Identity In Sula

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were only truly individuals when they were joined as one allows them to merge once again.
Morrison portrays Sula and Nel as binary opposites at the beginning of the novel. In our first view of Nel she is as conventional and conforming as a young lady can be: Under Helene's hand the girl became obedient and polite. Her mother calmed any enthusiasms that Nel showed until she drove her daughter's imagination underground. (p.18) In this passage Nel is merely an extension of her mother with no autonomy of her own. Helene's hand is the iron fist of authority from under which Nel cannot release herself. Morrison makes it clear here that Nel is a calm and unimaginative girl who conforms completely to her mother's strict orders. Sula, on the other hand, comes from a totally different background. She is her own person as she has "none of her mother's slackness" (p.29) and, unlike the "oppressive neatness"(p.29) of Nel's house, lives in a woolly house, where a pot of something was always ...

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their initial and subconscious desire to merge into one being. Morrison intimates, in these instances, that the two facets cannot thrive individually and hints that they will soon become one. This merger takes place most dramatically with Sula's accidental murder of Chicken Little. Looking back on this incident Nel recalls that: All these years she had been secretly proud of her calm, controlled behavior when Sula was uncontrollable, her compassion for Sula's frightened and shamed eyes. Now it seemed that what she had thought was maturity, serenity and compassion was only the tranquillity that follows a joyful stimulation. Just as the water closed peacefully over the turbulence of ...

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