Unraveling the Ending – Nels Circles of Sorrow and the Emotional Resolution of the Novel
The symbolic representation of the “circles of sorrow” at the end of the novel implies that the character Nel is in grief, isolated, and questioning her existence after the death of her longtime friend, Sula. Nel is left to think back on how Sula changed her and how she tries to change who she is to fit in with society by denying who she is. This is the complete opposite of the passionate, interwoven life she once had with Sula. The “circles of sorrow” allude to the cycle of grieving and how, when grieving, we can get trapped into turning circles of blame and guilt. Still, there are rays of light and the ability to find oneself at night. The truth of her relationship with Sula brings out the real Nel hidden for a long time.
Further, throughout the novel, Morrison tries to depict the friendship between Nel and Sula, which can be described as rather uneasy and stormy at times. From childhood, they shared a powerful and life-changing friendship since Sula represents the rebel to Nel’s more careful and protected personality. Nevertheless, it is essential to highlight that as they grew older, their fates significantly differed. Sula chose an unconventional life of liberty, while Nel obeyed the conventional norms of being a wife and a mother. At Sula’s funeral, the bitterness that Nel feels in the wake of the choices she has made and the self that she has lost can be witnessed. The story also presents that Nel “had no room of her own, no intimate friends, no children, no man, no life at all; only the moments when she was called upon to give life, to be the memorial for the dead, the teller of tales” (Morrison 148). These circles of sorrow signify the loneliness and lack of personal happiness that Nel is forced to endure.
The concluding moment of this literary work turns quite pivotal as it demonstrates how Nel gains wholeness through her self-realization (Ahmad 324). Through the factual realization of the relationship with Sula, Nel gets to understand herself and the outcome of the decisions that she has made in the racist community. In her commentary on the novel, Amanda Bennet is of the opinion that the final scene of the novel can be deciphered as a scene of catharsis in which Nel’s sorrow and the understanding of self are intertwined (Bennet). As Bennet pointed out in her analysis, this is not an easy process. This wholeness is not easy to achieve; it results from intense suffering and deep reflection on one’s character. The novel, therefore, implies that to effect true recovery, one has to regain the capacity to recall and begin to face one’s nightmares and deeply repressed traumas.
In the end, Nel is left in a state of deep sorrow, but there is a definite feeling that she has finally found her place in the world and a sense of true self that she never seemed to possess for much of her life. Therefore, according to the novel, by admitting that the relationship with Sula is at the core of her problems, Nel might be able to heal and find herself, even if this process is painful.
The ending is pessimistic because it portrays that part of life’s reality as bitter-sweet and filled with sorrow due to the losses bound to happen within our lifetime and the attempt to find purpose therein. Morrison provides a somewhat resolved and sad conclusion to the story in the novel “Sula.” Nel undergoes a dark, traumatic metamorphosis, but neither she nor we, the audience, gain clear and meaningful closure from it. By structuring the ending in this manner, Morrison emphasizes the novel’s themes pertaining to identity, friendship, and purpose in the midst of adversity. Thus, through Nel and her story, Morrison not only encourages us as readers to explore the possibility of personal growth by exposing the buried aspects of one’s personality but also raises the question of whether or not one can ever truly understand oneself.
Works Cited
Ahmad, Shabeer, Muhammad Ilyas Mahmood, and Sajid Abbas. “A Study of Alienation in Toni Morrison’s Sula: Passive Patriarchy, Marriage and Female Friendship.” Research Journal of Social Sciences and Economics Review 1.4 (2020): 322-328. https://doi.org/10.36902/rjsser-vol1-iss4-2020(322-328)
Bennett, Amanda. Developing a Vocabulary of Feeling: The Spirituality of Black Feminist Self-Repair. Diss. Duke University, 2023.
Morrison, Toni. Sula. Random House, 2014.
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Question 
Analyze the ending of the novel. What are the “circles of sorrow” that Nel experiences? Is the ending pessimistic, optimistic, or something else altogether?
Unraveling the Ending – Nels Circles of Sorrow and the Emotional Resolution of the Novel