Literature and Philosphy

            Throughout my 18 years of being alive I have come to the conclusion that there are only a few things in life that people cannot live without. Friends and family are the two most important and influential groups of people that help society survive. Living without any family members is an extremely hard task. It is a lot easier, however, to live without family if one can count on their friends to help them survive. Friends are a necessity in life. In Toni Morrison's novel, Sula, Sula and Nel did not have the best family situations but they had each other. Their friendship was more than enough to help them survive their teenage years.
             Sula and Nel were best friends. They both had difficult home lives but whenever they were together they were able to forget their troubles. Within each other they found a sense of security, love and comfort. "So when they met, first in those chocolate halls and next through the ropes of the swing, they felt the ease and comfort of old friends" (Morrison 52). When they first met they felt as if they had been friends forever, it was as if they were meant to be friends forever, soul mates never to be separated. They were similar because they struggled with the fact they were black females whom everyone else looked down upon.
             Throughout their upbringing, Nel and Sula influenced each others lives. "They found relief in each other's personality" (53). Together they made the ideal human being. One's faults were the other's strength and together they were perfect. An example of this appears when Sula and Nel rearrange their route home from school so the boys do not pick on them. Individually they are two weak to stand up to the boys. When one of them gets the strength to stand up to the boys so does the other. Nel was scared to go on the route the boys were on. That was until Sula got the courage to say "Let's us go on home the shortest way" (54). Together the two could conquer anything, especially fighting those boys.