'Sula' by Toni Morrison | Notes on Girlhood, Friendship, and the Patriarchy
Book Reflection
When I began reading Toni Morrison’s Sula, I expected a story about friendship, womanhood, motherhood, and community. What I didn’t expect was how deeply I would feel for these characters and how all of these characters and the setting of the book were uncomfortably relatable. As I read, I would constantly whisper dang or oh my God. Because the impact and heartbreak of this novel was deeply reciprocated. I truly can’t put into words all of the thoughts, feelings, and depth I felt and that this book was.
This is definitely the type of book that slowly moves you to making better decisions and trying to be a better person over the course of weeks, months, years. I will be feeling the impact of this book for a long time.
Not only did men leave and children grow up and die, but even the misery didn’t last. One day she wouldn’t even have that. This very grief that had twisted her into a curve on the floor and flayed her would be gone. She would lose that too. (Sula, 108)
In Sula, Morrison tells the story about two women from their childhood all the way up to their adulthood. One being Nel, who has grown up in a quiet household as an only child and Sula, an only child that grows up in a confusing and loud household.
There were a few topics that really stuck with me while reading it. The most obvious being Morrison’s dealing with good vs evil and the theme surrounding becoming like the environments you grew up in.
“Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don’t get nothing for it.” (Sula, 145)
Another being the theme and discussion on a person living outside of the society-created box. Sula Peace has decided to live outside of the patriarchy’s suffocating boundaries. To an extent I relate to her: wanting to go anywhere I want, do anything I want, and refuse to serve anyone or anything. But I also want to be kind, have boundaries on what I do, and not be alone. Yet it’s hard to be both. Being a rebel comes with a cost, a cost to which Sula responds to by saying “My lonely is mine. Now your lonely is someone else’s. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain’t that something? A secondhand lonely,” (Sula, 143). However, Sula is honestly just as lonely — if not less lonely — than the women that have decided to live within the rules, get married, and have kids.
I feel as though this is such an accurate portrayal of so many friendships. The heartbreak, the arguing, and the sheer joy and intimacy that all go on in a friendship. Morrison did a phenomenal job showing what the falling out of a friendship both looks and feels like. The end of a friendship, where it feels like you no longer think the same things, feel the same way, or can talk to each other like you used to be able to.
But the topic that and quote that really stood out to me was both the complexity of girlhood/womanhood and how it is code-switched in the male gaze. This book truly covers the loneliness of women, the self-inflicted and society-inflicted rules, and so much more. There are also instances in the book that truly captures what womanhood and girlhood feels like in the unwanted male-gaze. It’s a constant struggle of feeling as though you have to harm yourself, code-switch, and put a mean/angry persona on for men to leave you alone, not harass you, and not degrade you. For, “if I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?” (Sula, 55)
Holding the knife in her right hand, she pulled the slate towards her and pressed her left forefinger down hard on its edge. Her aim was determined but inaccurate. She slashed off only the tip of her finger. The four boys stared open-mouthed at the wound and the scrap of flesh, like a button mushroom, curling in the cherry blood that ran into the corners of the slate.
Sula raised her eyes to them. Her voice was quiet, “If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?” (Sula, 55)
I think this book is a book to be read alone. It’s too raw, too confessional, and too relatable to the human experience that you need to be by yourself to devour it. As you read you will feel the need to express your thoughts about what you’re reading to somebody. Yet, the idea of having someone else witness your thoughts while reading it feels skin-crawling.
-Yulani S.🕯