Sula and Nel are the two central female characters in Toni Morrison's novel. Sula is seen as abnormal and modern, breaking from traditions by sleeping around, while Nel is seen as normal and conservative, marrying and having children. Though different, they share a deep friendship as children. As adults, their lives diverge but their relationship challenges expectations of gender, identity, and community. The novel explores the complexity of these characters and their connection without easy answers, demonstrating the ambiguity of life.

3. COMPARISON
BETWEEN
SULA AND NEL

4. ABOUTTHEAUTHOR
Born:
Chloe Ardelia Wofford
February 18, 1931 (age 84)
Lorain, Ohio, United States
Occupation:
Novelist, writer
Notable works:
Beloved, Song of Solomon, The
Bluest Eye
Notable awards:
Presidential Medal of
Freedom
2012
Nobel Prize in Literature
1993
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1988

5. INTRODUCTION TO NOVEL
• Sula offers some fascinating commentary on the lives
of African-Americans and the hardships they face, on
issues of gender, on the relationships between
mothers and daughters, and on the ways men and
women relate to each other.
• Morrison has said that she is invested in recording the
history of African-Americans.
• Sula mostly focuses on the two central female
characters.

6. • we also get a look at the African-American
community of which they are a part, of the
customs and traditions they share, and of the ways
they deal with pain, fear, love, sex, and death.
• In the novel Sula, Morrison portrays a correlation
between the two main characters Sula Peace and
Nel Wright.

7. FAMILY TREE
Cecile
Rochelle
Helene Wright
Nel
Eva Peace
Hannah Peace
Sula Peace

8. SULA
• In the novel, Sula is seen as abnormal.
• She is very modern and liberal, she acts the way she
wants to act.
• For example, she breaks away from the traditional style of
having a husband and children; instead she goes sleeping
around with men in town.
• Faced with a racist world and a sexist community, Sula
defends herself by creating a life, however bizarre, that is
rich and experimental.
• The women of the Bottom hate Sula because she is living
criticism of their own dreadful lives of resignation.

9. Cont..
• Sula is really complex and hard to understand at times, but we
think that's what makes her such a cool literary character.
• We sometimes feel sorry for her, sometimes appreciate her
courage, and sometimes hate her for being so insensitive to
other people's feelings.
• She's anything but boring, and she challenges us as readers to
think about how we might respond to a person like her.
• As Morrison notes of her, "She was completely free of
ambition, with no affection for money, property or things, no
greed, no desire to command attention or compliments — no
ego."

10. NEL
• The interesting thing about a character like Nel is that
we have to dig a little deeper with her.
• In the novel, Nel is seen as normal person.
• She is very traditional and conservative and therefore
stayed in the Bottom her whole life.
• Nel's "me-ness ," the qualities she vowed to hold onto
forever, begins to erode when she marries Jude.
• She hopes that Jude's dreams will become hers.
• She had looked for someone else to design her life and
define her dreams; without Jude and Sula, she is
spiritless and lost.

11. COMPARISON BETWEEN SULA &
NEL
SULA
• Abnormal
• modern and liberal
• The women of the Bottom hate
Sula
• OPTIMISTIC
• depended upon Nel for sturdiness
and comfort
NEL
• Normal
• traditional and conservative
• NEL WAS LOVED SO MUCH BY
EVERYONE, EXCEPT HER DESTINY.
• PESSIMISTIC
• preferred the unpredictable nature of
her counterpart.

12. Cont…
• One of the keys to this novel is that friendship
overrides even marriage.
• Nel finally understands this truth years later when she
visits the graveside of her soul mate.
• Twenty-five years after Sula's death, Nel realizes that
she has wasted all of her opportunities for self-
discovery and happiness.

13. Cont…
• We learn much about Sula through her relationship with
Nel. As children, both girls experience "loneliness . . . so
profound [that] it intoxicated them" (1922.6), and they are
drawn to each other in profound ways.
• Nel and Sula are equally devoted to each other. As kids,
they cling to each other, learn from each other, and balance
each other out.
• Nel has stayed in the Bottom and gotten married and had
kids, just as she's expected to do, and Sula quickly sets out
on a life unconcerned with all of these expectations.
• She starts sleeping with married men, just as Hannah did,
and feels no remorse or concern when she starts sleeping
with Nel's husband, Jude.

14. Cont…
• we also have to remember that Sula grew up
in a household where this type of behavior
was considered normal.
• she is so secure in her friendship with Nel
and the fact that they have always shared
everything, including boyfriends, that she
doesn't think Nel will be angry.
• Her deepest affection is for her friend, and
she assumes that trumps everything else.
When it doesn't, Nel's reaction leaves her
confused and saddened.
• When Nel finds out about Sula and Jude,
what upsets her the most is her inability to
talk to the one person she would normally
turn to.

15. Cont…
• She convinces herself that it's Jude's absence from her
life that is most painful, but when she cries for Sula at
the end of the novel, it's clear that her relationship with
Sula was the most important in her life.
• Although the two spend years apart after the affair,
when Sula dies, her last thought is of her friend.
• She can't wait to tell Nel about death, and we realize
that despite what we might consider her great faults,
and despite all evidence to the contrary, Sula is loyal
and devoted to Nel until the day she dies.

16. Cont…
• We don't blame Nel for not forgiving Sula while she
was still alive, but her sadness at the end of the novel,
when it's too late for her to patch things up, says a lot
about regret.
• Nel's character is never fully resolved for us because
she doesn't get any closure. The novel is open-ended,
not providing us with a clear-cut resolution.
• It's up to us to decide what happens to Nel, and what
it has all meant, and we think that's a sign of great
literature.

17. CONCLUSION
The novel tempts the reader to apply the diametrically
opposed terms of "good and evil," "right and wrong" to
the characters and their actions, and yet simultaneously
shows why it is necessary to resist such temptation.
While exploring the ways in which people try to make
meaning of lives filled with conflicts over race, gender,
and simple idiosyncratic points of views, Sula resists
easy answers, demonstrating the ambiguity, beauty, and
terror of life, in both its triumphs and horrors.

22. PRESENTED TO
DR. Mrs. K. SANDHYA,
M.A., Ph.D., PGDFTE.
PG Dept. OF ENGLISH

23. PRESENTED BY
KIRANMAYEE
CHORAGUDI