Sula By Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s Sula is a captivating novel that follows the inhabitants of Medallion, Ohio and their daily lives. Through the interactions of characters such as Eva and Sula, Morrison reveals the expectations of black women in the community of the Bottom and offers commentary on the limitations placed on women through motherhood and marriage. Sula stands as an anomaly that confounds all those who cross her path and acts as a vehicle in which Morrison is able to highlight the double standards that exist across genders when it comes to sexuality and the institution of marriage. By juxtaposing Sula with other female characters such as her mother Hannah and her childhood friend Nel, Morrison is able to comment on the ways in which society limits

For Sula, the promiscuity of women was constant in her life as her mother was a sensual being that found comfort in sleeping with other men. While disgruntling other women, Hannah’s promiscuity did not strike a nerve nearly as much as Sula’s did. Morrison makes this distinction in “And the fury she [Sula] created in the women of the town was incredible—for she would lay their husbands once and then no more. Hannah had been a nuisance, but she was complimenting the women, in a way, by wanting their husbands. Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow. So the women, to justify their own judgment, cherished their men more, soothed the pride and vanity Sula had bruised” (Morrison 115). By comparing Sula with Hannah, Morrison conveys the way in which women are expected to feel pain or hurt when it comes to the infidelity of their men. When Hannah was sleeping with the men of the community, her choice to select a man was seen as a “compliment” as she left them appreciated and loved, while Sula uses them purely for her own need. The importance in this comparison ties back to the insight of marriage that was revealed when Jude selected Nel to be his wife. For the women of Medallion, their relationship with Sula is only spoiled when the men she sleeps with feel discarded and disrespected whereas with Hannah the men were revered. By including this detail, Morrison highlights another way that the women’s anger and indignation are tied to their man’s own feelings as opposed to their own betrayal of their man seeking comfort in another woman to begin with.. Where normally one would expect pure hatred at the idea of infidelity from one’s husband, the women in Medallion only feel such hatred when it is at the expense of their husbands, showing once more how intertwined these women