, Eva makes him some lemonade and invites him in. The two catch up
without discussing the children or Eva’s missing leg. When BoyBoy rises to leave Eva is still unsure how
she feels towards him. However, when he whispers into the ear of a woman who appears to be his new
girlfriend, Eva laughs aloud realizing that she hates BoyBoy.
After this visit, Eva gradually resigns herself to the upper level of the house. The lower levels become
the domain of the boarders and visitors. Having so much spare room in the house Eva begins to search
for children who need a home. In 1921 Eva takes in three boys and renames each of them Dewey.
Despite differences in age and physical characteristics, the boys begin to think of themselves as a unit.
They all begin the first grade together and are mistaken for each other despite their unique appearances.
Eva also gives a room to Tar Baby, a soft-spoken man who Eva believes to be white. Tar Baby drinks
heavily and seems intent on dying a slow not quite lonely death.
Sula 1921 Summary and Analysis
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In addition to the boarders, Eva’s children also grow up in the large house on Carpenter’s Road. Aside
from Pearl, who moves to Flint, Michigan with her husband, the other two children return to the house.
Hannah marries a man named Rekus but after his death, she returns to the home to care for her mother
and her mother’s property. After serving in the war, Ralph also returns home. All of the Peace women are
known for their love of “maleness.” Eva, though she is not intimate, is very friendly and flirtatious with
her male visitors. Hannah, determined to have “touching” every day after the death of her husband, has
affairs with many of the married men in the Bottom. It is from her mother’s frequent and passionless
relations that Sula forms her own expectations of sex and relationships.
Ralph returns to the home in 1921. He is unkempt and behaves in ways similar to Tar Baby. Shortly after
returning, he begins to steal from his family and to take trips to Cincinnati. One night Eva goes down the
stairs for the first time since 1910 and rocks Ralph in his bed while remembering him as a little boy.
After she stops rocking him, Eva covers Ralph in kerosene and sets him aflame.
Analysis
Eva Peace is a true example of a matriarch. Her large house at 7 Carpenter’s Road houses many members
of the community; newlyweds, former vagrants, and the children that do and don’t belong to her. Her
missing leg is a symbol of the physical sacrifices made by women for their children. Nobody truly knows
how it is lost and Eva’s activities during her 18-month absence remain untold.
BoyBoy is the second absent father of the story. He, like many men in the novel, is characterized by his
absence and inability to remain in the domestic sphere as husband or father. BoyBoy returns after leaving
Eva and the two appear to get along fine until BoyBoy flirts openly in front of Eva. Then she proclaims
her hate for him and laughs, relishing the feeling. Sexual transgressions on the part of men continue to be
a source of anger and resentment for the women of the Bottom.
Aside from BoyBoy, Eva and the Peace women experience a unique fondness for “maleness.” This love
is described as a trait the women inherited from Eva. This inheritance manifests itself in different ways in
both Pearl and Hannah. Pearl gets married and moves to Michigan. Hannah also marries and moves away
from her mother’s home but she returns with daughter Sula after her husband dies. Hannah’s love for
“maleness” then becomes a love for mating with men, married and unmarried alike.
Hannah is an example to Sula of what relationships and sex represent. Just as Eva inherits a love of
“maleness” from Eva, Sula inherits her understanding of sex from her mother. She is raised knowing
more than what was heard at school or on the playground. This later affects Sula’s relationship with men
and her feelings about sex.
War is again revealed as an agent of destruction when Eva’s youngest son Plum returns. After the war, he
appears to be a mere shell of himself. He has also become addicted to heroin. Unable to watch her son
deteriorate in such a fashion, Eva perceives death as the only possible source of honor for him. One night
Sula 1921 Summary and Analysis
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