and American Studies. English Language and Literature. Lucie Pernicová.
Interpersonal Relationships in Toni. Morrison's Sula. Bachelor's Diploma Thesis.
Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature
Lucie Pernicová
Interpersonal Relationships in Toni Morrison's Sula Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph. D.
2012
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. ……………………………………………..
Lucie Pernicová
I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph.D. for her patient guidance, valuable advise, and the kind support she provided me with during the writing of this thesis.
Table of Contents 1. Introduction.............................................................................................5 2. Living in the Bottom...............................................................................8 3. Dysfunctional Mother/Daughter Relationships......................................12 4. Sula's and Nel's Friendship in Adolescent Years....................................19 5. Sula's and Nel's Estrangment..................................................................23 7. Conclusion..............................................................................................38 8. Bibliography............................................................................................41 English Résumé...........................................................................................43 Résumé in Czech.........................................................................................44
1. Introduction The purpose of this thesis is to analyze interpersonal relationships in Toni Morrison‟s second novel Sula (1983). I especially focus on the significance of women‟s bonding between two female protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, from its onset in the girls‟ childhood until its end in their adulthood. The analysis will explore the reasons for Sula‟s and Nel‟s estrangement and for the consequent termination of their friendship. Toni Morrison is one of the most remarkable African American authors and her novels remind readers that there is a past to remember. African American literature, which has its origins in the 18th century, has helped African Americans to find their voice in a country where laws were set against them. The position of African Americans in the dominant society of the United States of America has not been an easy one. African Americans needed to find a new identity in the New World and were considered an underclass for a long time. In literature, African American writers have been telling the story of their complex experience and history. The mission to find their own voice was even more difficult for African American women who became targets of numerous insults, both during and after slavery, and were forced to be silent and to stand in the background for a long time. Many stereotypes existed about African American women, about their behavior, family organization, or their abilities. These stereotypes undermined African American women‟s position in the mainstream society and portrayed African American women as non-human beings. African American women writers helped with the reversal of these stereotypes and African American women have become to be seen as “living human being[s] with [their] own desires and needs” (Christian, Black Feminist Criticism 16). In her novels, Toni Morrison presents 5
the complex stories of African American experience, and especially African American women‟s experience and their search for identity in the American mainstream society. In the first chapter of this thesis, which is entitled “Living in the Bottom,” I provide a general background concerning the fictional community of the Botom. I also provide-outline..? a short cultural-historical background which outlines the struggles of African Americans who needed to improve their situation in the American mainstream society. This section is supported by the works of leading African American female critics, such as bell hooks, Barbara Christian, or Patricia Hill Collins. In addition, this chapter discusses the problems of emasculation of African American men and the lack of protection African American women received. These concepts are compared to the situation of the African American community in Toni Morrison‟s novel Sula (1973). The following chapter deals with the main protagonists‟ complicated relationships with their mothers and with the problems the African American mothers and their daughters face and need to deal with. African American children, and especially daughters, need their mothers‟ affection and protection. I argue that the main female characters in the novel lack support and affection from their mothers which lowers their self-esteem and therefore, the two main female characters look for the support in their friendship. The next chapter concentrates on Sula‟s and Nel‟s friendship in their adolescent years and on the benefits which spring from their mutual bond. A close analysis proves that Sula and Nel provide each other with the necessary protection they miss in their relationships with their mothers, and that their friendship is a crucial bond for them. The subsequent chapter moves a little further into the girls‟ adulthood and concentrates on the differences between Sula and Nel. The main reasons for the women‟s estrangement are explained in this chapter. Sula and Nel choose 6
different life paths-- Nel chooses to dedicate her life to a husband and children, which is the acceptable role for an African American woman in the patriarchal society, whereas Sula chooses to be independent of men and becomes an outcast in her community. Sula‟s and Nel‟s different views of life separate the two women from one another. Nevertheless, neither Sula nor Nel are contented with their lives and what they are missing is their friendship bond which would help them fight the patriarchal oppression if it did not fall apart. This chapter also deals with the Bottom community‟s absence of male characters and describes the dynamics of male/female relationships which are presented in the novel. The African American men‟s need to prove their manhood and their need to gain respect from the mainstream society results in the break-ups of African American families. I argue that relationships with men and the power of patriarchy pose the main threat to Sula‟s and Nel‟s friendship.
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2. Living in the Bottom Toni Morrison‟s second novel Sula (1973) follows the lives of two African American childhood friends- Sula Peace and Nel Wright. They are growing up in a place called the Bottom, which is a hilly part of the town of Medallion where the African American community lives. Despite being situated up in the hills, it is called the Bottom and it started to be called this way as a “nigger joke . . . The kind white folks tell . . . ” (Morrison 4). A white farmer once promised freedom and a piece of land to his slave; nevertheless, the farmer was not willing to give fertile land to the slave, therefore, he tricked the slave into thinking that the richest and most fertile land lies in the hills. The slave believed him and took the land from him, he even let himself believe that the reason for calling the place the Bottom is that when God looks down from heaven, the Bottom is the the first place he sees (Morrison 5). The name which Morrison chose for this part of the town indicates that the African American inhabitants of the Bottom were dealing with racial oppression and moreover, they still are dealing with racial oppression in 1919, where the novel begins. And despite the fact that the African American inhabitants of Medallion are now freed from slavery, they are still denied equal job opportunities. Male protagonist are mostly absent in the Bottom community because they are trying to gain economic success and to win their manhood back in the patriarchal society of the United States. The Bottom‟s men are struggling with their position in the society and are on their mission to prove the dominant society wrong about their view of African American men. It is important to note that “African American men have historically been blocked from enacting both the traditional African and traditional American mainstream gender roles of provider and protector” (Lawrence-Webb, 8
Littlefield, and Okundaye 628). African American men were emasculated during slavery and with the emasculation, they lost their power to protect their women. When an African American woman was raped by her owner, for example, African American men did not have the power to intervene. As hooks points out in her book Ain’t I a Woman: “Most black male slaves stood quietly by as white masters sexually assaulted and brutalized black women and were not compelled to act as protectors. Their first instincts were toward self-preservation” (35). With little or no protection from African American men, African American women needed to be independent of men which was “an independence imposed rather than desired” (Christian, Black Feminist Criticism 7). From their experience, African American women learned to be self-reliant, which was a character trait that stood in opposition to the ideal of femininity of the time. As a consequence, African American women began to “be characterized as tough, domineering, and strong” (hooks 83). Nevertheless, the racist practices changed the view of African American women who began to be seen as “masculinized sub-human creatures” by the American mainstream society (hooks 71). Barbara Christian asserts that “in both Anglo- and Afro-American literature [African American women] have been assigned stereotype roles” (Black Feminist Criticism 2). One of the most prominent stereotypical images of African American women became the “mammy figure” who “is in direct contrast to the ideal white woman [. . . ] and her identity derived mainly from a nurturing service” (Christian 2). Another images were developed, which portrayed African American mothers as controlling and “bad,” such as “the Black matriarch” or “the welfare mother,” who does not work, is a single parent and who “passes her bad values to her offspring” (Collins 77). These controlling images of African American mothers were “designed to oppress” both 9
African American women and men (Collins 118). Southern mainstream literature focused on the portrayal of African American women as dominant and the “mammy” stereotypes, which portrayed the African American mothers as the heads of their families only supported the emasculation of African American men who were often criticized for not being able to control their women and to provide for, and take care of, their families. African American women were in a difficult position because they had to cope with both racism and sexism in the patriarchal society of the United States. This is confirmed by bell hooks who argues that: “Sexism and racism intensified and magnified the sufferings and oppressions of black women” (22). Nevertheless, for many African American women, motherhood presents “a symbol of power” and is “an empowering experience” (Collins 132-7). Motherhood is also seen as “the standard of womanhood” (Christian, Black Feminist Criticism 76). And according to this standard, women should live their lives to sacrifice for others. Toni Morrison sees an African American woman “as a parent [ . . . ] a sort of umbrella figure, a culture-bearer in that community with not just her children but all children” (qtd. in Stepto 27). However, in Sula, Toni Morrison creates a strong female character who “not only refuses the role [the standard role assigned for a woman], she steps outside the caste of woman, beyond any class or definition [and] insists on making herself” (Christian, Black Feminist Criticism 76). Sula will not surrender to the assigned role and she counts on her friendship bond with Nel because this bond allows both Nel and Sula to fight against oppression; but the two women separate in their adulthood because of the different roles they take up in their community. However, neither of them leads a satisfactory life because the strong bond which they shared in their childhood is 10
missing and cannot be replaced neither with marriage nor with motherhood. Barbara Christian argues that “African American women who internalize the dominant society‟s definition of women are courting self-destruction” and that in Sula Toni Morrison “critique[s] motherhood as the black community‟s primary definition of woman” (“Gloria Naylor‟s Geography” 364-5). Sula depicts, among other things, the importance of female friendship because when men are absent and preoccupied with their own struggle to win their manhood back, women need to stick together and support each other in order to survive and in order to overcome the obstacles life brings them.
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3. Dysfunctional Mother/Daughter Relationships Due to the fact that “Black women have been denied male protection,” the mother/daughter relationship becomes fundamental for African American women because mothers need to “teach their daughters skills that will „take them anywhere‟” (Collins 126). According to Patricia Hill Collins, African American mothers try to provide protection for their daughters and try to teach their daughters to love themselves for who they truly are in order to survive in the patriarchal society: “African-American mothers try to protect their daughters from the dangers that lie ahead by offering them a sense of their own unique self-worth” (Collins 127). Nonetheless, this sense of protection and sense of unique self-worth are missing in mother/daughter relationships which are depicted in Sula. The absence of protection and support may be pointing to the historical experience of African Americans: “the historical experiences of African Americans have had some effects on how women, men, and children express tenderness, affection, protection, and support to each other” (Lawrence-Webb, Littlefield, and Okundaye 634). This novel illustrates how important the role of a mother is. Nel Wright‟s mother Helene is in some sense trying to protect her daughter but the ways in which she does so are not encouraging the development of Nel‟s self-worth. Although being a mother is everything Helene has ever wished for, her relationship with her daughter is complicated. Part of the problem might be the fact that Helene herself struggled in her relationship with her own mother since she has been ashamed of her mother‟s occupation as a prostitute. Helene feels that her family is “somehow flawed” (Morrison 20). Helene finally escapes her Creole family, which she views as 12
shameful, in her marriage to Willey Wright who brings her to the town Medallion. The Wright family enjoys living their life following the town‟s standards and Helene stands in complete opposition to her mother when she becomes highly conservative and religious. I would suggest that the name Morrison chooses for this family indicates that the (W)rights always do the “right” things. When Helene‟s daughter Nel is born, it is “more comfort and purpose than she [Helene] ever hoped to find in her life” (Morrison 18). Wiley is frequently absent because of his occupation of a seaman, but his absences are bearable for Helene and she does not miss her husband very much. Nel is the one who becomes Helene‟s priority. Helene wants Nel to become a respectable citizen of Medallion. She also wants her daughter to get married to a decent man one day. The mistake Helene makes is that she guards Nel‟s every move and does not like to see any exposure of inappropriate behavior so that “any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by her mother until she drove her daughter‟s imagination underground” (Morrison 18). Helene does not see anything wrong in her own behavior— what she is trying to do is to protect her daughter. Helene does not want Nel to stray from the community in any shameful way like Helene‟s Creole family did. Consequently, what Helene does not realize is that Nel is missing her affection which is clearly visible after Helene and Nel return home from their visit to Nel‟s grandmother, whom Nel sees only once in her life, and when Nel cannot stop thinking about the way her grandmother embraced her: “Nel sat on the red-velvet sofa listening to her mother but remembering the smell and the tight, tight hug of the woman in yellow” (Morrison 28). Helene never showed this kind of affection to her daughter and this is why Nel cannot get the image of her grandmother‟s hug out of her head. 13
Nel‟s mother Helene is deeply interested in insuring her daughter‟s well-being but as Beaulieu points out, Helene “is not particularly „maternal‟ or nurturing” (116). The ways in which Helene shows her affection for her daughter are not exactly motherly in the sense that Helene critiques Nel‟s appearance or does not allow her daughter to behave like a child. Helene fails to provide Nel with the sense of the unique self-worth when she makes her daughter pull her “broad flat nose” which Nel inherited from her father (Morrison 18). Helene is not fond of the shape of her daughter‟s nose and she hopes that she will improve it by making Nel pull it; but when Helene constantly reminds her daughter that there is something wrong with her appearance, she does nothing to help increase her daughter‟s self-worth: “Don‟t just sit there, honey. You could be pulling your nose” (Morrison 28). Nel must constantly obey her mother‟s rules and not much space is left for her own imagination or childish behavior and it is Helene‟s obsession with order which represses Nel‟s personality. A few acts of Nel‟s rebellion towards her mother are visible in the novel. When Helene and Nel go to visit Helene‟s mother and her ill grandmother to New Orleans, Helene accidentally enters the white section of a train and a white conductor banishes her from there in an impolite way. Helene feels humiliated, apologizes for her oversight and smiles at the conductor “like a street pup” (Morrison 21). African American soldiers who sit by watch Helene with hatred in their faces and they are disgusted to see an African American woman smiling at the white man who has just insulted her. Nevertheless, the revelation that there exist people who do not worship her mother and are not under her control pleases Nel: “She [Nel] felt both pleased and ashamed to sense that these men, unlike her father, who worshiped his graceful, beautiful wife, were bubbling with a hatred for her mother” (Morrison 22). Nel is happy to discover her 14
mother‟s weakness and it is this discovery which leads Nel to a promise she makes to herself. It is a promise that she would not become the person her mother wants her to be, she promises that she would find her own identity. Nel looks into a mirror and she whispers: “I‟m me. I‟m not their daughter. I‟m not Nel. I‟m me. Me” (Morrison 28). At this moment, Nel is determined to rebel against her mother and to find her own identity; Nel is also determined to discover life outside her mother‟s control which she consequently does in her friendship with Sula. There is yet another significance of the trip to New Orleans because Nel meets her grandmother there and as Morrison points out in her interview with Robert Stepto, Nel is attracted to Sula also because of Nel‟s grandmother‟s “questionable roots,” “which is what make[s] it possible for her [Nel] to have a very close friend who is so different from her, in the way she looks at life” (qtd. in Stepto 13). Nel is attracted to the difference which is there between her and Sula because Sula and her family members stand in a complete opposition to Nel‟s mother in the way they behave and the way they lead their lives. However, Sula Peace finds herself in a similar situation to Nel‟s. Even though Sula lives in a household together with her mother, grandmother, her uncle and a few other people to whom Sula‟s grandmother kindly provided shelter when they had nowhere else to live, Sula is also missing affection. None of Sula‟s female family members provide Sula with the necessary protection or teach her how to love herself. Sula‟s grandmother Eva is not particularly affectionate and likes to control the lives of people around her and Sula‟s mother Hannah enjoys attention from different men after her husband, and Sula‟s father, died and she engages in many affairs with “the husbands of her friends and neighbors” (Morrison 42). Hannah shows more 15
affection for her male friends than she does for her own daughter; as Toni Morrison herself claims in her interview with Robert Stepto: “She [Hannah] would do things for her [Sula] but is not particularly interested in her” (qtd. in Stepto 16). Hannah is not very considerate towards Sula when she engages in sexual intercourse with men in the bedroom which Hannah and Sula share: “She [Hannah] liked the last place [her bedroom] least, not because Sula slept in the room but because her love mate‟s tendency was always to fall asleep” (Morrison 43). There is not much hope left that Sula‟s and Hannah‟s mother/daughter relationship could ever work after Sula overhears her mother stating that she does not like her: “I love Sula. I just don‟t like her” (Morrison 57). This discovery is also crucial for the consequent development of Sula‟s character: thinking that her family members do not care about her leads Sula to reject her family. According to Beaulieu, the revelation of Hannah‟s feelings towards Sula and Sula‟s rejection of her family members leave Sula without a center: “when women deny their mothers in Morrison‟s novels, as they often do, the result is a loss of self or center” (116). When Sula does not find the sense of belonging in her relationships with her family members, she looks for it somewhere else and consequently, she finds her sense of belonging and her center in her friendship with Nel. Nevertheless, the main problem of the Peace family is not the lack of love but the lack of communication. Hirsch points out that in Sula: “Mothers and daughters never quite succeed in addressing each other directly; mothers fail to communicate the stories they wish to tell” (419). If Sula did not overhear her mother‟s conversation with women from their neighborhood about Hannah‟s feelings, Sula would not know about them and moreover, Sula understands what she hears differently than her mother meant it and is 16
not able to comprehend the meaning of her mother‟s words because she is just a child. In Morrison‟s point of view, there is a difference between loving and liking someone; this is because “sexual relationships, like parental ones, derive more from biological and cultural conditioning than free choice” (Abel 428). Hannah loves Sula just because Sula is her daughter but liking her is something else. This “pattern of missed communication” is also visible in Hannah‟s relationship with her own mother Eva (Hirsch 419). Hannah missed affection from Eva too when she was a child and the two never quite succeed in addressing each other as well. Hannah questions her mother‟s love because she knows that her mother Eva is the one who killed Plum— the most beloved child of Eva‟s. Eva certainly loves her children as well as her granddaughter but the ways in which she expresses her love for them and the ways in which she shows her protection of them are not always easy to understand. Eva puts herself in a position of “God” after her son Plum returns from the World War I as a drug addict. Plum finds it difficult to lead normal life after the war and takes heroin to escape his memories. As Eva cannot watch him killing himself, she decides to end his life and burns him so that “he could die like a man not all scrunched up inside my womb, but like a man” (Morrison 72). Eva justifies her action by stating that she felt as if Plum tried to climb back to her womb and that he acts like a baby, not like a grown man. When Plum was a child, Eva struggled to keep him alive as he had problems with his bowel movement and Eva remembers how much energy it cost her to keep him alive and when she sees him not appreciating his own life, the life she gave him, she decides to end it. Hannah feels that she and her siblings did not receive enough love from their mother when they were children and therefore, she comes to Eva and asks her whether she 17
loved them: “Mamma, did you ever love us?” (Morrison 67). This question makes Eva furious: “You settin‟ here with your healthy-ass self and ax me did I love you? Them big old eyes in your head would a been two holes if I hadn‟t” (Morrison 68). Both Eva and Hannah have different views of what love is. Hannah thinks that a mother should show more affection to her children if she loves them: “I know that you fed us and all I was talkin‟ ‟bout something else. Like. Like. Playin‟ with us. Did you ever, you know, play with us?” (68). What Hannah does not understand is that Eva had no time to play with her children when they were small because Eva went through a hard time just to make ends meet and to secure the fundamental needs for her children. Nevertheless, Hannah‟s feelings of insecurity about her mother‟s love subsequently project into her relationship with Sula and neither Hannah nor Sula possess the sense of unique self-worth; Hannah is looking for her self-worth in her relationships with men and Sula finds it in her relationship with Nel. The mother/daughter relationships portrayed in Sula suggest that the historical experience of African American women has had a great impact on parental relationships. Mothers in the novel fail to provide their daughters with the sense of unique self-worth because they are still struggling with their own memories of childhood. Motherhood does not represent a fulfilling relationship in the novel and does not provide protection or affection.
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4. Sula‟s and Nel‟s Friendship in Adolescent Years The friendship which Sula and Nel share in their childhood is highly beneficial for both girls. According to the narrator of Sula, Sula‟s meeting with Nel is “fortunate” because the two girls find a soul mate in one another. Both of them are “daughters of distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers” (Morrison 52). Sula and Nel lack the essential affection in their relationships with their mothers and this affection cannot be found in the relationship with Sula‟s and Nel‟s fathers either because Sula‟s father is dead and Nel‟s father works at sea and is absent from home most of the time. Beaulieu suggests that Sula‟s and Nel‟s “friendship during their adolescent years can also be explained as an attempt to „mother‟ one another” (116). As both girls do not find the support they need in their relationship with their mothers, Sula and Nel support each other and understand what the other one needs. The fact that neither of the girls can look for support in their families elevates the significance of their bond. As Patricia Hill Collins suggests: “African-American women as sisters and friends affirm one another‟s humanity, specialness, and right to exist” (97). Thanks to Sula, Nel is able to escape from her strict parents and in return, Nel represents a center for Sula, a center which Sula does not find in her family because she feels unloved. With Sula, Nel is free to express herself, which is something she cannot do when she is at home because there she must be the obedient girl. Sula and Nel never quarrel or compete and have “difficulty to distinguish one‟s thoughts from the other‟s” (Morrison 83). Sula‟s and Nel‟s friendship is invaluable because the two meet at the time when they need each other the most and according to Abel, this friendship “presents an ideal of female friendship dependent not on love, obligation, or compassion, but on an almost 19
impossible conjunction of sameness and autonomy, attainable only with another version of oneself” (429). This is an important aspect of Sula‟s and Nel‟s friendship-- they are together because they want to, not because they have to; it is also this aspect of Sula and Nel‟s relationship which is different from their relationships with their mothers. Sula and Nel meet at the time in their life when they both start to realize that their position in the society is disadvantaged “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” (Morrison 52). The two girls make friends because they have a lot in common- they grew up in the same neighborhood and community, they are the same age, same race and gender and therefore, they understand each other‟s problems and needs. What Sula and Nel experience in each others‟ company is “the intimacy they were looking for” and the two young girls create this strong bond with each other because their friendship helps them overcome the difficulties they face both in their families and in their community (52). The feelings the girls have about their place in their community and the society may be described as what Lucille Fultz calls “the handicap of being born black” which results from the “reality of being alternately attacked, ignored, then singled out for some cruel and undeserved punishment” (47). Some of the undeserved punishments Sula and Nel are facing are, for example, the attacks from a group of Irish boys who are harassing African American school children in Medallion. These attacks make the girls aware of their uneasy position in the society. According to Collins, African American mothers are the ones who should help their daughters overcome the “experience of being singled out” (127). But Sula and Nel need to learn how to protect themselves on their owns. Sula and Nel are scared of the Irish boys and try to avoid them on their way from school 20
until one day when Sula and Nel decide to take the shorter route home although they are aware of the fact that they might meet the harassing boys, which they eventually do. Sula takes the lead in this scene and protects herself and her friend Nel, who is scared and does not know how to react. Sula pulls out her grandmother‟s knife and slashes off the tip of her finger to scare the boys away, which she does (Morrison 53-5). In return, Nel provides Sula with protection after Sula overhears her mother Hannah stating that she does not like Sula. It is Nel‟s company which gives Sula her comfort back after hearing her mother‟s statement: “Nel‟s call floated up and into the window, pulling her [Sula] away from dark thoughts back into the bright, hot day” (Morrison 57). As Gillespie and Kubitschek claim: “in their childhood friendship, Nel‟s and Sula‟s antithetical strengths and weaknesses assure them mutual dependency and thus equality of participation” (41). In their friendship bond, there is no leader and no follower, the two girls are completely equal and complement one another. The fact that Sula and Nel come from completely different households helps them in their complementation. Abel sums up the dynamic of the girls‟ friendship: “the girls quickly share their strengths and equalize their friendship; Sula encourages Nel‟s independence and Nel enables Sula to experience consistency” (427). Nel likes to escape to the house where the Peace family live because the house is always full of people and noise and where Sula‟s mother “Hannah, never scolded or gave directions” like Nel‟s mother did (Morrison 29). Sula, on the other hand, prefers to stay in the house where Nel lives because it is calm and ordered and Sula needs at least some order in her life. The basic difference between Sula‟s and Nel‟s strengths and weaknesses and between their natures may be observed in the girls‟ reactions after they accidentally kill 21
Chicken Little, a small boy from their neighborhood. Sula plays with the boy and swings him, but his hands slip from hers and Chicken falls into water; he sinks and does not come up. While Sula cries, Nel remains calm and is the first one to speak in the scene (Morrison 59-63). Sula does not know how to behave in stressful situations but for Nel, it is natural to stay calm and to deal with the situation. Nel is more reasonable than Sula because Nel‟s mother has developed the need for order and calmness in her whereas Sula has faced with her mother‟s neglect and a constant chaos in their household. Even in Sula‟s and Nel‟s adolescent years it is easy to observe the different ways in which they perceive life; but again, their differences between them enable the girls to get over their unsatisfactory family relationships, to overcome the oppression from a group of white boys in their neighborhood and to shape their identities. Together, Sula and Nel are strong because “each one lacked something that the other one had” (Toni Morrison qtd. in Stepto 13). However, after Nel meets her future husband Jude and after she dedicates all her time and energy to him, the women lose their special bond.
Sula‟s and Nel‟s Estrangement 22
Although Sula and Nel were inseparable in their adolescent years, the differences in their natures become prominent and as years go by and they lose touch with one another. After Nel gets married, Sula leaves her hometown because there is nothing keeping her in the Bottom anymore as Nel devotes her life to her husband and children and puts Sula on the sidetrack, which is a natural course of events in Toni Morrison‟s view: “friendship between women is not a suitable topic for a book. Hamlet can have a friend, and Achilles can have one, but women don‟t, because the world knows that women don‟t choose each other‟s acquaintanceship. They choose men first, then women as second choice” (qtd. in Mc Kay 428). What Toni Morrison is pointing out with this quote is that being a wife is viewed as the traditional mainstream gender role of a woman. This notion is embedded in the society and it is believed that every woman‟s desire should be towards creating a new life and building a family. Sula stands in opposition to the ideal of a woman because her desire is not towards getting married or having children, friendship with Nel is Sula‟s first choice. Nevertheless, when Sula loses Nel to a man, she is willing to find a new life for herself away from her family and community. But not finding what she had been looking for, she comes back to Medallion ten years later. Sula quickly recognizes how much has changed between her and Nel during her absence. Sula is disappointed to find Nel living the same life as everyone else does; Sula cannot accept the fact that her friend is now as boring as all the other women in the town and that Nel “had given herself over to them” (Morrison 120). Nel‟s promise, which she makes as a child, to become herself is short-lived because it loses its weight the very moment Nel agrees to marry Jude Green. He is the same type of man as Nel‟s father Wiley Wright in the sense that both men are 23
looking for an economic success and are not particularly interested in family life. Marrying Jude, Nel does exactly the same thing her mother wished for all along; however, Nel is not fully to be blamed for following her mother‟s footsteps because Nel suffers from a low self-esteem which her mother developed in her by her constant critical remarks about Nel‟s appearance. Jude provides Nel with at least some self-esteem in the beginning of their relationship and Nel is amazed by the way in which Jude sees her: “She didn‟t even know she had a neck until Jude remarked on it, or that her smile was anything but the spreading of her lips until he saw it as a small miracle” (Morrison 84). Jude becomes Nel‟s priority, she even puts him above her best friend Sula because with Jude, Nel experiences “this new feeling of being needed by someone” and the feeling becomes “greater than her friendship” to Nel (Morrison 84). Nel spent most of her adolescent years around Sula and Jude‟s attention is flattering to her because she thought that he “saw her singly” and that he liked her only for who she is. Nevertheless, Nel is wrong in her assumption that Jude saw her this way (84). When Sula returns to Medallion and her and Nel do not find the mutual understanding they had when they were girls, Sula stops caring about their friendship and cares only about her own good. According to Christian: “Sula wants everything or nothing and therefore flies in the face of compromising traditions that keep this community intact” (Black Feminist Criticism 27). Nel, on the other hand, still lives under the assumption that she and Sula are friends. Nel does not question their friendship and thinks that the fact that she has a husband and family does not change anything about her and Sula‟s friendship. Nel is not able to see how much has changed, she does not question her life in the way Sula does. Nel‟s family life makes her happy, 24
or at least she thinks it does. But the fact that Nel does not question anything and surrenders to the way things are make it impossible for her to understand what happened with her and Sula. As Morrison claims: “living totally by the law and surrendering completely to it without questioning anything sometimes makes it impossible to know anything about yourself” (qtd. in Stepto 14). Nel does not understand that with her marriage, she lost a part of herself and therefore, she lost her friendship with Sula. Friendship bond has different dynamics than sexual or parental relationships and according to Abel: “Because it is a freely chosen expression of self, friendship is a relationship in Sula, implicitly contrasted to both parental and sexual bonds.” Nel‟s marriage to Jude leads to the “consequent reduction of both [Nel‟s and Jude‟s] personalities,” whereas in Nel‟s friendship with Sula, their personalities flourished (428). Nel accepts, along with other female characters in the novel, the men‟s need to dominate and puts herself in the subordinate position because as bell hooks claims: “the fear of being alone, or of being unloved [which] had caused women of all races to passively accept sexism and sexist oppression” (184). Even though there is no successful and fulfilling marriage portrayed in the novel and most of the men who live in the Bottom consequently leave their families or lovers, all women, except for Sula, share the opinion that it is better for a woman to be married than to be single and that “no woman got no business to be floating around without no man” (Morrison 92). The male characters in the novel are facing the threats of emasculation which derive from their historical experience in the American society: “African American men have historically been blocked from [ . . .] the traditional African and traditional American mainstream gender roles of provider and protector” (Lawrence-Webb, Littlefield, and 25
Okundaye 629). Most of the male characters are willing to prove their manhood by obtaining suitable working positions and by the assertion of dominance over the community‟s women. Nel‟s husband Jude is one of those men who are in need to prove something. As Mayberry points out: “Jude Greene [is] the black male resentful yet envious of white male power” (526). What Jude is looking for in the marriage is “someone to care about his hurt, to care very deeply” (Morrison 82). He wants to be a man and a man needs a wife; in his marriage to Nel, Jude is willing to create “one Jude” and he chooses Nel because she is kind and is willing to obey (83). According to Mayberry: “he [Jude] turns to marriage with a pliant and nurturing Nel as a means of proving his manhood” (526). In addition, Patricia Hill Collins claims that: “Some African-Americans feel they cannot be men unless they dominate a Black woman” and Jude Green falls into this category of men (186). Jude does not feel “manly” enough due to the fact that “he was a waiter hanging around a kitchen like a woman” (Morrison 83). Jude wants to be able to feel like a man and he thinks that a wife and a job on the construction of a road, which is more suitable job for a man from Jude‟s point of view, would help him feel that way (Morrison 82-83). Nonetheless, African American men are inhibited from getting jobs at the construction of the road and Jude becomes even more frustrated and blames his misfortunes on the dominant society. Jude‟s frustrations about his position in the society project into his relationship with his wife Nel and Jude breaks their marriage when he engages in a sexual relationship with Nel‟s friend Sula. Mayberry claims that one of the main reasons why Jude chooses to engage in a sexual act with Sula is that: “since he [Jude] cannot usurp white male power, he will conquer the masculine black female [. . .] his incomplete 26
masculinity is attracted to the masculine in Sula” (525). Jude does not find Sula particularly attractive but he likes the way she thinks and talks: “she stirred a man‟s mind maybe, but not his body” (Morrison 104). But on the other hand, the fact that she is different from all the other women in the Bottom becomes attractive for him. Nevertheless, Jude‟s attempts to prove his manhood lead to his departure from his wife and family. Jude‟s departure creates a confusion in the life of his wife Nel. After Jude leaves Nel, she is not able to understand how he could leave her when he knew that she would do anything for him. Nel is left alone and knows that there is no new relationship waiting for her and that it will be only her and her children: “She spent a little time trying to make marry again, but nobody wanted to take her on with three children” (Morrison 165). Furthermore, Nel no longer has time to maintain relationships with men as she needs to work to provide for her children. When men leave their families, they create more confusion and frustration than they realize. Furthermore, Jude failed to provide Nel with his protection and failed to fulfill the expectations Nel had about their marriage. Nevertheless, Nel is not the only character in the novel who suffers after her husband‟s leaving. Sula‟s grandmother Eva is a single parent as well, her husband Boy Boy left her and their three children to find a job and a better life for himself. After Boy Boy‟s departure, Eva goes to great lengths to provide for her family. She mutilates herself by sticking her leg under a train to collect money from insurance companies so that she can grant a place to live for her children. Even though her sacrifice is enormous, Eva knows that she is left with no other possibility because there are no other opportunities of obtaining money; therefore, she literally sacrifices a part of her own 27
body for her children to survive. Eva‟s sacrifice is not appreciated by her former husband Boy Boy who avoids to talk about Eva‟s missing leg or about their children when he comes for a visit several years later. Boy Boy has established a completely new life for himself where Eva and their children do not belong. After Eva realizes this, she feels hatred towards Boy Boy. However, the hatred makes her less accessible to her family and Eva starts to spend most of the time in her own bedroom, hating Boy Boy (Morrison 35-37). What men also create with their departure is despair. Women in Sula find it difficult to deal with their men‟s absence; this absence affects the women‟s lives and also the lives of the people around them negatively- Eva‟s hatred of Boy Boy projects into her relationship with her children and Nel‟s despair makes her put all the blame on Sula and leaves her desperate and alone with her children. Gillespie and Kubitschek suggest that the difference between women‟s and men‟s behavior in Sula is largely shaped by their different upbringing: “men [are] raised to be autonomous, contained selves,” whereas women “are raised to be selves-incommunity” (22). Men are taught to be independent and to fulfill their own dreams while women are taught to care about other members of the community and thus it happens that “the men roam, the women remain, and the children react” (Mayberry 524). African American women stand in a more difficult position than African American men in the American society which is supported by the fact that: “while black men married white women in ever-increasing numbers, large numbers of white men did not marry black women. While changes in public attitudes toward black men had occurred, there had not been any change in negative images of black women” (hooks 63). African American women continue to be viewed as domineering and strong, while African American men start to gain some respect from the dominant society. Nevertheless, to 28
pursue their dreams of being accepted by the dominant society, men leave their community and their families behind and try to move on with their lives but the community they leave cannot function properly without them and women who remain are left with no male protection. Women need to remain strong for their children and have to sacrifice a lot to make ends meet. Consequently, their children suffer from fathers‟ absence and from the lack of time and affection they receive from their mothers whose hard work is not appreciated by men and therefore, women‟s self-esteem suffers a damage too. Sula understands the different dynamics between male/female relationships and women‟s friendship because her experience both inside and outside Medallion taught her that men “shared nothing but worry, gave nothing but money. She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be- for a woman” (Morrison 121). Women‟s friendship has always been crucial for Sula and when she loses the strong bond she had with Nel, she also loses her center because she loses the only person to whom she could trust, who protected her and who understood her. Without Nel, who gave Sula her consistency, Sula has “only her own mood and whim” and her actions become unpredictable: “and like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous” (121). Nevertheless, Even Sula learns how painful the absence of a man can be in her relationship with Ajax. Their relationships is supposed to be a physical one because Ajax is not looking for a woman to settle down with but the problem is that Sula‟s attitude towards the nature of their relationship changes. Sula wants to care about Ajax and she “behaves like Nel when she goes with Ajax” (Toni Morrison qtd. in Parker 65). According to Fultz, Sula “changes from a masculine female into a „regular female‟ 29
in her relationship with Ajax” (51). Sula experiences feelings which are completely new to her, she begins to worry about her looks and is nervous and keen to see Ajax. One night, Sula prepares a dinner for herself and Ajax and puts a green ribbon into her hair to look more attractive for him (Morrison 33). When Ajax notices the change in Sula‟s view of their relationship, he is scared and runs away: “He looked around and saw the gleaming kitchen and the table set for two and detected the scent of nest. Every hackle of his body rose. . .” (Morrison 133). Ajax is afraid of any commitment, he is interested in Sula but not in the way she would like him to be; he is not a family type and does not want to belong to a woman. Ajax loves nothing more than his personal freedom. Ajax‟s mother has taught all her sons that they need to be kind to women and has given her sons an absolute freedom, “known in some quarters as neglect” (Morrison26). According to Mayberry, the male-female relationships in Sula suggest that “one partner‟s desire to possess the other does more to destroy than stabilize male-female relationships” (524). Therefore, Ajax cannot stand the fact that Sula starts to act as the rest of the women in the town and wants to have him all for herself. Ajax is disappointed by Sula‟s need to possess him and therefore, no more words need to be said and he leaves her because he had thought Sula was different from the community‟s women. When troubles occur in a relationship, Ajax, just like BoyBoy or Jude, leaves the Bottom. However, Ajax is the only man in the community who does not reject Sula. The stories Ajax has heard about Sula make him curious because she reminds him of his own mother and Ajax adores his mother. Ajax has the feeling that “he had never met an interesting woman in his life,” besides his mother, of course (Morrison 126). Ajax is the only person from her community who does not speak down to Sula, who listens to 30
her and who views Sula as a brilliant woman although everyone else views her as different and therefore, evil. Morrison states that the reason why Ajax is the only person who is not afraid of Sula is that he, as “a man is whole himself [ . . . ] and is not proving something to somebody else- white men or other men and so on- then the threats of emasculation, the threats of castration, the threats of somebody taking over disappear. Ajax is strong enough” (qtd. in Stepto 18). Ajax is not very ambitious in the working field, he is unemployed and free-spirited and has no desire of obtaining a routine job. Ajax‟s life is not tied down by the dominant society‟s notions about masculinity and femininity and therefore, he is satisfied with his life. However, Ajax‟s views of life and his view of his place in the society stand in an opposition to the views of other male characters in Sula who project their own frustrations upon their families. Sula misses Ajax and his absence is unbearable for her, like for the rest of the women in the novel who experienced men‟s departure. After Ajax leaves, there is nothing left but emptiness (Morrison 134-136). Sula has the impression that there is nothing new waiting for her in the world and that she has already seen everything there is to see: “There aren‟t any more new songs and I have sung all the ones there are” (Morrison 137). Sula‟s life becomes discontented once she was willing to submit to a man and she starts to spend more time at her house, just like her grandmother did when her husband Boy Boy left her, and, consequently, falls seriously ill. Sula is viewed as an outcast in her community because she does not honor the laws of the community. Another reason why people in the community view Sula as an outcast is that Sula does not lie to people and she sees things for what they really are: “social conversation was impossible for her because she could not lie. She could not say to those old acquaintances, „Hey, girl, you looking good,‟ when she saw how the years 31
had dusted their bronze with ash” (Morrison 121). For Sula, women who have husbands “had the sweetness sucked from their breath by ovens and stream kettles” (122). Moreover, in Sula‟s view, men distort women‟s nature, so that women become domestic creatures without their own thought or will. Although male characters are mostly absent in the novel, which should strenghten the importance of women‟s friendship and empowerment, it is men “who have the final say in the community” (Henderson 129). The fact that men are the ones whose judgment is important suggests that women of the Bottom value their men‟s opinion and that men in the Bottom have the power in decision making over African American women. The Bottom‟s women love the presence of men, which is visible in the observation made about the Peace women, Sula‟s grandmother and mother: “The Peace women simply loved maleness, for its own sake” (Morrison 41). Men are the ones who “gave her [Sula] the final label” and even accuse her of the “unforgivable thing- the thing for which there was no understanding, no excuse [. . .] they said that Sula slept with white men” (Morrison 112). Although nobody knows whether this statement is true or not, everyone finds it easy to believe since Sula is, according to her neighbors, capable of anything. As Collins describes: “Black women who have willingly chosen white male friends and lovers have been severely chastized in African-American communities for selling out „race,‟ or they are accused of being like prostitutes” (191). African American men in Medallion insist that there is “nothing filthier” or lower than an African American woman uniting with white men (Morrison 113). The men‟s outrage results from their frustrations from white men‟s supremacy and from their fear of emasculation. The men‟s need to dominate and their threats of emasculation may also be 32
observed in the different ways they talk about Sula and her mother Hannah. Both Sula and Hannah engage in sexual relationships with numerous men from the community and are sexually free but men never gossip about Sula‟s mother Hannah whereas Sula, in contrast, becomes a target of gossips and the “root of all evil” for the community for doing the same thing. However, the reason why men do not gossip about Hannah is that Hannah helped the men feel good about themselves and she “made no demands,” which was a perfect combination the men in Bottom (Morrison 43). Paradoxically, neither the wives of the men Hannah slept with gossiped about Hannah and the women felt in some way “pleased” that Hannah wanted their husbands, which again proves the “superiority” of the men‟s opinions over women‟s-- when men state that Hannah is a good women, women in the community consider her to be a good woman as well. When men start to gossip about Sula, soon the whole community shares the same view of Sula‟s character. Men are not fond of Sula because she does not compliment the men in a way her mother used to: “Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow” (Morrison 115). Sula‟s independence presents a threat to the community‟s men, as Lawrence-Webb, Littlefield, and Okundaye observe: “female autonomy and independence is viewed as a threat to male authority rather than as a complement to the male gender role” (630). Thereby, Sula‟s views of marriage and her attitude towards men Sula are not welcomed in the community. Even Nel turns her back on Sula just like the rest of the Bottom community members after Sula engages in a sexual relationship with her husband Jude. Although Sula does not intend to steal Nel‟s husband because “Sula never competed; she simply helped others define themselves,” Jude leaves Nel after the incident and Nel blames Sula for it (Morrison 95). Nel feels a deep sorrow after Jude‟s departure and it is 33
difficult for her to imagine her life without him because having a family is a natural thing for her. Nel cannot forgive Sula for her actions and their friendship bond is lost forever. The major difference between Sula and Nel in their adulthood is that: “Nel is a law-abiding woman. Nel knows and believes in all the laws of the community. She believes in its values. Sula does not. She does not believe in any of those laws and breaks them all. Or ignores them” (Toni Morrison qtd. in Stepto 14). Nel accepts the role which is expected from her as a woman and she likes the role. As Bryant suggests: “Nel is one of Morrison‟s „nurturers,‟ who, in counterbalancing the rootless men who are perpetually in flight, make community a reality” (Bryant 739). Whereas Sula, on the other hand, is not willing to accept this role. Toni Morrison mentions that: “She [Sula] is masculine character [. . .] She will do the kind of things that normally only men do, which is why she is so strange. She really behaves like a man” (Toni Morrison qtd. in Stepto 26-27). The most terrifying thing Sula can imagine is dying like an African American woman: “I know what every colored woman in this country is doing. Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I‟m going down like of those red-woods. I sure did live in this world” (Morrison 143). Before Sula met Ajax and before she started to behave like a “typical woman,” her life was more fulfilling. Sula and Nel have a completely different view of what is good and what is bad. Sula lives under the assumption that she can do anything she pleases, she states that: “Being good to somebody is like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don‟t get nothing for it” (145). Sula has built up this notion during her life and she has the impression that it does not matter if you treat someone right or wrong, the result of your actions is unpredictable. Sula did not do anything bad to her mother; yet, she hears her 34
saying that she does not like Sula; Sula has the feeling that she never really meant anything to anyone and therefore, it is not important for her to behave nicely all the time; what she does is that she follows her own feelings. This behavior is incomprehensible for Nel who reminds Sula that she is a woman and an African American woman and that she cannot act like a man: “You can‟t be walking around all independent-like, doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don‟t” (Morrison 142). For Nel, being an African American woman carries certain responsibilities. Nel‟s priorities are taking care of her children, her husband, her household and also taking care of people around her and she thinks that all African American women should be concerned about their children, family and community in the first place. Nevertheless, despite Sula‟s and Nel‟s different views of a woman‟s role in the society, it is apparent that they still need each other‟s help and support. Sula still needs Nel‟s help because she is not able to make the important decisions by herself: “When it came to matters of grave importance, she [Sula] behaved emotionally and irresponsibly and left it to others to straighten out” (Morrison 101). It is Nel who has always helped Sula make the right decision and even now Nel is the one who makes Sula‟s decisions for her when Sula places her grandmother into a nursing home. Nel makes sure that Sula will receive her grandmother‟s payments from the insurance company so that Sula can pay for her grandomother‟s stay at the nursing home. Nel still needs Sula‟s help too and she is happy to find out that Sula is coming back when she first hears about it: “It was like getting the use of an eye back, having a cataract removed [ . . .] Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself” (Morrison 95). Nel misses Sula because no one has ever understood her the way Sula did, not even 35
her husband Jude with whom Nel lives in a routine marriage. With Sula, Nel steps outside the routine and feels “new, soft and new” (Morrison 98). Nel does not have to pretend anything when she is around Sula and has “a rib-scraping laugh [ . . .] so different from the miscellaneous giggles and smiles she had learned to be content with these past few years” (98). It takes many years for Nel to understand that she should have never given up her friendship with Sula and that she never should have let a man dominate her life. It is Sula‟s grandmother Eva who helps Nel understand the importance of her friendship with Sula. Eva evokes Nel‟s memories of the past, the past Nel has almost forgotten, and asks Nel about the accidental murder of Chicken Little. Although Nel does not want to admit that it was her who killed the small boy and insists that it was Sula who killed him, Eva holds on to the fact that there is no difference between watching the action and performing it: “You. Sula. What‟s the difference? You was there. You watched it, didn‟t you?” (Morrison 168). These words make Nel realize that she is to be blamed too and she wakes up to the fact that she really is no different from Sula which is something Eva has known for a long time. Nel also starts to remember that she did not feel bad about Chicken Little‟s death: “Why didn‟t it feel bad when it happened? How come it felt so good to see him fall?” (Morrison 170). Eva even calls Nel “Sula” because for her, the two girls were always the same, they were two parts of one soul. When Nel leaves Eva, she ponders over her conversation the two of them engaged in. Nel finds out the truth about herself and Sula. All that time, Nel has thought that what she has been doing and the way she has been thinking was right but now she knows that it is not the truth; it was not right to reject Sula and to judge her because Sula was her real soul-mate and now she is gone. All those years, Nel was trying to find her 36
happiness in marriage and was trying to live as a respectable citizen, but those were not the things that could make her happy, those were only the things which were expected of her. Nel finally finds the truth about herself and she cries: “I thought I was missing Jude [ . . . ] O Lord, Sula. We was girls together” (Morrison 174). Nel realizes that the friendship she and Sula shared was far more valuable than any other relationship in her life. Toni Morrison creates the failed friendship between Sula and Nel to show the impacts of the social expectations on women‟s bonding. African American women‟s familiarity with the mainstream gender roles effects African Americans‟ private lives in the sense that African Americans usually accept these views of a role of a woman. The lives of the women in the novel are largely shaped by men who consequently leave them to improve their own position in the society. Women need the presence of other women to deal with the troubles of their lives, they also need each other‟s protection when the male protection is missing. Women‟s bonds are crucial for women‟s survival in the community but the female characters in Sula do not value their friendships with women. Neither Sula‟s mother Hannah nor Nel‟s mother Helene, for example, have cultivated women‟s friendship, Hannah‟ s “friendships with women were [ . . . ] seldom and short-lived” and Helene‟s friendships with women have always been restricted to sociable and polite conversations (Morrison 44). The mistake the female characters in Sula make is that they submit to the social conditioning of marriage and motherhood and they do not cultivate women‟s bonds. If the women in Sula did not cling on what the society expects from them, they would lead more fulfilling lives.
7. Conclusion 37
The interpersonal relationships among the characters in Toni Morrison‟s second novel Sula suggest that African Americans still face many difficulties when trying to assimilate into the American mainstream society. Discrimination of African Americans is still strong which is clearly visible in the denial of job opportunities for African American inhabitants of Medallion. The Bottom‟s men‟s fears of emasculation and their attempts to win respect of the dominant society result in the men‟s frustrations which they consequently project in their personal relationships with African American women and with their children. The major problem of the novel‟s characters is their acceptance of the dominant society‟s ideas of masculinity and femininity and their submission to the dominant society‟s views of marriage and social roles. Most male characters in the novel are looking for a submissive woman who would help them feel better about their own masculinity. The only male character who is not interested in proving anything to the mainstream society and who does not accept the defined notions of masculinity and femininity is Ajax, who leads a more contented and satisfactory life than the rest of the men in the Bottom. Women‟s fears of being alone and unloved force them to accept sexist oppression and to submit to the menial position. Nel Wright represents the submissive female character. Her need to nurture and to be needed by someone force her to settle down. Nel is not questioning her position in the society and she surrenders to the role of a wife and a mother and believes that these roles will make her life complete. However, the opposite becomes true because in her marriage with Jude, Nel must constantly comply to her husband‟s demands and she only lives to make him happy and to take care of their children. Jude is one of the community‟s men who is willing to prove his masculinity by getting a suitable working position and by having a wife. In his 38
marriage to Nel, Jude is not looking for an equal companion, he is looking for someone he can dominate. Jude‟s view of marriage and Nel‟s submission to it consequently result in the reduction of Nel‟s personality. Male/female relationships portrayed in the novel are based on cultural conditioning and obligation more than a free choice. Motherhood also represents the relationship which is based on cultural conditioning and obligation. When male characters leave their families, African American women are left without support or protection from African American men and therefore, African American women in the novel must take care of their families on their own and are put in the position of a family provider. The lack of the support African American mothers receive projects in the mothers‟ ways of expressing affection to their children. Consequently, the relationships between mothers and their children become complicated because mothers fail to communicate about their struggles with their children and children miss their mothers‟ affection. Motherhood does not represent a fulfilling relationship in Sula. Sula sees thing for what they truly are and she understands the dynamics of male/female and mother/daughter relationships. Sula comprehends the fact that relationships with men involve the reduction of women‟s personalities and that being a mother involves an enormous sacrifice on the side of mothers. Sula believes that it is better for a woman to live without a man and she becomes an outcast in her community. Nonetheless, even Sula is forced to experience the need to possess and the absence of a man in her relationship with the only man of the community who does not reject her. The community‟s men give Sula the final label because she poses a threat to their masculinity. The differences between Sula‟s and Nel‟s views of marriage, motherhood, and a woman‟s role in the society become the main causes for their estrangement. 39
However, Sula values her friendship with Nel because in contrast to male/female relationships and mother/daughter relationships, women‟s friendship involves equality of participation and is based on free choice. Nel represents Sula‟s center in childhood and these two girls find the sense of belonging in each other‟s company. The girls realize at a young age that their situation in the society is complicate because they are African American and female. Sula and Nel help each other define their personalities, they provide each other with the protection they lack and they fight against oppression together. They girls feel safe in each other‟s company and they complement each other. Sula never competes with Nel and sees Nel as an essential and equal human being. Neither Sula nor Nel find this kind of protection, understanding, and equality in their relationships with men. To conclude, women‟s friendship is the only relationship in the novel which does not involve the reduction of personalities and the only relationship which supports a healthy growth of characters. The fact that the female characters in the novel are left alone and that they experience the absence of male characters intensifies the importance of women‟s bonding. Women‟s friendship helps the two female characters see that they are not alone in facing the life‟s obstacles in their adolescent years and their friendship enables them to cope with social expectations. Nevertheless, most female characters do not appreciate women‟s bond. But when there is a lack of women‟s bonding, women‟s lives in the novel are not fulfilling. Toni Morrison portrays Sula‟s and Nel‟s friendship in the novel to show that if women cultivated women‟s bonds, they would be able to fight against the oppression.
8. Bibliography 40
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Hirsch, Marianne. “Maternal Narratives: „Cruel Enough to Stop the Blood‟.” Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Penguin Group, 1990. 415-30. Print. hooks, bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto Press, 1982. Print. Lawrence-Webb, Claudia, Melissa Littlefield, and Joshua N. Okundaye. “African American Intergender Relationships: A Theoretical Exploration of Roles, Patriarchy, and Love.” Journal of Black Studies 34.5 (2004): 623-39. JSTOR. Web 3 Apr 2012. Mayberry, Susan Neal. “Something Other than a Family Quarrel: The Beautiful Boys in Morrison‟s Sula.” African American Review 37.4 (2003): 517-33. JSTOR. Web. 7 May 2011. McKay, Nellie. “An Interview with Toni Morrison.” Contemporary Literature 24.4 (1983): 413-29. JSTOR. Web 10 Oct 2011. Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1973. Print. Parker, Betty Jean. “Complexity: Toni Morrison‟s Women.” Conversations with Toni Morrison. Ed. Danielle Taylor-Guthrie. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. 10-29. Print. Stepto, Robert. “Intimate Things in Place: Conversation with Toni Morrison.” Conversations with Toni Morrison. Ed. Danielle Taylor-Guthrie. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. 10-29. Print. English Résumé The purpose of this Bachelor‟s thesis is to analyze interpersonal relationships in African 42
American community in Toni Morrison‟s novel Sula (1973). The thesis analyzes the mother/daughter relationships, the male/female relationships portrayed in the novel and puts a special emphasis on the significance of women‟s friendship between two main characters- Sula Peace and Nel Wright. Both Sula and Nel grow up without the necessary support and care from their mothers and both of them are struggling in their relationships with men in their adulthood. The strong friendship bond between Sula and Nel makes it possible for the girls to deal with their dysfunctional relationships with their mothers and also to fight against the oppression in their childhood. The characters in the novel face many difficulties when trying to assimilate into the American mainstream society and the racial oppression has a great impact on their interpersonal relationships. Male characters are struggling to gain respect of the dominant society and are mostly absent in the novel. The problems of emasculation of African American men, the frustrations these men experience in American society and the ways in which these frustrations consequetly project into the interpersonal relationships in African American community are also discussed in this thesis. Women‟s friendship is the only interpersonal relationship in the novel which helps Sula and Nel fight against the oppression but Sula‟s and Nel‟s different views of life and of a woman‟s role in the society set them apart. However, neither Sula nor Nel find support in their relationships with men in adulthood. I argue that the character‟s submission to the dominant society‟s views of marriage and the social roles destroys their relationships. Résumé in Czech Tato bakalářská práce se zaměřuje na rozbor mezilidských vztahů v afroamerické 43
komunitě v románu Sula (1973) spisovatelky Toni Morrisonové. Práce analyzuje vztahy matek s dcerami, vztahy mezi muži a ženami a klade důraz zejména na důležitost přátelství mezi dvěma hlavními hrdinkami románu, a to přátelství mezi Sulou Peacovou a Nel Wrightovou. Sula i Nel vyrůstají bez potřebné podpory a péče svých matek a obě dvě se v dospělosti potýkají s problémovými vztahy s muži. Silné přátelské pouto umožňuje Sule a Nel vypořádat se s nefunngujícími vztahy s jejich matkami a také jim napomáhá při boji proti útisku v jejich dětství. Postavy tohoto románu čelí mnohým těžkostem ve své snaze přizpůsobit se americké většinové společnosti a potýkají se s rasovým utiskováním, což má velký dopad na jejich mezilidské vztahy. Mužské postavy zápasí o získání respektu většinové společnosti a jsou v románu po většinu času nepřítomni. Práce se mimo jiné zabývá problémem emaskulace afroamerických mužů a frustracemi, které tito muži v americké společnosti pociťují a také tím, jak se tyto frustrace následně promítají do mezilidských vztahů v afroamerické komunitě. Přátelství mezi ženami je jediným mezilidským vztahem, který Sule a Nel pomáhá v boji proti útisku, avšak jejich rozdílný pohled na život a na roli ženy ve společnosti obě ženy v dopělosti rozdělí a ani jedna z žen nenajde v dospělosti potřebnou oporu po boku muže. V práci tvrdím, že za zničením vztahů mezi postavami stojí podřizování se pohledu většinové společnosti na manželství a na role mužů a žen ve společnosti.
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