Novels' Analytical Summaries: 'Sula' by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison
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INTRODUCTION

Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973) is a groundbreaking novel that explores friendship, community, race, gender, love, betrayal, and mortality in a Black neighborhood known as “the Bottom.” 

Written with Morrison’s signature blend of lyrical language and unflinching honesty, the novel examines how individuals are shaped by—and resist—the communities that define them.

This summary offers a chronological scene-by-scene breakdown of the novel while weaving in thematic analysis and selected quotes from Morrison’s text. 

It is also designed as a comprehensive, SEO-optimized resource for students, educators, and readers seeking an in-depth guide to Sula.

SHORT SUMMARY

Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel, Sula, stands as a landmark work of African American literature and a profound example of modernist fiction. The narrative is a powerful and lyrical exploration of the complexities of female friendship, the nature of good and evil, and the tension between individuality and community. The novel forgoes a linear plot in favor of a layered, impressionistic account of a small Ohio town and the lives of two women whose bond both defines and challenges their existence.

The story is set in the small, black community of Medallion, colloquially known as "the Bottom." The narrative is initially introduced through the lens of this community's history and its intricate social fabric. The central plot then develops through the childhood and young adulthood of two girls: Nel Wright and Sula Peace. Nel is presented as a character defined by her desire for stability and her acceptance of communal norms. She is the anchor of the narrative, representing the conventional path. 

In stark contrast, Sula is an unconventional and rebellious figure, possessing a defiant spirit and a profound disregard for societal expectations. Her upbringing in a household marked by chaos and tragedy further fuels her nonconformist nature. The girls’ intimate friendship, forged in a shared sense of otherness, is solidified by a traumatic event: the accidental drowning of a young boy, Chicken Little. This tragic secret, which they carry alone, binds them together in a complicity that will define their future relationship.

The central conflict of the novel is propelled by the gradual divergence of their paths. Nel chooses to marry and build a conventional family life within the community. Sula, on the other hand, leaves the Bottom for a decade to pursue her own identity, embracing a life of intellectual and sexual freedom. 

Her return is a cataclysmic event for the community. She is perceived as a harbinger of evil, an outsider whose uninhibited actions—such as sleeping with white men and taking up with Nel’s husband, Jude—are seen as a threat to their moral order. In a profound act of betrayal, Sula's affair with Jude destroys Nel's marriage, a moment that shatters the core of their friendship.

The climax of the novel is a paradox: the community’s moral fabric is strengthened by its collective opposition to Sula. By defining her as a pariah, the residents of the Bottom are able to unite and achieve a sense of communal virtue. The plot concludes with Sula’s solitary death and the town’s subsequent sense of relief. However, the novel's ultimate message is revealed in the final moments of Nel’s life. She realizes that her greatest loss was not her husband, but the profound and irreplaceable bond she shared with Sula. 

The novel stands as a tragic and beautiful testament to the power of a single relationship to both define and destroy a life, and the ways in which a community constructs its own morality.

                                ANALYTICAL SUMMARY

Overview of Structure

The novel is divided into sections by years, spanning from 1919 to 1965. Each year highlights pivotal moments in the lives of Sula Peace, Nel Wright, and their community in the Bottom. Morrison deliberately structures the story to mirror history’s fragmentation, as personal lives intersect with broader themes of racism, sexism, war, and generational trauma.

Scene-by-Scene Breakdown and Analysis

1919: The Background of the Bottom

The novel begins with the myth of the Bottom, a neighborhood ironically named because it sits on hilly land above the valley town of Medallion. The land was given to a freed Black man by a white farmer who tricked him:

“It was called the Bottom because it was in the hills, the hills above the valley town, and the white people told them it was called the Bottom because it was so high up. Just the bottom of heaven.”

This fable sets the stage for Morrison’s themes of irony, injustice, and community survival. The Bottom’s creation reflects how Black communities were historically relegated to undesirable spaces but transformed them into vibrant, enduring places.

1920: Shadrack and the Birth of National Suicide Day

The narrative introduces Shadrack, a traumatized WWI veteran suffering from shell shock (PTSD). Alone, afraid of the unpredictability of death, he invents National Suicide Day, January 3rd, a day when people can freely choose death and thus control it.

“It was their only chance to avoid the unexpectedness of death.”

Shadrack represents trauma, alienation, and the need for ritual. His bizarre holiday initially alienates him from the Bottom but later becomes woven into its traditions—symbolizing the community’s negotiation with mortality and suffering.

1921: Eva Peace and Sacrificial Motherhood

The story shifts to Eva Peace, matriarch of the Peace family. After her husband leaves, Eva raises her three children alone. Desperate, she sacrifices her leg—possibly deliberately—for insurance money to sustain her family.

Eva later makes another extreme choice: she kills her son Plum, who has returned from WWI addicted to heroin. In a scene Morrison renders with haunting imagery, Eva smothers him with fire:

“She squatted there holding him and whispered, ‘It’s all right, Hannah. It’s all right. Really it is. He don’t suffer. He don’t even know it. It’s all right. Hannah, it’s all right.’”

This act symbolizes maternal sacrifice, control, and love twisted by necessity. Eva believes she is saving Plum from slow destruction, raising questions about the limits of love.

1922: Hannah’s Fire and Eva’s Leap

Eva’s daughter, Hannah, lives freely, taking multiple lovers, which unsettles Nel’s mother, Helene, and other women of the Bottom. One summer day, Hannah burns to death in her yard, possibly from playing with fire. Eva, witnessing the flames from an upstairs window, leaps out to save her, injuring herself permanently.

The community sees Eva’s act as both heroic and bizarre. Hannah’s death reinforces Morrison’s theme of women’s bodies as sites of both desire and danger.

1922–1923: The Friendship of Nel and Sula

Here, the novel introduces its central bond: Nel Wright and Sula Peace. Nel is the daughter of Helene, who teaches her conformity, order, and social respectability. Sula, raised in Eva’s unconventional house of chaos and independence, is her opposite—fierce, questioning, and resistant to societal norms.

Their friendship is described in intimate, almost spiritual terms:

“Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be.”

Together, they embody opposing but complementary approaches to womanhood.

1923: Chicken Little’s Death

A turning point occurs when Sula and Nel play near a river with a boy called Chicken Little. Sula accidentally swings him into the water, where he drowns. Shadrack, fishing nearby, witnesses the accident but says nothing.

“They knew. The water closed over him and the pressure sealed them into secrecy.”

This moment cements a shared secret, binding Sula and Nel in complicity but also foreshadowing future fractures. Themes of innocence lost, responsibility, and silence emerge.

1927: Nel’s Marriage to Jude

Nel marries Jude Greene, who desires manhood and stability in a racist society that limits him. He marries Nel less for love than for the sense of identity marriage gives him:

“He needed some woman, some wife, to care about his hurt and to soothe his fears.”

For Nel, marriage means stepping into her mother’s model of respectability. For Sula, who feels abandoned, this marriage marks the first betrayal—the beginning of their diverging paths.

1937: Sula’s Return

Ten years later, Sula returns to the Bottom after attending college and traveling. Her return unsettles the town; she is viewed as wild, dangerous, and immoral.

Her reunion with Nel reignites their friendship, but it soon collapses when Sula begins an affair with Jude—Nel’s husband. This betrayal shatters their bond.

Morrison presents Sula’s worldview as radical individualism:

“If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?”

Here, Sula represents freedom outside societal rules but also isolation. Her sexuality, independence, and refusal to conform make her a pariah in the Bottom.

1939–1940: Sula’s Alienation

The community turns against Sula, blaming her for everything from illness to crop failures. Ironically, her presence unifies the Bottom:

“The people made adjustments for her, as though she were the devil himself.”

This scapegoating reveals Morrison’s theme of the outsider as essential to community identity. Nel, meanwhile, steps into the role of the “good” woman—wife, mother, respectable—though hollowed by Jude’s departure.

1941: Sula’s Illness and Death

As Sula falls ill, she and Nel share a final confrontation. Sula defends her life choices:

“I sure did live in this world. Really lived in it.”

Her death challenges Nel’s assumptions about morality and meaning. Sula embodies freedom, defiance, and the tragic cost of living outside communal norms.

1965: Nel’s Recognition and Closing Scene

Decades later, Nel visits Eva in a nursing home. Eva accuses her of being complicit in Chicken Little’s death. Shaken, Nel finally realizes that her true loss was not Jude, but Sula.

The novel ends with Nel’s cry:

“’We was girls together,’ she said as though explaining something. ‘O Lord, Sula,’ she cried, ‘girl, girl, girlgirlgirl.’”

This final scene crystallizes Morrison’s exploration of female friendship as both sustaining and devastating. Nel recognizes too late that Sula was her truest companion, mirror, and counterpart.

Major Themes in Sula

1. Friendship and Betrayal
   Nel and Sula’s bond is the novel’s core. Their friendship illustrates how women can create identity and power together, even as betrayal and misunderstanding sever that bond.

2. Community and Scapegoating
   The Bottom needs outsiders like Shadrack and Sula to reinforce its identity. Morrison shows how communities sustain themselves through cohesion but also through exclusion.

3. Race and Historical Injustice
   The Bottom’s origin story underscores systemic racism. Black lives are shaped by structures of inequality, but Morrison foregrounds how communities resist through creativity and resilience.

4. Gender and Female Identity
   Morrison contrasts Nel’s conformity with Sula’s rebellion. Both paths bring loss: Nel is trapped in respectability; Sula is destroyed by isolation. Together, they expose the limited choices Black women face.

5. Death, Trauma, and Survival
   From Shadrack’s National Suicide Day to Eva’s killing of Plum, death permeates the novel. Yet Morrison frames death not as an end, but as part of survival—something to confront, ritualize, or resist.

Conclusion: The Legacy of Sula

Toni Morrison’s Sula is not merely a story of two friends—it is a profound meditation on community, race, gender, and the human struggle for freedom. Through its fragmented, scene-by-scene structure, the novel illustrates how personal lives echo historical traumas.

Sula Peace remains one of Morrison’s most radical characters—unapologetic, free, condemned, yet unforgettable. Nel Wright’s belated recognition of their bond underscores Morrison’s central truth: love, in all its flawed and painful forms, is the force that shapes us most deeply.