Oppression Of Women In Sula By Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison's second novel is titled Sula, and it was released in New York in 1973. It follows the narrative of two African-American friends, Sula and Nel, from their youth to their maturity and Sula's death. The novel is set in the early 1900s in a little Ohio town named Medallion. The book discusses topics of racism, discrimination, and the oppression of Black Americans; it also illustrates the hopelessness some individuals have when they are unable to find quality employment as well as their will to survive.

The uniqueness of the black woman is the main theme of Morrison's Sula. The main character of the book, Sula, is a black woman who experiences discrimination from both whites and blacks. She disagrees with the social standards that

She utilises guys as she wants. She ignores them after having sex with them and carries on with her daily activities. She disapproves of the stereotypes that are applied to black women. Men label her as the devil because they are terrified of her wickedness. People in Sula's community band together to oppose her wicked deeds by rejecting her. She makes her community more cohesive by objectifying its threat. Despite the fact that they are fully aware that evil is a natural component of human nature, people in her culture do not rush to identify her as wicked. Sula's harsh treatment of her grandma causes other women in her neighbourhood to begin treating their kids differently, with love and compassion, out of concern that they would receive the same treatment as Sula's

Nel and Sula "never competed against one another for men" according to Morrison, who writes of a time when most girls fought for a man's affection. She suggests a deep link between them by using the fact that they don't oppose one another. It seems as though their minds have fused into one larger mind because they have problems "distinguishing one's ideas from the other's." Nel and Sula must collaborate in secret in their brains in order to properly identify themselves distinct from how the racist society wants to define them. However, Morrison later describes this connection and she says, "Sula never competed; she simply helped others define themselves," in the context of Nel's observations about her friend. The semicolon, which indicates a link rather than the split that a period may imply, highlights the relationship between the concepts of non-competition and self-definition. The line that divides Nel's self from Sula's is blurry: "Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself." It is obvious how engaging in a developing relationship is made possible by removing oneself from the damaging influences of a competitive