The text I have chosen to examine for the midterm is Sula by Toni Morrison. I chose this text because I find the concept of flipping binaries upside down (Bottom:Valley, White:Black, Good:Evil) to be really interesting. I am also compelled by intense relationships between people, and I am looking forward to further examining the relationship between Nel and Sula.
One convention used in Sula to explain the relationship between Nel and Sula is the shared trauma of the death of Chicken Little. Sula is technically the person that lets go of Chicken Little, but Nel is there and doesn’t make any moves to reveal what happened. Interestingly, although it was an accident, Sula is later continually seen as an evil being in the town, whereas Nel is accepted. This event occurred when they were very close friends, and this is one more experience that they kept between the two of them until they passed. Another book that uses this convention is Nothing Burns as Bright as You by Ashley Woodfolk. In this book, two young black girls form an intense friendship that later blossoms into a romantic relationship. They also experience a traumatic experience as children; they set a fire. These two books both use this convention of shared harm inflicted together to enforce the closeness of two young women.
Another convention that Sula uses to demonstrate the closeness between the two main characters is the 3rd person narrative. It is written in such a way that often the reader isn’t able to tell who the chapter is centered on until a few pages into the chapter, which melds Nel and Sula and their experiences together in the mind of the reader. Another book that centers on two characters that share an intense bond is Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. The two main characters Elio and Oliver meet in Italy and form a relationship over the course of a Summer in which they are so close that they almost desire to become each other. In this novel, however, a different convention is used to demonstrate this bond. This convention is the two men calling each other by the other’s name, melding them together in each other’s minds. While the convention is different, both Sula and Call Me By Your Name explore the idea of a closeness that is so uniting it makes two people interchangeable.
I would like a little more guidance on the idea of the flipped binaries in Sula, because while I find it very interesting, I’m not positive that I completely have a grasp on the content yet.
Works Cited:
Aciman, André. Call Me By Your Name. Picador; Media Tie-in Edition, 2017.
Morrison, Toni. Sula. Vintage; Reprint Edition, 2004.
Woodfolk, Ashley. Nothing Burns as Bright as You. Versify, 2022.