Book Sula and Nel Comparison

In the novel Sula, Morrison portrays a correlation between the two main characters Sula and Nel. In the novel, Nel is seen as normal compared to Sula, who is seen as abnormal. When the novel begins, these two characters were young, but when the novel ends, these two characters were old. Despite the fact that Sula sleeps with Nel’s husband Jude, Nel and Sula were the best of friends.

In the Bottom, a normal person will get married and have children. That normal person is Nel. Nel is a mother and a wife to Jude, who abandoned her and the children. She is very traditional and conservative and therefore stayed in the Bottom her whole life. During an incident when she was younger, she and Sula was playing with a boy named Chicken Little. Chicken Little drowned in the water holding Sula’s hand. Afterwards, Nel is able to feel guilt during his funeral and wanted to cry. As Nel grew older, she was very concerned with people’s perception. She even gets into an argument with Sula because of it. In the end of the novel, Nel is an old woman and is very much alive.

Sula and Nel had almost nothing in common by the time Sula comes back from college. Sula is seen as abnormal and does not care about what anyone thinks. Such of an example is when Sula sleeps with her best friend’s husband, Jude. In an argument, she explains that it does not matter to anyone except Nel. Compared to Nel, Sula is very modern and liberal, she acts the way she wants to act. For example, she breaks away from the traditional style of having a husband and children; instead she goes sleeping around with men in town. In the end of the novel, Sula is on her death bed. She turns out to be very sick probably from a sexually transmitted disease and is waiting for death. As she takes her last breathe, she smiles and enjoys it. Sula in comparison to Nel does not have a conscience, she does not feel guilt what so ever and is very interested in what happens when people die. Two examples are when Chicken Little drowns by holding Sula’s hand and when her mother Hannah is being burned to death and she is just watching to see what happens.