In Toni Morrisson's Sula, Nel and Sula, the main characters, shared an intimate and extremely close friendship as children. Nel and Sula became best friends immediately after they first met. They became so close because they shared the same interests and had lots in common, they found relief in each other's personality, and they shared a private intimacy that only few friends could have.
Nel and Sula had a friendship unequaled by any other in the book. They shared the same views; they both enjoyed living in a wild and chaotic atmosphere. They liked to hang out in pool halls, they beat up boys, and act like wild adolescents -- all this in a straight-laced town. Both of their families were similar as well, both of them had distant mothers and no fathers. Before they first met, they were lonely, both being an only child and having no one else to hang out with. "While Nel, an only child by the high silence of her mother's orderly house." (Pg. 51) "Sula, also an only child who shared both taste and speed." (Pg. 51-52) What also made Nel and Sula so close was that they found relief in each other's personalities. Nel idolized Sula for trying to break the social conformities of black people, and Sula enjoyed being idolized. They also shared a deep intimacy, which only best friends could possibly have. After they both contributed to the death of Chicken Little, they shared their secret forever. .
My childhood friendship with my two best friends Ian and Zach was also quite similar to the one between Nel and Sula. We always shared the same interests in sports and hobbies especially bicycle riding. Almost every weekend we would go bike riding in downtown Monterey on Alvarado St. or in Salinas, traveling from one destination to another like puzzled tourists. Unlike Nel and Sula, we didn't find comfort in each other's personality, but our personalities were more or less similar. Zach and I were the funnier of the three and we never took anything seriously.
