Sula Group Project

Today in class our group did a presentation on the novel Sula by Toni Morrison. It was an interesting novel that lent itself to the analysis of binaries. After our initial group meeting we decided to meet again and the best means to do that turned out to be through a chat. We decided to focus on the binaries present in the novel and chose to analyze the relationships between:

1)     The Valley and the Bottom

2)     Nel and Sula

3)     The Traditional and Non-traditional gender roles in Medallion

4)     Medallion before and after Sula

Because there were eight of us in the group it worked out well and we paired off according to binaries. Ashly and I worked on the binary represented in Nel and Sula’s relationship. I came up with a few questions to pose to the class about their friendship. I was especially interested in the reason why Sula and Nel’s relationship fractured. From the very beginning Sula and Nel shared a relationship that was eerily close. They seemed to be one person but as they got older their relationship was no longer the same. One could say that Sula and Nel shared a solidarity as women, but when Nel “separated” herself from Sula by marrying Jude that solidarity was broken. I looked at this question through Simon de Beauvoir’s point of view and saw how the institution of marriage and the ideologies of monogamy were what led to the fracture of Nel and Sula’s relationship. As Simon de Beauvoir stated the reason that Nel and Sula no longer share that unity as women is because ““The bond that unites (women) to her oppressors is not comparable to any other. Male and female stand opposed within a primordial Mitsein and woman has not broken it. The couple is a fundamental unity with its two halves riveted together, and the cleavage of society along the line of sex is impossible.” (The Second Sex). The reason that Nel and Sula can no longer enjoy their solidarity as women is because Nel is biologically linked to Jude through their children. After Jude leaves her she mourns the loss because to her Jude was the one who knew her. I did write a few more questions in case my initial question didn’t work out among them were:

Question: According Beauvoir men define women in relation to themselves and in their eyes women are just sexual beings. If this is the case then why is there such a difference between the way the community sees Nel and Sula?

Question: Nel’s identity is wrapped up in being a wife she and Jude are “one” using this quote how does Sula define herself? How does this make her radical?  Is she anti essentialist? (Barker 217)

Overall I think our group worked very well together and everyone put in an effort to make it work ou,t and in the end it did =)