Experience Versus Hereditary In Toni Morrison's Sula

Sula: Experience versus Hereditary

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation which abolished slavery in America. It stated that slaves would be “forever free” and that the federal government would do everything in its power to preserve the liberties for all those who had been dehumanized into creatures that could only be trusted under the chains of oppression, hatred, and shame. However, as history textbooks can attest, true racial equality would take years to fully achieve, and the quaint, little town of Bottom, Ohio was no different. In this town, African-Americans lived in their own world with Irene’s Palace of Cosmetology and National Suicide Day, but perhaps the most important aspect is that they were segregated from the white people of Medallion. Although freedoms to African-Americans were now guaranteed by law, personal freedoms were still withheld by society, as exhibited in the physical divide between the white and black neighborhoods. However, the society of Bottom itself also did its fair share of suppressing personal freedoms, mainly through cultural norms and ancestry. In the novel Sula, Toni Morrison explores that duality between

For Sula and Nel, glaring examples are their childhood homes. Sula grew up within the walls of chaos and disorder, with “rooms that had three doors” (30) and “other [rooms] that you could get to only by going through somebody’s bedroom” (30). There was always “a pot of something” (29) cooking in the kitchen and “all sorts of people dropped in” (29) on a day-to-day basis. In a striking example of duality, Sula becomes more fond of Nel’s quiet and orderly home which is even described as an “oppressive neatness” (29). Both girls find more refuge in the homes that are different from their own, showing that often experience works in a counterintuitive way that promotes lifestyles opposite of how one is