Cultural Differences Between Sula And Nel

Responding to a scolding from Eva concerning marriage and children, Sula declares, "I don't want to make somebody else. I want to make myself,"—a statement which illustrates her desire to generate her own identity and control her own life (Morrison, 92). When Sula and her friend Nel were young, they were “in [the] safe harbor of each other's company [where] they could afford to abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their own perceptions of things”, an attitude which Sula maintains into adulthood (Morrison, 55). While Nel steps back into the line of conformity as they age, Sula surges forward, acting according to her own ideas of the world. This mentality causes many problems for Sula throughout her life, problems that she accepts
head on. Society’s pressure to get married and have children is still prevalent even in the mid 1900’s, and her refusal to obey attracts criticism even from her best friend Nel. However, Sula feels that life as a mother is a shallow one, and critiques the conventional choices of women; “the narrower their lives, the wider their hips (Morrison, 121)”. She considers those with wider hips—an indicator of motherhood—to lead less meaningful lives than those who don’t have children. Nel and Sula’s friendship takes an even further turn for the worst when Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband Jude with no indication of any remorse.
Most sociologists agree that “the differences in roles and behaviors of men and women are social and cultural in origin,” ( Wisemen, 7) and while Sula and Nel both grew up in the Bottom, they were raised in very different types of American
households. Sula is raised in a new breed of American family, where this kind of behavior is considered normal, and where men are predominantly absent in important roles.
Nel on the other hand, is raised in the more traditional family dynamic, where a husband and children are of upmost importance. The divergence in Nel and Sula’s relationship is directly related to the diverging values in American culture, where some families began to adapt progressively with the new freedoms allowed to women, and where some clung to the traditional Victorian Era like ideals that were beginning to crumble. While it may seem wrong what Sula did, she was raised that such behavior is normal, and under the—perhaps misguided—illusion that Nel should value their friendship above any man. Sula remains true to herself, even when Nel confronts her on her death bed—when Sula has absolutely nothing and no one—and asks what these life decisions have given her. Sula replies “Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me” (Morrison, 143). In Sula’s dying thought it is shown truly how much she cares for her friend and their friendship, which further illustrates how much she gave up in order to remain independent and devoted to her
values.
In both novels, the leading women experience constant restrictions based upon their gender and the supposed roles they must align to in order to be considered adequate members of society. Their rage and anger against these oppressive social and gender norms manifests itself in different ways. In Sula’s case, she is able to embody the rage herself; while Jane’s anger takes the form of Bertha Mason. Rochester’s first wife is a “mosterous incarnation of the passionate, angry aspects of the self that Jane must subdue in order to escape from a series of prison-like rooms” (Stein, 127). This division of self—where Jane’s subconscious feelings about the feminine model are separate from herself—demonstrate the difference between the time periods. In the Victorian Era, Jane’s feminist ideals must be hidden and locked away; while Sula living in the 20th century, is able to stand with and personify her objections as a whole being. However, each representation is met with an equally fierce wave of backlash by their societies. Bertha Mason is described as beastly, vampiric, and mad—and Sula is branded similarly—witchy, evil, and demonic. Sula becomes the personification of subversion through