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.
Then, for no earthly reason, at least no reason that anybody could understand, certainly no reason that Nel understood then or later, she smiled. Like a street pup that wags its tail at the very doorjamb of the butcher shop he has been kicked away from only moments before, Helene smiled. Smiled dazzlingly and coquettishly at the salmon-colored face of the conductor. (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
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According to the narrator of Sula, Sula’s meeting with Nel is “fortune” because the two girls find a soul mate in one another. Both of them are “daughters of distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers” (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. 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. Thanks to Sula, Nel is able to escape from her strict parents and in return, Nel represents a centre for Sula a centre 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