Answer

Documented Literary Analysis

African American women experience many problems today, including issues concerning the lack of affection and protection, which people commonly get from their mothers. Due to these issues, black women are often depicted as weak and easily manipulated. However, in Toni Morrison’s Sula, black women are different from the submissive and easily manipulated African American ladies oppressed by the community. The friendship between Nel and Sula has a crucial role in the novel as it helps the black women in identity formation. Through a strong friendship, Nel and Sula benefited by getting support and protection from each other, making their lives as black women easier in a patriarchal society, and supports Morrison’s point that lifelong friendships are crucial in the formation of the black women individuality as they reject conventional gender roles in the society today. This paper registers the strong companionship between Nel and Sula that helped them in self-identity and reject the conventional gender roles oppressive to black women in the patriarchal society.  

In Sula, Morrison discusses the need for selfless bonding between African American women to combat oppression. She uses the novel to demonstrate the role of lifelong friendships in the female self’s unearthing by displaying black women as a source of strength to each other (Dhavaleswarapu 96). The friendships are influenced by cultural and social realities such as missing relationships between mothers and daughters. In reality, mothers should be there for their children and teach them important life skills. Moreover, Morrison presents African American women as a group denied a lot by the patriarchal society. Therefore, mothers were unable to grant their daughters protection and teach them self-worth (Haque 7). The novel demonstrates how crucial a mother’s role is to self-realization and the development of self-confidence, and the ability to manage life efficiently.

Nel and Sula’s friendship benefits both women by helping them identify their unique selves and develop the concept of self-worth.  Nel finds confidence in the relationship while Sula finds some form of self-identity, which somehow tames her high spirits and brings her back to reality. Nel desired freedom, acceptance, and understanding, which she did not get from her mother, who did not give her proper attention. Helene, Nel’s mother, wanted her daughter to grow into a respectable citizen and thus guarded her every move as “any enthusiasm that little Nel showed were calmed by her mother until she drove her daughter’s imagination underground” (Morrison 18).  Helene was more concerned with keeping Nel from wrong behaviors that she failed to show her the appropriate care and attention that she deserved.  Instead, Helene became extremely possessive of her daughter that even drove a wider wedge between the two. Nel missed her mother’s hugs and loving care so much that she pledged to build herself and find her identity by claiming that “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me” (Morrison 28). That was when she developed a strong friendship with Sula because she had a different way of life. Likewise, Sula was also deprived of loving care and affection. Nobody taught her self-love and how to survive in the patriarchal society, and thus felt a sense of fulfillment and belonging in Nel’s relationship. Sula’s mother, Hannah, did not love her as any mother would her daughter. Therefore the two did not have a good relationship as the “pattern of missed communication was also visible in Hannah’s relationship with her mother Eve” (Morrison 419).

Nel and Sula finally got a sense of fulfillment from each other’s companionship, as Nel feels beautiful around Sula and confident with her appearance as she is as she finally gets to accept her blackness by realizing how beautiful she is in her way. She even gets her voice and takes up an occasional leadership role, which seemed to have free reign only when she was with Sula (Dhavaleswarapu 98). Hence, with Sula’s friendship, Nel managed to strengthen her subjectivity and make a unique identity. For Sula, the friendship taught her to be patient as “she could hardly sustain any emotion for more than three minutes” and would break down in a temper (Morrison 53). Nel tamed the high emotions and converted them into strengths, whereby Sula would use them for protection by boys who want to harass them.

The loss of contact for the friends demonstrates the vulnerability to individual insecurities as Nel falls prey to the patriarchal way of life. She gets married and follows all the stereotyped gender roles as expected of her as a woman by society and, in turn, loses forgets her true self. On the other hand, Sula loses her true self and becomes more concerned with making a new self for her. She loses the control and patience she found in Nel and becomes selfish with masculine characteristics and behaviors. She has sex with men and disregards them, rejecting the stereotypical roles expected of her as a black woman (Manki 41). Hence, without the friendship, Nel and Sula both lost their ways and journey to self-identity.

In sum, Morrison demonstrates the importance of friendship to women as they strive to find self-identity. Nel and Sula’s friendship was significant in their lives as they used it to find their strengths and fight weaknesses. When they fell apart from each other, both experienced some difficulties in life, resulting in different paths from the ones that were leading them to self-identity. Hence, Morrison is making a point about the benefits of having strong friendships in a black woman’s life as it helps in finding oneself and avoiding the crippling effects of the patriarchal society.