Sula Chain Of Motherhood

Taylor Koch
2/6/12
Multicultural Lit. Gaic4Ok~ The Chain of Motherhood One of the main themes in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula is the strong influence of family and friends. The main characters of the novel are Sula Peace and Nel Wright; both of these characters come from completely opposite types of families. Sula and Nel never wanted to be like their mothers, but their mothers influence them so much that they turn into exactly what their mothers are like. Eva Peace was a very independent woman, and she even lost her leg so she could feed her family, but she never really connected emotionally with her children. This caused her daughter Hannah to not know how to love Sula. “Sure you do. You love her, like I love Sula. I just
don’t like her. That’s the difference,” (57). In that quote you can tell that Hannah hasn’t experienced maternal love, and because of that Sula doesn’t know how to love. When Sula hears Hannah say that she doesn’t like her Sula is devastated, and this causes her to grow up thinking that she doesn’t need to be loved by anyone. As Sula grows up she becomes very promiscuous but never falling in love, because she believed that she doesn’t need anyone in her life.
Sula inherited this from her mother who had the same views. Sula lives in many parts of the country, and does whatever she wants never settling down. When Sula meets Ajax she thinks it will be just another one night stand, but then she falls deeply in love with him. Then after sometime Ajax leaves her and Sula is devastated. “…And if I didn’t even know his name, then there is nothing I did know and have known nothing ever at all since the one thing I wanted was to know his name so how could he help but leave me since he was making love to a woman who didn’t even know his name,”(136). When Sula finds Ajax driver’s license she realizes that she never actually knew his real name, so she felt that their relationship was a lie. Because Sula is such an independent woman she wanted to pretend that the whole relationship wasn’t
real. Helene Wright was raised by her grandmother, because her own mother was a prostitute.
She is very controlling woman and has many values and morals, because she wants to prove she is nothing like her mother. Helene teaches her daughter her same beliefs and values, and she often comes on a little strong. These causes Nel to want to rebel from her mother and to be nothing like her. “The trip, perhaps, or her new found me-ness, gave her the strength to cultivate a friend in spite of her mother,” (29). Nel mainly starts to spend time with Sula, because she knows her mother would not approve. After Helene’s grandmother’s funeral Nel sees how her mother acted and she is afraid that she’ll be like her mother. “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me,” (28). In this quote you can tell how desperate Nell wants her own identity that she creates not her
mother. When Jude cheats on Sula the readers really can see a lot of how their mothers have influenced the characters. Nel reacts how her mother would have by denying that it happened at first, and thinking there was some explanation. “I just stood there seeing it and smiling, because maybe there was some explanation, something important that I did not know that would of made it alright,”(105). She reacts this way, because she cannot face the truth that her best friend has ruined her marriage. When Sula was a child her mother would always have casual sex with married men, so Sula never thought it was wrong when she slept with Jude. “She had no thought at all of causing Nel pain when she bedded down with Jude. They had always shared the affection of other people…Marriage, apparently, had changed all that, but having had no intimate knowledge of marriage…, she was ill prepared for the possessiveness of the one person she felt close to,”(119). Sula had no empathy to why Nel was so upset, because she couldn’t understand the way marriage worked. After Nel graduates from high school she marries Jude, and she becomes more and more like her mother. “Her parents had succeeded in rubbing down to a dull glow any sparkle or splutter she had,” (83). In this quote you can see that after years of her mother telling her what to do she lost her self and was molded into a “respectful young lady.” Especially after Jude leaves Nel she really clings to acting like her mother. “Now Nel belonged to the town and all of its ways. She had given her self over to them, and the flick of their tongues would drive her back into her little dry corner where she would cling to her spittle high above the breath of the snake and the fall,”(120). After Nel and Sula stop being friends she starts to lose herself, and when she doesn’t have Sula she starts acting like the rest of the town. Toni Morrison does an excellent job of showing the readers how all kinds of mothers can impact someone. Even mothers who were never in their daughter’s lives like Rochelle can deeply affect their lives. Both of characters had no desire to grow up to be like their mothers, but sub consciously it happened. Overall, Sula and Nel are almost like updated- better versions of their mothers, because of what they have been through.