I’ve heard that Toni Morrison is a “love or hate” kind of author. Her simplistic writing style can either win people over or deter them from reading any other piece of her work. Halfway through Sula, I’m not convinced either way. I do enjoy the drama and characterization, but I find myself wondering why on earth people are burning to death and how it could have happened so suddenly. Despite my personal woes with Sula, I have found an interesting theme throughout Part One of the novel: Choice.
Life up in the Bottom of Medallion is not very glamorous. For years, all of the black families that live there have struggled to make ends meet. Though their circumstances are not surprising, their experiences lead to an age-old question: Do we determine our own futures or are they determined for us by society, destiny, or some other unknown force? The choice of the families of the Bottom is maybe not to change their paths, but to make the most of them. In some cases, that’s all they can do.
On a deeper level, the characters in Sula make drastic decisions throughout their histories. There are the older women, Helene’s mother and Eva,who make drastically different choices regarding their children. Helene’s mother is distant and abandon’s her daughter early in her life. Eva, on the other hand, abandons her children for a short time only to return and a build a life for them that previously seemed dismal. The ideas of sacrifice and pride are put at odds with each other with these matriarchal figures in the text.
Hannah, Sula’s mother, and Helene, Nel’s mother are also very contrasted characters. Helene runs an ordered household. Dirt and grime bother her and she is supremely happy that she only has to see her husband every once in a while. Hannah on the other hand, is more of a free spirit. Her house is the epitome of busy with tenants, stray children, and her own mother and daughter. She frequently has lovers and craves the consistent company of men. Their choices affect their families and as Part One draws to a close, it seems as though Nel and Sula’s personalities and futures have been chosen for them by their upbringings.
Nel and Sula’s decision to become friends might just be the most important choice they ever make. With all that is sure to come in part two of the book, the choices in their adult life will strongly affect their lives and those around them. Thinking of my own struggle with Toni Morrison, I choose to keep reading and find out the fate of the two heroines.
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