Character Development in Toni Morrison's Sula
This paper examines character development in Toni Morrison's novel Sula, focusing on the contrasting upbringings and evolving identities of the two central characters, Nel and Sula. The analysis explores how their respective home environments, family dynamics, and shared traumatic experiences — particularly the accidental death of Chicken Little — shape their personalities and moral outlooks. The paper also considers supporting characters such as the Deweys and Shadrack as foils that illuminate the theme of personal identity within the African-American community of Bottom. Ultimately, the essay argues that Morrison uses these contrasts to demonstrate how one's self-perception and environment determine the trajectory of one's character.
- Introduction: Overview of Sula's themes and central characters
- Contrasting Home Environments and Their Symbolic Meanings: How Nel and Sula's homes reflect their characters
- The Death of Chicken Little and Its Moral Aftermath: Chicken Little's death and its effect on both girls
- The Role of Community and Personal Identity: The Deweys and Shadrack as identity foils
- Conclusion: Why Sula embodies the novel's central concerns
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What makes this paper effective
- It uses close textual analysis to connect specific plot events — such as the death of Chicken Little and the description of the two girls' homes — to broader thematic claims about identity and self-perception.
- It maintains a clear comparative structure throughout, consistently placing Nel and Sula in dialogue with each other to highlight how environment shapes character.
- It integrates supporting characters (the Deweys, Shadrack) as thematic foils, showing awareness of the novel's wider cast beyond just the two protagonists.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the technique of symbolic setting analysis — reading the physical spaces characters inhabit (Nel's orderly home versus Sula's chaotic household) as extensions of character and indicators of social possibility. This moves the argument beyond plot summary into literary interpretation.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with an introduction to the novel's context and central characters, then moves through a series of thematic paragraphs covering home environments, the mother-daughter dynamics affecting each girl, the pivotal Chicken Little episode, and the role of community identity. It closes by returning to the novel's title as a focal point, explaining why Sula — rather than Nel — embodies the novel's core concerns. The works cited section follows standard academic format.
Introduction
Toni Morrison's novel Sula presents readers with a complex story about African-American experiences in the early twentieth century, centered on two girls who navigate a series of formative events as they grow into adults. Sula — the protagonist — and her friend Nel struggle to understand their community and, through it, themselves: who they are and what attitude they should take toward life. Despite their genuine affection for each other, their contrasting backgrounds make it difficult for them to share the same values or aspirations.
It is very difficult for a young individual in the position of Nel or Sula to develop strength of character in an environment dominated by hardship, where most people are unable to sustain themselves. The two girls are united by their desire to follow their own ideals. Yet because each is so strongly shaped by her family, they cannot help but approach life differently. Morrison's Sula explores how upbringing, community, and self-perception converge to determine the kind of person one becomes.
Contrasting Home Environments and Their Symbolic Meanings
Nel's home is defined by order and conventional household standards, while Sula's home is characterized by unpredictability and unconventional arrangements. There is nothing certain about Sula's household: it is run by women during a period when women were broadly discriminated against, and it is constantly undergoing change. The two homes do more than reflect the personalities of their inhabitants — their physical conditions also indicate the opportunities each girl has to succeed in life. Nel's well-ordered home suggests stability and a clear path forward, while Sula's house, in a state of disrepair, hints at the instability and complexity of Sula's inner world.
This contrast also serves to illustrate the opacity of Sula's character. One cannot easily understand Sula, whereas Nel is more transparent and her motivations clearer. Sula plays a significant role in Nel's development by influencing her to question her mother's authority and expectations. Compared to Sula, Nel enjoys a degree of freedom and guidance that is meant to help her thrive within the social order. Sula is less privileged — her innocence is shattered early when her mother confesses that she does not actually like her. It is almost as though Sula is forced to reckon with intense emotional truths at a very young age, while Nel is still treated as a child and supported in her bid to become a productive member of society.
Sula practically offers Nel an escape from the rigid expectations of her upbringing. Unable to understand why her mother insists she behave in a particular way, Nel is drawn to Sula's freer existence. Over time, Nel comes to believe that the only path to a fulfilling life is to act according to her own rules, regardless of what those around her think. As Toni Morrison constructs it, this tension between external expectation and internal desire is at the heart of both girls' development.
The Death of Chicken Little and Its Moral Aftermath
Morrison appears to argue that a person's character is ultimately determined by how that person perceives herself. The moment when Sula accidentally causes Chicken Little's death is pivotal for her relationship with Nel and for the development of both girls' moral identities. While both are inclined to feel guilt over their involvement in the child's death, each processes that guilt very differently. Sula comes to believe that the accident was an expression of her own destructive nature — that immoral behavior is simply part of who she is. Nel, by contrast, gradually distances herself from the event and convinces herself that she bears no responsibility, a position her upbringing supports: she has been conditioned to believe she cannot truly err so long as she acts within the framework her mother has provided.
The relationship between Sula and Nel is unlike that of most childhood friendships. They feel connected not because they are alike but because they sense they complete each other. It is possible that Nel views Chicken Little's death as an unconscious opportunity to sever this bond — one that has always unsettled her because Sula's behavior so starkly contradicts everything her mother stands for. Whether Nel's sorrow stems from failing to act when Chicken Little died, or simply from the recognition that she failed to perform a socially sanctioned role, remains an open question that Morrison leaves deliberately unresolved. For more on how African-American literature engages themes of guilt and community, scholarly resources offer useful context.
Conclusion
The novel is called Sula because it is this character — not Nel — who undergoes the most complex development and who ultimately chooses to live by her own standards. Nel, despite her early impulse to resist social convention, ultimately cannot sustain that resistance and ends up closely resembling her mother: a woman shaped by and confined within the expectations of her community. She begins with tendencies toward independence but never fully breaks free, remaining what might be called a "standard" African-American woman of the early twentieth century.
Chicken Little's death has a lasting and severe effect on both girls. It effectively ends their childhood, forcing each to abandon the innocence of girlhood and accept the weight of adult experience. Both Sula and Nel come to understand that they are no longer innocent or invulnerable after this event — but what they do with that understanding diverges profoundly, and it is that divergence which gives Morrison's novel its enduring power.
Works Cited
Dubey, Madhu. Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic. Indiana University Press, 1994.
Mitchell, Angelyn. Within the Circle: An Anthology of African-American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present. Duke University Press, 1994.
Morrison, Toni. Sula. Vintage International, 2004.
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