According to Patricia Hill Collins, mothers of the African American decent try to provide the most sacred and strongest protection for their daughters and try to teach their daughters to love themselves for who they truly are in order to survive in the patriarchal society: "African-American mothers try to protect their daughters from the dangers that lie ahead by offering them a sense of their own unique self-worth" (Collins 127)
However, this sense of protection and sense of unique self-worth are missing within the mother/daughter relationships that are displayed in Sula. The lack of protection and support may be lead to the experience of African Americans have gotten over the past years. .
The novel Sula illustrates how important the role of a mother is and can be. Nel Wright's mother Helene is trying to protect Nel but the ways in which she goes about it is not so encouraging which then hinders the development of Nel's self-worth. Being a mother was all the Helene has ever wished for, the relationship with her daughter is complicated. When look at closely, the problem might be the fact that Helene herself struggled in her relationship with her own mother since she was ashamed of her mother's occupation as a prostitute. Helene feels that her family is "somehow flawed" (Morrison 20). Helene finally escapes her Creole family, which she views as shameful, in her marriage to Willey Wright who brings her to the town Medallion. The Wright family enjoys living their life following the town's standards and Helene stands in complete opposition to her mother when she becomes highly conservative and religious. I would suggest that the name Morrison chooses for this family indicates that the (W)rights always do the "right" things. When Nel, Helene's daughter is born, it is "more comfort and purpose than she [Helene] ever hoped to find in her life" (Morrison 18).