When Sula returns to the bottom, it was marked by a plague of robins. She ends up in a confrontation with her grandmother (Eva Peace), and puts her into a nursing home. People of the bottom begin to look down on Sula because of this. The next incident that occurs is, Sula sleeps with Nel's husband , ending their friendship. Resident of the bottom , now begin to view Sula as evil. Her evil is traced by the plague of robins, sending her grandmother to a nursing home, watching her mother burn, and sleeping with Nel's husband. Nel feels the same way about Sula as the townspeople. After the dispute, Nel visits Sula while she was sick in 1940. Sula does not apologize, and no regrets. Sula even goes as far as to suggest that Nel does not know good from evil. That she is right , and that Nel is the wrong one for abandoning her best friend. Soon after Nel leaves, Sula dies. Sula's last thoughts before dying is to tell Nel that death does not hurt. People rejoice after the death of Sula, but her death is actually a terrible thing. While Sula was alive, the townspeople took extra care of their families to spite Sula. After her death, they returned to their old ways of neglecting their families.
Twenty five years after Sulas death , the community changed drastically. Blacks now lived in the valley and whites in the "bottom". Nel goes to visit Eva in the nursing home, and Eva cannot distinguish between Nel , and Sula. She calls them the " same person " . Nel then begins to realize how close her and Sula were. She begins to wonder if Sula was really evil, or just misunderstood.
The main theme in the story is good vs. evil. Sula, although she is a social outcast, she is the heroine of the story (Rhodes 59). Morrison was trying to express that " evil is as useful as good is" (Rhodes 56). Morrison states that evil is not an alien force, but a different force (Otten 28). Sula was seen as evil, but she lived a peaceful life.
