The Thin Line between Good and Evil

In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, one of the largest themes is an illustration of good versus evil. Sula, the main character of the novel, apparently portrays an evil character throughout the novel. The root of this theme goes back to her childhood. In fact, her family structure forms the duality- good and evil- in Sula’s personality. Sula’s acts are disgraceful out of context, but in the context of her losses and lack of relationships, her acts become understandable and explainable.

Sula’s attitude is excusable by analyzing her strained relationship with the family. Her mother, Hanna, is a widow who often neglects her daughter. Sula had once heard her mother admits that she does not like her, “… I love Sula. I just don’t like her” (57). Later, she watches Hannah dancing in the fire; she feels satisfaction. In Sula’s point of view, the fire is representative of the hell that her mother deserves for not liking her own daughter. The intensity of her rage is a perpetual point of confusion for her grandmother. Eva lambasts her: “You watched your own mamma. You crazy roach! You the one should have been burnt!” (93). Without understanding and experiencing the neglect that Sula felt, it is easy for her grandmother to antagonize her and render her one-dimensionally evil. But Eva is not without her flaws either. Sula also witnesses Eva’s firsthand cruelty to her own son Plum. When Plum returns home as a WWI veteran, Eva watches him slowly succumb to drug addiction. Not bearing to witness his bitter situation, Eva deliberately kills him to ultimately save him from the inevitable suffering from the drug addiction. Because Sula does not see the context behind Eva’s actions, she resolves to send her grandmother to an old people’s home—a socially unforgivable sin for the black community of that time: “White people didn’t fret about putting their old ones away. It took a lot for black people to let them go, and even if somebody was old and alone, …” (164). Again, Sula responds to Eva’s cruelty like her grandmother does to Plum. In fact, Sula takes her evil model from her grandmother. Though their actions prove that their characters are multi-dimensional, they cast assumptions and render one another wholly evil.

Sula’s betrayal of her best friend Nel is also understandable by analyzing her family root. Sula’s sleeping with Jude showcases the evil side of Sula’s personality. Sula’s upbringing plays a huge role in her actions; her mother and grandmother also slept with whomever they wished to sleep with. Though her intention was not to hurt Nel, her uncontrolled actions did ultimately hurt her friend. Although it was not deliberately, but out of context and in the people’s point of view is an incarnation of evil. Although Sula alone is manifested as the center of showing evil in the story, the other characters also are equally flawed. On one hot summer afternoon, the two adolescent girls are traveling close to the river when Chicken Little (a five-year-old neighborhood boy) approaches them. Sula picks him up by his hands and swings him outward then around and around. Suddenly, she loses her grip and Chicken Little, “he slipped from her hands and sailed away out over the water they could still hear his bubbly laughter” (61). After this terrible event, Nel tries to console Sula. It seems to the reader Sula is sinful, but the last chapter decodes that the one who is evil is Nel. In the last pages of the book, Nel reveals her inner personality to the reader by asking herself, “Why didn’t I feel bad when it happened? How come it felt so good to see him fall?” (170). Through this interaction, the reader can see that though Nel did not harm the little boy, her inner satisfaction with the situation is incredibly flawed. Also, a little before Sula’s death, Morrison prepares her reader to create doubt in judging Sula fairly when she asks Nel, “About who was good? How you know it was you?” (146). After Chicken Little death, Sula feels guilty, while Nel has no remorse for Chicken Little death, “… tranquility that follows a joyful stimulation” (170).

In her beautifully-crafted novel, Morrison dissects human relationships and their grappling with defining the blurred line that exists between good and evil. In all circumstances, evil actions become less demonic and more understandable when the context of the situation and the backgrounds of the characters are involved. Though Sula alone is viewed as the centerpiece of defining evil in the novel, it is clear that all of the characters are equally flawed. 

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York. Plume. 1982.