It gave her otherwise plain face a broken excitement and blue- blade threat like the keloid scar of the razored man who sometimes played checkers with her grandmother." (52-53) This birthmark is a mark of evil for some critics while others associate it with Sula's sensuality. But the fact remains that such a mark combined with a disturbingly defiant behavior turned Sula into a dark figure, not worthy of reader's compassion. It is felt that this inscription suggested that there was something menacing about her as Mae G. Henderson comments: "[Sula's birthmark] is a mark of nativity -- a biological rather than cultural inscription, appropriate in this instance because it functions to mark her as a 'naturally' inferior female within the black community" (27).

Where evil is concerned, Sula shares some traits with Cain. Cain was beaten as Genesis informs and he lived with a blackened face. There is some connection between this black face of Cain and Sula's black birthmark. Similarly when near the end, Sula is questioned by her friend as to why she slept with her husband, she replies: "Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it" (144-45). This is parallel to what Cain said when questioned in similar manner: "I am not my brother's keeper." Sula is not a typical black woman by any standard. She moves out of Bottom for ten long years and comes back armed with a degree. Sula seals her fate with such actions as others views her as an outcast. She further confirms her non-conformist behavior when she refuses to settle down and raise a family. Sula is not someone Bottom can identify with as she defiantly opposes all efforts by others to contain her rather outrageous behavior. She argues with the grandmother Eva when she speaks on behalf of the community:

don't want to make somebody else. I want to make myself."

Selfish. Ain't no woman got no business floatin' around without no man."

You did."

Not by choice."

Mamma did."

Not by choice, I said. It...

She is shallow in the sense that she can only see what is happening in the present and cannot connect it with long-term implications. For example when Nel catches her with her husband, Sula can only see that she is in trouble but refuses to comprehend Nel's shock, disbelief and grief. Sula was perceived as a powerful witch as "Sula, the errant erotic force who breaks up people's marriages and destroys friendships, reminds the people of the Bottom of their own lack of bottom" (Karin Luisa Badt: 571). Christian concurs: "Since she [Sula] does not fit the image of mother, the loose woman, or the lady- wife... The community relegates her to their other category for woman, that of the witch, the evil conjure woman who is a part of the evil forces of Nature" (54). The townspeople hated her but couldn't do much about her so they decided to leave her alone while protecting themselves from her evil influence with the help of rituals: "... they laid broomsticks across their doors at night and sprinkled salt on porch steps. But aside from one or two unsuccessful efforts to collect the dust from her footsteps, they did nothing to harm her. As always the black people looked at evil stony-eyed and let it run" (113)