Literary analysis based the novel Sula

This announcement details tips and insights into the novel Sula & Module 1

Sula alternative to reading

To read a 190-page book quite honestly is kind of 1995 for a general 1102 class.
I am totally okay if you use a Study-Guide / Cliff-Notes for this project.
SOOOOO, I found two free study-guides. This should help you get through the material A LOT faster if you choose.
https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sula
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sula/summary/
About the actual book Sula

I understand the book in the MDC module is formatted terribly. Don’t know why.
BUT — I found a book online in an easier to read format.
https://www.bookscool.com/en/Sula-992348/1
Maybe it helps..
ANSWER

Female Friendship and the Role it Plays in Nel’s and Sula’s Lives

One of the central themes in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula is friendship and, in particular, female friendship. Nel and Sula’s friendship begins in childhood and maintains all the way to adulthood, revealing a series of happy and sad moments. Their connection is based on shared experiences of isolation, crime, and social oppression. Both their fathers are incomprehensible and their mothers wildly distant, and so in each other, they achieve intimacy in proportional scales that keep them together. This essay analyses the relationship between the two girls to reveal how it sustains their characters but, at the same time, causes difficulty, complication, conflict, and pain.

Sula considers Nel the only constant thing in her life yet goes ahead to betray her. In Sula’s own words, she says that she “…had clung to Nel as the closest thing to one another and a self, only to discover that she and Nel were not one and the same think…” (Morrison, 42). This follows up from her return from her escapades, which alienated her further from society, especially because she refuses to conform to conventionality. Nel accepts or tries her best to accept her and all her elements. It goes to the extent to show both sustenance and conflict in the same relationship. The general concept of friendship is shared ideals and interests; both Nel and Sula have neither apart from each other, which they cling on to refusing to admit to themselves that their friendship had been washed away by time (Lewis 2012). Things take a tough turn when Sula’s sexual exploits turn her to Nel’s husband, and the friendship becomes a sore rather than a partnership of two isolated individuals.

Sula rejects child-raising, labor pain, and marriage, the same things Nel’s holds dear. The author notes that Sula “…had no center, no speck around which to grow; her life is like an open rainbow for experimental freedom that frequently touches the edges of danger…” (Morrison, 59). She admonished a woman’s conventions in the society and appeared to be stuck in childlike impulsiveness. However, her acts are oblivious to the fact that by standing against womanhood’s social ideals, she was standing against her dear friend Nel whom she continuously confesses is the only thing that matters in her life. It is no surprise that she has no problem sleeping with Nel’s husband and, by doing that, annihilating their friendship (Fetters 2016).

Despite all the tragedies surrounding their lives, Sula and Nel create their truths and define their dimensions. They are both regarded as social misfits but are happily so because they do these things together. Friendship becomes a source of strength and confidence. Their secrets, mistakes, and happiness enable them to forge through life aware of the importance of the relationship to both of them. Morrison observes that “…In the safe harbor of each other’s company, they could afford to abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their perceptions of things…” (Morrison, 79). In the bittersweet end and after Sula’s demise, Nel still considers her one of the best things she had in her life.

In conclusion, it is clear that the relationship between the two girls sustains them, but, at the same time, causes difficulty, complication, conflict, and pain. Morrison’s idea must have been to prove the intricate patterns of human relationships and female relationships. Friendship is not easy and has to undergo a series of highs and lows through time. The most important things are staying and maintaining the love and the honesty to overcome all adversity.

Works Cited

Fetters, C. (2016). The Continual Search for Sisterhood: Narcissism, Projection, and Intersubjective Disruptions in Toni Morrison’s Sula and Feminist Communities. Meridians, 13(2), 28-55.

Lewis, S. F. (2012). Everything I Know About Being Femme, I Learned From Sula’or Toward a Black Femme-inist Criticism. Trans-Scripts, 2, 100-125.

Morrison, T. (2012). Sula. SPERLING & KUPFER.