Sula by Toni Morrison

✨“It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.”✨

A short novel spanning over 50 years, Sula by Toni Morrison follows Nel Wright and Sula Peace. Set in the fictional town of Bottom, Ohio, Morrison explores themes of racism, black femininity, female sexuality, friendships, love and family. The book is funny, gut-wrenching, sensual, beautifully written and highlights the strength of women who are portrayed as mothers, story-tellers and warriors.

Morrison’s novel is set with World War I as the background and showcases the cultural and socio-economic aspects with reference to various relationships in Sula. The prologue begins with how Bottom as a town came about for a white man scamming a black man, and how white people for years denounced this town but are now suddenly trying to convert it into a white suburb.

Sula and Nel discover their other half in one another. They seem mystically tied to each other's thoughts and feelings- this feeds in the idea that they are soulmates. But they are very different. Nel comes from an orderly, tidy home. Nel's mother, Helene, is custard-coloured and worked as a prostitute. Nel was brought up by her strict religious grandmother who disapproved of her daughter. Nel was born with her mother’s lighter complexion. On the other hand, Sula’s household is chaotic and her mother is a kind and generous woman who has affairs with men. Sula's mother is sooty which her daughter also inherits.

Sula and Nel, often abandoned by their parents, find solace in each other. But their personalities are dissimilar. Sula is aggressive, destructive and spontaneous, which can be seen when they are eve-teased by some boys and cuts her fingertip to show that the same fate may befall them if they continue their behaviour. Nel is passive and silent. But their friendship is thick "because each had discovered years before they were neither white nor male and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden them they set about something else to be."

But after an unfortunate incident, everything changes. They start living lives which are drastically different. A few years pass after this incident and Sula leaves town following Nel's marriage to Jude Greene, who works as a waiter in the Hotel Medallion.

Sula continues to have affairs, sleeps around, trying to find something- something along the lines of feeling human, love and her identity. Sula returns after ten years. Her arrival is equated to the omen of a death where the birds are dropping dead around her and the town is darkened with dark clouds taking over the sky.

Sula confronts her grandmother who is in a nursing home, about the death of her mother and her son who returned home after the war with heroin addiction. Upon knowing the truth, Sula threatens to douse her in kerosene and burn her. And a couple of months later, she shifts her grandmother into a nursing home- this asserts the fact in the minds of the people of Bottom that Sula is truly evil and is shunned from the community.

But Nel and Sula slip back into their friendship- they laugh and find satisfaction in their relationship. Sula finds solace again in Nel and explains to her why she fears her grandmother and why it was necessary to place her in a nursing home. Jude is taken aback by Sula’s presence and her way of life.

Soon, Nel finds Sula and Jude during sexual intercourse which shatters not only her marriage but their friendship- Jude leaves Nel and she suffers a deep emotional trauma of losing two most important people in her life.

Sula eventually falls in love, for the first time in her life, with Ajax, who is free-spirited like her but when he realizes that Sula has become quite domestic, he skips town. Sula, afterwards, discovers his driver’s license and realizes his name was not even Ajax- it was A. Jacks- and breaks down crying, feeling that she didn’t even know the man she fell madly in love with.

The conclusion of the novel begins with Sula falling ill and Nel mending to her. The conversation between these women shows what a brilliant writer Morrison is- Nel bravely asks why Sula slept with her husband to which Sula replies unapologetically that he was used to just “fill[ed] up the space." Nel feels angry that Sula ruined her marriage and she didn’t even love Jude. She tells her that she has always been “good” to Sula but Sula says that she never could truly differentiate between good and evil- this leads her to ask a question whether Sula was good and Nel was terrible or vice-versa. Unable to comprehend, Nel leaves.

Sula’s life begins to flash in her eyes- images of Tar Baby, Hannah and her grandmother play in her semi-consciousness while death slowly takes over her body inch by inch. Finally, she laid lifeless and in her final moments she thinks of Nel and smiles- Death doesn’t hurt and that she can’t wait to share this with her friend.

Years pass and Nel realises that she doesn’t miss her husband but her soulmate, her dearest friend.

Morrison does not judge either of her characters for their choices and neither can the readers. They are not written as strictly black and white characters- they are grey characters who are oppressed not only by the colour of their skin but also their gender. The writer, throughout the novel, highlights how different people from the Bottom are treated due to the amount of melanin in their skin and within that community who men dominate women.

As Morrison writes, “She had gone on a real trip, and now she was different” when Nel goes to her grandmother’s funeral, it applies to the readers as well- no one remains the same after reading this book.

This novel is my favourite one I had to do for the course. I remember the discussions in the class and how uncomfortable yet necessary they were. Morrison’s writing style left a lasting impression- she focuses not only on the characters but the nurture and nature they are brought up in and showcases how it influences their decisions, their philosophies and their ideologies.

Written in a poetic manner employing various literary devices such as metaphors, imagery and irony, with well-crafted characters and an engrossing story, Sula by Toni Morrison is a must-read.🧡