As they reach and achieve maturity, the differences in the girls’ responses to the pressure to conform to the norms of their community separate them and split their bond, which is not reconciled until the end of the novel. Sula confronts issues of loyalty, family, assimilation, innocence, gender, and sexuality, but is at its heart an examination of the priorities that determine the character, quality, and relationships of a woman’s lifetime. SYNOPSIS Part I Eva Peace is Sula’s grandmother. Eva marries young and has three children, but after five years of marriage, her husband leaves. Her children are Hannah, Pearl, and Plum. The baby boy, Plum, quit having bowel movements as a baby at a time when Eva had no food left. Eva uses the last of her lard to lubricate her finger to unclog his bowels. This experience brings her to the realization that she has to do something drastic to get food for her children. Rekus is Sula’s father. Described as a laughing man, he dies when Sula is three years old, leaving both Hannah and Sula alone. Sula grows up without a father and this childhood loneliness provides part of the basis for her friendship with Nel. Rekus is really significant only because he is absent and therefore the Peace house is comprised mostly of women. Reverend Deal Nel Wright is the daughter of Helene and Wiley Wright. As a child Nel resolves to leave Medallion and travel, but her trip to New Orleans for Cecil’s funeral is the only time she ever leaves Medallion. Nel is changed by her trip to her greatgrandmother’s funeral. Her great-grandmother dies before they arrive. This trip is symbolic and sets up a frame for how the rest of the journeys in the story will work. It also sets up the dichotomies between North and South, life and death, truth and lies, and mothers and daughters.

Interestingly, because there is some tangible presence to blame for all of their trials, the people of the Bottom are kinder and more compassionate toward each other after Sula’s return. Sula is misunderstood. She is a woman who is sexually, psychologically, and culturally liberated in a time and space where there is no place for a free woman. Even sexuality is for her not an act of union, but of self-affirmation. She does not need the traditional markers—wife, mother, lover—to define herself.When Sula is dying, Nel comes to visit her. The visit allows Nel to feel superior and to act as if her motives are selfless. She gets Sula’s medicine from the drugstore and then the two old friends talk about their lives. Sula stresses that even though she is dying alone, it is her choice that she does so— that freedom is not about escaping the inevitability of death but embracing that reality and fashioning it on her own terms. Sula makes a final speech to Nel about the need for breaking down oppositions and categories, something she has tried to do with her life. Then Sula asks Nel why she is so certain of her position as the good one, the right one, a question Nel is not able to answer. Sula dies and her first thought after realizing that she is dead is that she wants to share the experience with Nel. “1941” Nel has a brief relationship with a bartender at a hotel in Medallion, but the tryst does not develop into anything lasting. Betty (Teapot’s Mamma) Nel is supposedly the good member of the Nel and Sula partnership. The way that she is raised causes her to lose sight of her dreams of being her own person, traveling, and of having a self-defined identity. Together, Sula and Nel have a complete, well-rounded life. They lost parts of themselves when they lost each other. Nurse Hannah begins this chapter by asking her mother the question Eva finds so disturbing. Hannah asks Eva whether she ever loved her children. Eva is offended by the question and Hannah never gets the response she desires. Eva sees love as a pragmatic thing that you do, while Hannah wonders about Eva’s feelings, which remain largely hidden and mysterious. Then Hannah asks Eva why she killed Plum. Eva tries to explain that Plum’s addiction after the war had so impaired him that he is no longer able to function as an adult. As such, Eva feels that she had no choice but to relieve the man’s suffering by ending his life. OVER 15 FUN PHRASES TO ENJOY: Talking Bing has over 15 fun phrases to delight and entertain fans! ‘Hi, I’m Bing! What’s your name?’ Simply press Bing’s button to hear him talk and giggle.

Jake Freeman is one of the boys that Nel remembers as being beautiful in 1921. Jake has a brother, Paul Freeman. John L. The otherwise undistinguished Nathan brings food to Sula when she is ill and near to death. He also gets her medicine and is the only one willing to care for her while she is an invalid. Nathan finds Sula’s body after her death. He knows she is dead because her mouth is open. Nel Wright Plum is Eva’s youngest child. Eva’s behavior toward Plum represents the extent of a mother’s love. As a child, Plum suffers from severe constipation. Eva uses the last bit of food she has to soften her fingers as she inserts them in his rectum to physically remove the hard stools from his bowels. As Helene and Nel board the train for New Orleans and Helene’s grandmother’s funeral, the conductor questions Helene for walking through the white car. Although he is rude and abusive, Helene smiles at him. Nel sees her mother differently after that smile. Cora

Nel imagines her pain as a gray ball of fur that follows her, just out of sight. Its presence frightens her but becomes the defining reality of her life. Rather than moving beyond her loss, Nel chooses to try to freeze her life and to cling to the gray remains of the part of her life that has passed. “1939”