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English, Essays

Sula Literary Analysis

Sula Literary Analysis

The Role of Lifelong Friendships in the Formation of Identity: A Literary Analysis of “Sula” by Toni Morrison

Sula and Nel’s friendship is one of the central themes in the novel “Sula” by Toni Morrison. Sula and Nel are two significantly different people, but they come together to form a strong friendship that affects big aspects of their lives. Examining how Nel and Sula’s strong friendship influences their lives and demonstrates the importance of lifelong friendships will show the identity formation process. Female life-long friendship, as depicted in the character of Sula and Nel, is important because it strengthens gender and racial identity, protects interests, and helps to develop personal identities. Hire our assignment writing services in case your assignment is devastating you.

Lifelong relationships are a basis for strengthening identity. Sula and Nel’s friendship helps to strengthen their female identity. Sula and Nel found solace in their friendship as children. Through their friendship, they find space within each other to strengthen each other. Although they grew apart in friendship and then grew close again, they always found a way to use each other to find solace from the individual challenges in their lives. According to Morrison (83), the two girls were so close to each other that “a compliment to one was a compliment to the other, and cruelty to one was a challenge to the other”. Nel and Sula navigated many challenges together. One of the things that they had to navigate was the subjugation of black women, as they saw in their grandmothers and mothers. According to Dhavaleswarapu, as young girls, their friendship helped them to overcome “male approval” as they found “total worth . . . in each other’s eyes” (98). For example, Nel’s friendship with Sula helped her finally be confident in her hair. She was no longer interested in having straight hair. Because of this friendship, she found the confidence to love herself in her blackness.

Friendship is an important aspect in the novel “Sula” because it helps to protect personal interests. Sula and Nel used their lifelong friendship as a place of solace they went to protect their interests. Morrison focused on the friendship between Sula and Nel to show how friendship is about protecting each other; for example, when boys threatened them, Sula was Nel’s protector. She took a knife and sliced off the tip of her finger to scare the boys away. She said, “If I can do this to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?” (Morrison 54-55). Dhavaleswarapu argues that Nel and Sula both had strengths and weaknesses that ensured mutual dependency (99). They helped each other to get through challenges, which shows the essence of a lifelong friendship.

Friendship is also important in the novel in the development of personal identity. Nel and Sula had very different personalities but used them to dilute each other’s differences. Nel comes from a family background that places importance on social conventions. As a result, she was relatively rigid in her personality. In comparison, Sula is more free-spirited. She comes from a non-conventional family background where social norms are not very important (Reddy 632). Nel’s rigid personality helped to tame Sula’s free spirit, while Sula helped Nel to ease up her personality. The challenging incident of the accident at the river separated Nel and Sula quite early in their childhood. Nel conformed to societal norms and married Jude at a very young age. On the other hand, Sula went to college, experienced the world, and broadened her perspective. Nel fulfilled her role as a wife and mother, but there was always a void in her life. She filled that void with Sula. The two women helped each other to fill the voids in their personalities. Sula helped Nel to open her mind to a world outside the societal conformities, while Nel helped Sula to contain her free spirit.

In conclusion, Toni Morrison manages to demonstrate the importance of lifelong friendships in the process of identity development. The friendship between Sula and Nel was an important part of their personal, female, and racial identity development. The two girls were very different, but they complemented each other. Nel conservative nature helped to tame Sula, and Sula helped to introduce Nel to more free thinking.

Works Cited

Dhavaleswarapu, Ratna. “The Dialectics Of Female Friendship In Toni Morrison”S Sula”. 2016. Researchgate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338210036_The_Dialectics_of_Female_Friendship_in_Toni_Morrisons_Sula.

Morrison, Toni. Sula. Vintage, 1973.

REDDY, P. S. A Critical Analysis of Sula by Toni Morrison. Language in India, [s. l.], v. 12, n. 5, p. 631–637, 2012. Disponível em: http://db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=ufh&AN=77367127&site=eds-live.

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Question 

Essay Assignment 1: Documented Literary Analysis

Your literary analysis essay will be on the novel Sula by Toni Morrison. You can choose from any of the topics listed below (recommended) or explore further topics in the chapter on Sula, pp. X to Y in the book How to Write about Toni Morrison (linked here for your convenience).

Sula Literary Analysis

Sula Literary Analysis

Your literary analysis should be between 2 ½ and 3 pages (600 to 750 words), not including the Works Cited page, should be double spaced in Times New Roman 12- point font and must include:

  • A clearly articulated thesis that states, somewhere in your introduction, the assertion (position, interpretation) that your paper will prove
  • An introduction, a minimum of 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion
  • At least two quotes from the novel itself that are integrated into your discussion
  • At least two citations of outside sources (such as literary criticism on the novel, preferably from articles from the MDC databases)
  • Topic sentences that focus the discussion in the body paragraphs
  • Examples, details, explanations in the body paragraphs that clearly support your thesis
  • Clear connections between ideas from paragraph to paragraph and within paragraphs
  • Proper MLA style format in the heading, in the in-text citations, and in the Works Cited page (see the template for the heading and margins in this lesson)
  • Works Cited page includes articles from two sources and from the novel for a minimum of three total listed sources
  • Standard usage, grammar, and mechanics IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
  • You will submit your final draft through the Turn-it-in drop box designated for this purpose in the course. Please be aware, that although Turn-it-in does allow for similarities for quotations up to 24% of your paper, any similarity above 24% is considered too high for an original paper and will be flagged as plagiarism.
  • You can get help with your paper at any of the campus writing centers (see the link in the course with this information), and you can also receive online help via SmartThinking, the online tutoring service provided by the College. This service is available by clicking on SmartThinking in the left-hand menu bar of the course under Tools & Resources.

Choose from the following topics:

  1. Analyze the ending of the novel. What are the “circles of sorrow” that Nel experiences? Is the ending pessimistic, optimistic, or something else altogether?
  2. Nel and Sula’s friendship is central in the novel. What role does this friendship play in Nel and Sula’s lives and what point is Morrison making about the role of life-long friendships in the formation of identity?
  3. How do people who are intensely individualistic fare in the novel? Is it possible to break away from the values of the community and to be one’s own person? Answer the question with reference to at least two of the novel’s
  4. How and by whom is love expressed in the novel? In what ways is the love in the novel a ease the suffering of the characters? How is love not enough to appease the characters in light of their suffering?
  5. In what ways are the various characters in the novel alienated from the community? How do they cope with their loneliness, their preoccupations, and other after effects of feeling abandoned?
  6. Compare and contrast the journey of self-discovery for two characters in the book. Remember to take a position in your thesis that establishes the significance of the comparison and
  7. Contrast Nel’s relationship to her mother and Sula’s interaction with her mother. Remember to take a position in your thesis that establishes the significance of the
  8. Trace the use of three symbols in the novel and explain their connection to a theme in the
  9. What does Shadrack’s character teach us about the after effects of war and the ways mentally ill people can be ostracized from a community?
  1. Although no one has ever joined Shadrack on National Suicide Day, in the chapter titled 1941, much of the town marches toward the tunnel where they have not been able to get work and in their rage, the try to “kill, as best they could, the tunnel they were forbidden to build” (160). What is the significance of the event at the tunnel and the resulting deaths there?