The Pwer of Love in Toni Morrison's Sula

Shadrack, a resident of the Bottom, fought in WWI. He returns a shattered m

an, unable to accept the complexities of the world; he lives on the outskirts of town, attempting to create order in his life. One of his methods involves compartmentalizing his fear of death in a ritual he invents and names National Suicide Day. The town is at first wary of him and his ritual, then, over time, unthinkingly accepts him. Meanwhile, the families of the children Nel and Sula are contrasted. Nel and Sula are perfect complements of each other. They both grow up in completely different households and encounter different raisings by their mothers. Nel's mother did what she could to drive "her daughter's imagination underground (Morrison 18)," raising her to be polite and obedient. Nel is a calm and well-behaved girl who has no choice but to conform to her mother's wishes. Sula on the other hand grows up in a "wooly house, where a pot of something was always cooking on the stove; where the mother, Hannah, never scolded or gave directions; where all sorts of people dropped in; where newspapers were stacked in the hallway, and dirty dishes left for hours at a time in the sink, and where a one legged grandmother named Eva handed you goobers from deep inside her pockets or read you a dream (Morrison 29)." Nel has an attraction to Sula's environment, which does not have "the oppressive neatness of her home (Morrison 29)." Likewise, Sula has an attraction to Nel's environment. When visiting Nel's house she would "sit on the red-velvet sofa for ten to twenty minutes at a time--still as dawn (Morrison 29)." Nel was raised in the image of her mother, whereas Sula has very few ties to her mother. The world of Sula must have seemed very odd and new to Nel, and likewise for Sula. They both had something that the other did not. This lack of something is at the core of the character of these girls. They come from opposite ends of a magnet. Nel is orderly; Sula is unsettled. The comfort each of them feels in the other's home is an indication of a common desire to be one. They each want to be immersed in the qualities of their counterpart. The one time in the book when they seem to have crossed each other’s boundaries was after the accidental death of Chicken Little caused by Sula. Nel admits to herself that she had blamed his death entirely on Sula and set herself up as the "good" half of the relationship. That moment when Sula and Nel interchanged personalities demonstrates this merger. "Their friendship was so close, they themselves had difficulty distinguishing one's thoughts from the other's (Morrison 83)." To Nel, "Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself (Morrison 95)." Nel goes to the cemetery and mourns at Sula's grave, calling out Sula's name in sadness.

Within the family, the power of love is evident. The Morrison characters are so strong that they risk creating dysfunctional families because they are seldom able to transfer their strength to the generations that follow them. Eva outlasts all of her children and grandchildren, with few of them understanding how she could have abandoned her three children for eighteen months, returned with enough money to take care of them for life, then casually burned one of them to death when he did not live up to her expectations. Years later, when her oldest daughter Hannah confronts Eva about Plum's death and asks if Eva ever loved her children or ever played with them, Eva's response is typical of the strong black woman: “I'm talkin' 'bout 18 and 95 when I set in that house five days with you and Pearl and Plum and three beets, you snake-eyed ungrateful hussy. What would I look like leapin' 'round that little room playin' with youngins with three beets to my name? . . . They wasn't no time. Not none. Soon as I got one day done here come a night. With you all coughin' and me watchin' so TB wouldn't take you off and if you was sleepin' quiet I thought, O Lord, the

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