Paste your essay in here…Toni Morrison’s, Sula, expertly explores the way gender and one’s body go hand in hand with what is seen as good and evil of society. Throughout the novel we are taken on the journey of Sula and Nel and other women of the bottom. All of these women are surviving in different ways and arguably some are better at it than the others. We often see characters in novels who go against the social norm and become heros or at the very least admired outcasts but we don't get that in Morrison’s novel. Instead, we get Sula who becomes the main focus of a witch hunt in the bottom, her community, and we learn what the witch hunt implies about society as a whole. Sula explores themes that highlight the perception of good and evil and how it is influenced by policing of the body and society’s evaluation of it.
Throughout Sula we are met with differing ideologies about sex and what/how it is meant to be. Our novel namesake is a sexually liberated woman, believing sex is something to be enjoyed, not ashamed of. “Seeing her [Hannah] step so easily into the pantry and emerge looking precisely as she did when she entered, only happier, taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable. (p. 44) Her sexual ideologies have been passed down from her mother, Hannah, but her mother escapes sexual persecution because she has the protection of the men in the bottom whereas Sula does not. “The men, surprisingly, never gossiped about her [Hannah]. She was unquestionably a kind and generous woman and that, coupled with her extraordinary beauty and funky elegance of manner, made them defend her and protect her from any vitriol that newcomers or their wives might spill.” (pp. 44-45)
The difference seen between Sula and her mother is important in understanding what makes society persecute a sexually liberated women and what keeps them from doing so. The main difference is that although Hannah enjoyed sex she also played the part of a caretaker and a otherwise “well-behaved” woman as shown on page 115; “And the fury she created in the women of the town was incredible-for she would lay their husbands once and then no more. Hannah had been a nuisance, but she was complimenting the women, in a way, by wanting their husbands. Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow. So the women, to justify their own judgment, cherished their men more, soothed the pride and vanity Sula had bruised.”
The important thing to note here is that any individual can be seen as evil as long as s/he does not follow societal norms, the difference of whether or not they are persecuted for it exists in what normality is being challenged and whether they their action is compensated in some way. We just have to look at the situation with Jude and Sula to see the completely different reactions society has based on the involved’s gender. This kind of thought process in relation to which genders can be sexually forgiven can be understood with this quote from Nel when she is speaking to Sula; “You can’t do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can’t act like a man. You can’t be walking around all independent-like, doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don’t.” (p. 142) Although blame was placed on her as well as Jude, Jude received less consequences and judgment from the bottom. This alienation of Sula shows how her promiscuity as a woman is seen completely different than her male counterparts. From a real world perspective we can see that the double standard of how people are supposed act is controlled by their gendered body and therefore creates a gender-polarized society. In Gendered Worlds, Aulette and Wittner explain a gender polarized view as a view that “…holds that men are authoritative, rational, and unemotional, whereas women are submissive, irrational, and highly emotional.” Another example of this is the male character, Ajax who was known for keeping many women around yet he walks away from his sexual promiscuity without consequences. Even the women he sleeps with experience more consequences than him since his actions “provoked them into murderous battles over him in the streets…” (p. 125).
Sula’s ability to enjoy sex helps her grow her nihilistic principles. Hearing her mother say “…I love Sula, I just don’t like her…” (57) spearheaded her philosophy of depending only on herself. Chicken Little’s death plays a large role in Sula’s outlook and experience of life as well though, from that moment she learns she can’t count on herself either. “Sula was distinctly different. Eva's arrogance and Hannah's self-indulgence merged in her and, with a twist that was all her own imagination, she lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless their pleasure pleased her. As willing to feel pain as to give pain, to feel pleasure as to give pleasure, hers was an experimental life-ever since her mother's remarks sent her flying up those stairs, ever since her one major feeling of responsibility had been exorcised on the bank of a river with a closed place in the middle.” (p. 118) Morrison gives us insight on how childhood experiences shape a person's philosophy for adult life.
It is also interesting to explore how Morrison makes us as readers feel about Sula. Although arguable, Sula is not necessarily a likeable character. Most novels with liberated main characters paint them as some kind of hero or positive change maker but Morrison does not entertain that norm. Instead, we can understand why the society persecutes Sula whether we believe they should or not. In Black Looks: Race and Representation bell hooks highlights the fact that “Sula's death at an early age does not leave the reader with a sense of "power," instead she seems powerless to assert agency in a world that has no interest in radical black female subjectivity, one that seeks to repress, contain, and annihilate it.”