During their conversation, Sula had asked Nel who was really bad, herself or Nel. Nel disregarded the question and that was the last time she would see her lifelong friend. After Sula's death, the town soon fell apart because they lacked the evil that pushed them to be good. .
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In Toni Morrison's Sula, the community defines their morality in contrast to Sula's immorality. The community's guidelines for good and bad behavior can be seen through society's reaction to Sula. Her return to the bottom after being away for 10 years was greeted the same as one would greet a pest, a plague, or an illness. The novel shows society's negative view of Sula when it describes how she returned to the Bottom "accompanied by a plague of robins" (89). .
Growing up, Sula had little guidance. There were always different people running in and out of her house. Her grandmother Eva often took in stray children and treated them as her own. Sula is often lonely, longing for a friend who will relate to and understand her. While attending primary school, Sula meets Nel whom she has been around for five years but was never able to talk to because Nel mother advised her to stay away from Sula because of her mother's promiscuous ways. Nel decided to befriend Sula when she discovered her sense of me-ness despite what her mother may have said. "Their meeting was fortunate, for it let them use each other to grow on" (52). The two girls became inseparable. They completed each other. In Sula's home there was no one to look to for guidance. Her mother was promiscuous and her grandmother didn't seem to really show that she cared much. Whenever things went wrong Sula looked to Nel to make them better. One day as Sula ran in the house she over heard a conversation that her mother was having with her friends. Sula heard her mother tell a friend "Sure you do, you love her just like I love Sula. I just don't like her.
