Sula

            The novel Sula written by Toni Morrison is structured around the development of friendship. It talks of love, understanding, commitment, betrayal, and coming to the reality of life on hand. Through out the novel Sula is view as being evil for leaving the Bottom and trying to make a change in her life; while Nel is view as conforming to the life of a prim and proper woman which is expected in the community. I will talk about the difference in the two characters and why Sula is not evil, but how Nel is actually the evil figure in the book. .
             Sula's character in the novel is seen as being very dark, emotional and defined in a sense of evil. As a child she is viewed by the community as being very strange, mysterious, and very different from those all around her. Much of her perspective on life as an adult is shaped my two major events during her child: the drowning of Chicken Little, which she blames her self whole- heartily, and overhearing her mother denies liking her child. Sula grows up feeling very excluded, guilty and very much unloved. The only true joy that Sula is able to have in her life starts when she and Nel become best friends. The two were complete complements of each others personality and are inseparable.
             As Sula grows up she develops the need for independence and a life without any real commitments. Sula in the novel, only cross this line two different time. First, when she falls in love with Ajax by devoting herself to him but only running him away from her. The second time is her devastating end of friendship with Nel, after she feels betrayed when Nel marries Jude and actually ruins it by sleeping with him. .
             After Sula returns to the Bottom after being gone for ten years, all she encounters in hate and ignorance of the community. Everything that goes wrong in the Bottom is seen as Sula's fault because she had left and changed herself. After encountering all the episodes Sula had in the community and having her friendship with Nel fail; the single most important person in her life, Sula feels totally isolated.