Craft Essay on Toni Morrison’s “Sula,” by Claire Wilcox

‘How you know?’ Sula asked.
‘Know what?’ Nel still wouldn’t look at her.
‘About who was good. How you know it was you?’
‘What you mean?’
‘I mean maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe it was me’ (Sula 146).

Sula by, Toni Morrison, is sometimes conceptualized as a work of ethical fiction. Through her characterization of the book’s female namesake, Sula, she explores the Aristotelian question, “How should one live?” (Nissen), or perhaps, how should a woman live? Many of Sula’s actions are deplorable, but others are downright admirable, at least, to me, from the perspective of a modern-day woman. Through exposition, dialogue, and her effects on surrounding characters (Nel), Morisson paints a fascinating portrait of a person who is at once emotionally limited/destructive and inspiring/enlivening. In this essay, I will explore some craft elements that Morrison uses to characterize Sula as both “good” and “bad”.

Sula behaves in “bad” ways, bordering on evil, at times. She stands and stares, fascinated, instead of trying to help, while her mother burns to death in an accident. She shows little guilt or distress (except fear of getting caught) when she accidentally drowns a young boy. She banishes Eva, her grandmother, to an old folks home, after returning home from being away for 10 years, and takes over her grandmother’s homestead, even though her grandmother isn’t that debilitated (yet). Finally, she sleeps with her best friend Nel’s husband, Jude, and shows no remorse for it. 

Other actions are more non-conformist than “bad”. For example, Sula generally sleeps with whoever she wants to, and she defies the expectations of her social circle to get married and have kids, leaving town for the big city, to learn, and live, for a decade.

Some actions are unambiguously sweet. Sula also has the capacity to connect, which is displayed through action. A memorable scene between Sula and Nel paints a poignant image of two young girls operating in the outdoors harmoniously, wordlessly, passing the time, digging in the dirt, and rolling around in the grass (Morrison, 58).

Morrison helps us understand Sula’s less savory actions by shedding light on her motivations, some of which is done through exposition, using an omniscient narrator. For one, Sula “had no thought of causing Nel pain when she bedded down with Jude” (Morrison, 119). Nor was it jealousy or meanness that drove her to do it. Morrison tells us that Sula is excited for Nel on her wedding day: “She seemed always to want Nel to shine" (Morrison, 84). Sleeping with Jude was just another example of her inclination to follow her impulses, not mean-spirited. After she and Nel drifted apart (after Nel got married), “there was only her own mood and whim and if that’s all there was she decided to turn the naked hand towards it…and like any artist with no art form, she became dangerous (Morrison, 121).” An artist’s sensibility—lead by aesthetics and sensation seeking—and the absence of a previously-present counterbalancing second half caused her to inadvertently hurt her friend. Other self-serving, harmful behaviors—watching her mom burn without doing anything to help her, showing little remorse when she accidentally drowns a boy, and banishing her grandmother to a home—could also be perceived less harshly, too, in light of these statements from the omniscient narrator about her “strangeness and naivete” (Morrison, 121).

Morrison also gives us insight into the motivations behind some of Sula’s harsher acts through dialogue. When she comes back after being away for a decade, Sula’s grandmother Eva says: “When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.” Sula replies, “I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.” “Selfish,” her grandmother says back, “Ain’t no woman got no business floatin’ around without no man” (Morrison, 92). One reason why Sula banished Eva as soon as possible to a home on her return was to put distance between her and Eva, who would have been an obstacle to Sula living in harmony with her independent and individualistic spirit. I see this as “good” in a way because it is honest to herself. We also learn more about why Sula sleeps with Jude in a discussion with Nel. Sula said, “He just filled up the space…if we were such good friends how come you couldn’t get over it.” According to Sula’s value system, her friendship with Nel trumped any romantic connection one of them might have with a man. Nel, in Sula’s eyes, was the one in the wrong for dumping Sula. Finally, while on her death bed, Nel says to Sula, “You can't have it all, Sula”  who replies “Why? I can do it all, why can't I have it all?” (Morrison, 142). Then later in the same conversation, Sula observes, “Every colored person is this country is dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.” “Really? What have you got to show for it?”  Nel asks, “Show? To who?” to which Sula answers, “Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it? Which is to say, I got me.” “Lonely, ain’t it?” Nel presses. Sula says, “Yes. But my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else’s. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain’t that something? A secondhand lonely (Morrison, 143)”.  We understand clearly through this exchange that Sula has behaved in all of her non-conformist ways because she values independence and freedom above most all else (unlike Nel, who has put family and mothering and adhering to societal rules higher in priority). There’s nothing evil about the way Sula has chosen to live: it’s just a choice; it’s who she is.

Finally, as we observe the ways Sula transforms Nel over the novel, we get a sense of her “goodness” too. Nel initially benefits from her friendship with Sula when they are young, who provides her with companionship and joy. Then, later, she benefits, when Sula returns after being away for a decade: Nel's love for Jude which "had spun a steady gray around her heart…became an easy affection, a playfulness that was reflected in lovemaking" and Sula’s return "was like getting the use of an eye back, a cataract removed" (Morrison, 95) (Coleman). Of course, Nel is soon devastated when Sula sleeps with Jude (Morrison, 104-5), and holds a grudge for years. But in the end, after Sula’s death, Nel realizes how important Sula’s friendship has been to her. “’All that time, I thought I was missing Jude.’ And the loss [of Sula] pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat” (Morrison, 174). 

In sum, in Sula, the protagonist has both “good” and “bad” qualities, and Morrison paints such a compelling portrait of her. On the one hand, Sula behaves unempathetically, selfishly, and even, at times, sociopathically. But she also lives a life that is free, unbeholden, and independent. Which is the right way to live? By leaving the answer to this question deliciously ambiguous, Morrison inspires the reader to question their own views of right and wrong. 

Morrison did not consider herself a feminist writer or ascribe fully to the women’s lib movement given the difficulties inherent in attempting to “find consensus among African American women on any subject…because they have consistently and deliberately defied classification” (Mayberry). However, through her characterization of Sula, Morrison offers a feminist message. Is a woman’s role to get married and make babies? Should loyalty to a romantic (male) partner trump friendship? Is caregiving and generosity better than selfish pursuits? Is Nel’s way of living really any more ethical than Sula’s? Although Sula did selfish things and broke some moral codes, she also refused to let her identity be defined by anyone else and to ascribe to the patriarchal definitions of womanhood.

In the end, I am inspired by Morrison’s unconventional protagonist. I am a woman, and I value independence and freedom highly. There are still, to this day, societal expectations that constrain me. Sula helps me feel ok about continuing to fight back against them, by the choices I make and the actions I take. As political forces take back the freedoms that women have fought so hard to secure over the last century in our country, I will also look to Sula for guidance about how to do my part.

Morrison, Toni. Sula. Vintage International. 2004

Nissen, Axel. “Toni Morrison's "Sula" and the Ethics of Narrative” Contemporary Literature, Vol. 40, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 263-285. University of Wisconsin Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1208913

Coleman, Alisha R. “One and one make one: a meteoritical and psychoanalytic reading of friendship in Toni Morrison’s Sula.” CLA Journal Vol. 37, No. 2, Dec. 1993, pp. 145-155. College Language Association. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44322556

Mayberry, Susan Neal. The Critical Life of Toni Morrison.  Boydell & Brewer, Camden House. (2021)

Claire E. Wilcox has been living and writing in the Albuquerque area for 15 years. She’s worn many professional hats as a psychiatrist, researcher, teacher, and academic. She is currently pursuing an MFA at IAIA for fiction, and she also writes non-fiction. Her creative work has been featured in the Santa Fe Reporter, Psychology Today, Across the Margin, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, Your Tango, El Portal, and Fiction on the Web, among others.