The Function and Significance of Good vs.

Evil in Toni Morrison’s Sula

In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, the conflict of good verses evil is embodied into the

story in various forms to question what defines right and wrong. Good verses evil is

presented in forms that are interpreted on the surface and beneath the surface which give

it multiple meanings. The relationship between Sula and Nel is the main manifestation of

this theme, however, there are also many other contributors such as color schemes, gender

and race differences, and life and death. This theme sheds light on the significance and

interpretation of issues of everyday reality which includes controversies related to identity

struggles, super natural forces, the impact and relevance of upbringing on development,

family structure, and racism. Morrison demonstrates the importance of good verses evil

with her writing in the way that she overlaps them and interprets them as products of one

another.

The friendship of Sula and Nel creates a presence of good and evil within their

relationship to each other and their community. In their youth, Morrison gives Sula and Nel

a single identity. That is, she gives the idea that both girls share an intimate bond that goes

beyond a normal friendship. The girls are able to share dreams. Morrison writes, “they had

already made each other’s acquaintance in the delirium of their noon dreams. They were

solitary little girls whose loneliness was so profound it intoxicated them and sent them into

Technicolored visions that always included a presence of someone who shared the delight

of the dream” (Morrison 51). Their bond represents a binary concept that connects them as

a single unit but separates them into two distinct ideas of good and evil. To add to this

effect, Morrison uses color schemes to emphasize their identities. As they gaze at their

environment, Morrison notes, “there was nothing on their minds but the grey sky”
(Morrison 54). Black and white represents two opposite concepts, but grey represents a

combination of the two. This is done in order to blur the lines of good and evil in the way

that Sula and Nel embody them. Both girls represent this idea but in different demeanors.

It is understood that Sula’s carefree, unkempt personality makes her the

manifestation of what is assumed to be evil. When Sula and Nel witness the accidental

death of Chicken Little, their approaches to life become apparent. Sula believes herself to be

evil because of her actions and goes about life refusing to follow the rules. Because of her

headstrong attitude, the Bottom community shuns her behavior and attempts to act

intuitively to protect themselves. In a way, Sula’s manifestation as evil acts as a super

natural force in the way that it changes the mood of an entire community (Page 32). They

perceive it as “the purpose of evil was to survive it and they determined to survive floods,

white people, tuberculosis, famine, and ignorance. They knew anger well but not despair,

and they didn’t stone sinners for the same reason they didn’t commit suicide, it was

beneath them” (Morrison 90). Sula refuses the role of wife and mother unlike the other

women in the story. She refuses to marry, has promiscuous sex, and lacks maternal

instincts. Because this approach is so unheard of in the Bottom, the community considers it

evil and battles it as a whole. On the surface, Sula’s actions can be considered a

manifestation of evil because they represent everything that the Bottom community

aggressively strives to avoid.

To contrast that of Sula, Nel’s persona along with the general woman lifestyle of the

Bottom embodies what is perceived to be the concept of good. According to critic Missy

Kubitschek, motherhood defines what the Bottom considers to be good. Eva Peace

sacrifices her leg so that she can afford to take care of her children. She also takes in the
Deweys and treats them as if they were her own. When Nel witnesses the death of Chicken

Little, she refuses to address it and continues with her life as a woman from the Bottom

would. Morrison emphasizes the role of motherhood with self-sacrifice, in turn, making the

Bottom community follow this way of life almost religiously. Eva nearly dies attempting to

rescue Hannah, showing her maternal instincts and giving the community the belief that

she is indeed good (Kupitschek 60). In order to embody what is good, Nel follows the same

pattern of life by marrying Jude. Morrison writes, “he needed some of his appetites filled,

but mostly he wanted someone to care about his hurt, to care very deeply” (Morrison 82).

Nel fills his desires by becoming his wife, nurturing his empty void with a caregiver’s touch.

This contrasts that of Sula who does not play the role of mother or wife at point in the

novel. The concept of evil is shunned in the community; therefore, the role of the typical

woman takes the manifestation of what is considered good.

Although good and evil are presented with Sula and Nel, Morrison questions this

attitude by concealing further interpretation beneath the surface level of the story. In

simple form, Sula represents evil because of her rebellion against motherhood. However,

Morrison reverses the roles and gives her “good” qualities. Kupitschek says “women use

motherhood as an excuse for not facing their own feelings, not determining their own

actions,” (Kupitschek 61). That is, motherhood strips the Bottom women of their individual

desires and identities. Sula is the only character that does not fall victim to this entrapment.

By living carefree, Sula escapes the mental prison that the Bottom shares by refusing to

allow it into her methodology. Morrison writes, “she lived out her days exploring her own

thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody

unless their pleasure pleased her. As willing to feel pain as to give pain, hers was an
experimental life ever since her mother's remarks sent her flying up those stairs…the first

experience taught her there was no other that you could count on; the second that there

was no self to count on either” (Morrison 118). In this instance, Morrison questions good

with the ability to choose. With Sula, good takes on a form of power in the sense that Sula

allows herself to feel and experience life in the way that will please her, making her self-

authoritative. She does not seek moral gratification or avoid evil, unlike the other

characters in the story. Because of her self-removal from the larger context, Sula embodies

“good” in the manner that she shuns the surface depiction of both evil and good in the

Bottom. Morrison uses Sula to question the ideals of right and wrong with her bravery and

inability to subject to the shared ideals.

Sula’s resistance to the Bottom lifestyle shows her commitment to her gender and

her race and questions the “good” that is motherhood in the story. In most instances,

motherhood strips the children of their individual identities in order to avoid the notions of

evil. Eva Peace sacrifices her leg so that she can support her family, but fails to nurture

them properly. She takes in the Deweys but treats them as a unit causing them to develop

poorly. Similarly, Helene is permanently distanced from Nel and focuses on reshaping her

nose, thus stripping her of her uniqueness (Page 67). Nel’s maternal instincts flaw her own

approach to life because her care for her children is existent yet lacking, while at the same

time, robs her of her ability to experience any true emotion (Kupitschek 62). The idea of

good motivates the women in this story to follow a certain way of life but this way of life

encompasses neglect, uniformity, and even murder. Nel and Eva justify their actions as

motherly constitution. Eva justifies killing her own son by saying “I had to keep him out so I

just thought of a way he could die like a man not all scrunched up in my womb” (Morrison
72). Sula never attempts to justify her supposed “evil” actions. The idea of maternal

instinct is considerably flawed in the Bottom, questioning whether the women are indeed

avoiding evil or perhaps creating it.

The quintessence of good and evil take form in Sula and Nel’s binary friendship but

also is relevant in the struggles between whites and blacks in Morrison’s novel. In the

context of good verses evil, race becomes an apparatus for discovering the true source of

evil. That is, the idea of race causes the Bottom inhabitants to hate evil, but they fail to

attack the source. Morrison makes it apparent that the African American Bottom

community suffers from the oppression of whites, distinctly crystalizing the separation

between the races. The slave masters gave the hilly unfertile land to their slaves, thus

creating the realm of the Bottom community. The Deweys demonstrate more racism

through the manner in which they all look alike, stereotyping African American

development as akin. Sula’s refusal to wear underwear to community gatherings gives the

impression that she sleeps with white men, which causes shared feelings of disgust

throughout the community (Mbalia 45). Morrison aggressively, though subtle in her tactic,

defines the concept of white as evil and black as morally just through the eyes of her

characters. Morrison even uses color schemes to emphasize this struggle. She writes,

“Shadrack stared at the soft colors that filled these triangles: the heavy lumpy whiteness of

rice, the quivering blood tomatoes, the grayish brown meat,” (Morrison 8). The colors are

used together to emphasize the depth of the existent oppression. Critic Doreatha Mbalia

argues, “rather than focusing its attention on the pervasive evils of racism and poverty that

continually threaten it, the community expends its energy on outlasting the evil Sula”

(Mbalia 46). In this case, society is the source of evil, but Sula’s individuality misguidedly
draws the community’s attention to her, ultimately allowing racism to isolate them from

any form of freedom.

The struggles of good and evil take form in the identity of life and death. In the

novel, the Bottom inhabitants have distinct ideas of what is considered “evil” such as being

promiscuous and failing to raise children. However, it is understood that evil represents all

conceptions that are unknown to the Bottom. That is, they fear aspects of life that they do

not understand, making them truly unforgiving and unable to empathize. Shadrack’s post-

war trauma reveals that death represents the unknown and change. Morrison writes, “it

was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both. In sorting it all

out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out

of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free” (Morrison 14). Shadrack creates

National Suicide Day to contest the indefinite feature of death, the only character other

than Sula to combat the presumed existence of Bottom life. In the community, life is an

assumed pattern that all are expected to follow, embodying good. Death represents fear of

change and the unfamiliar, which is considered evil (Galehouse). Eva does not understand

Plum’s desire for her nurturing, causing her to kill him. Hannah and Chicken Little’s death

grabs Sula’s attention, for it is something that she extends no control over (Kubitschek 56).

Sula “watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was

interested” (Morrison 78). Morrison questions the definition of good and evil by playing

with the trials and tributes of living and dying.

Good and evil are embedded deep within Sula and are a direct cause for the ongoing

search for identity of self and community. As stated earlier, Nel and Sula characterize a

binary relationship in the sense that they complete one another. This sheds significance on
the struggles of good verses evil but also shows that their identities are incomplete when

they are apart. According to critic Doreatha Mbalia, “Sula, the mind; Nel, the body. Nel’s

mind dies when Sula leaves Medallion, but her body continues to perform the routine,

necessary chores traditionally associated with women. In contrast, Sula’s mind continues to

function after her body ceases to do so,” (Mbalia 44). Moreover, Jude considers Sula as “a

funny woman, not that bad looking…but he could see why she wasn’t married; she stirred a

man’s mind maybe, but not his body” (Morrison 104). This lack of identity causes both girls

to seek out their other half. Sula does not understand the relationship the Bottom has to

acting good and self-righteousness, so she lives out her life alone and unable to truly

empathize with the oppression that the Bottom inhabitants feel. Nel similarly is unable to

understand Sula’s struggle for total human independence, distancing her from her “other

half.” Without a complete identity, both girls are doomed to struggle for accepting of “good”

and “evil” throughout the novel (Galehouse).

Toni Morrison’s perception of good and evil is clearly a broad definition in the sense

that she does not create a single depiction of either. Instead, Morrison uses her novel to

question the constitution of right and wrong. With this notion, good and evil are not

separate entities but more so, products of one another, especially in Sula. In religion, there

are three faces of god, but behind the classic acceptance of good is the presence of a fourth

face, evil. Without evil, good cannot exist and without good, evil cannot exist. Sula and Nel

represent the paradox of this conflict in order to demonstrate that both concepts are not

black and white in definition. Morrison shows that everyday matters such as child rearing,

community life, and death all involve direct confrontation with the faces of god, having

clear effects on the human condition. Sula is a powerful novel with an intended message in
regard to good and evil; it is not up to us to avoid or apprehend both concepts, but to

understand that nothing contains a pure incarnation of either.

 Works Cited

Galehouse, Maggie. ""New World Woman": Toni Morrison's Sula." Papers on Language &

Literature (1999): 339. Print.

Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. Toni Morrison: a Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood, 1998.

Print.

Mbalia, Doreatha D. Toni Morrison's Developing Class Consciousness. Selinsgrove:

Susquehanna University Press, 1991. Print.

Morrison, Toni. Sula. Waterville: Thorndike, 2002. Print.

Page, Philip. Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison's Novels.

Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1995. Print.