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How Characters Are Alienated From the Community in Sula by Toni Morrison

Alienation refers to when individuals are cast out and live differently without regarding the ways of the community. Community is an important aspect of people’s lives as it shapes their behaviors and actions. In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, some characters are alienated because of their beliefs. Some of them go to the extent of having different personal beliefs and way of life making them completed alienated from the community. This essay discusses the ways in which characters, including Jadine, Shadrack and Sula in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula are alienated and how they cope with the loneliness.

To start with, the novel depicts alienation in Jadine and son. Son decides to leave behind his society’s way of life and decides to leave according to his own culture. Despite being alienated from the community’s way of life, Son still encounters loneliness. He feels alienated from the modern society. Additionally, Jadine, whose ethnicity is black, also gets alienated from the community and the way of life of white people. Jadine chooses to ignore the black culture way of life because white culture is viewed as more dominant (Ahmad, Muhammad and Sajid Abbas, 322). She starts behaving like her white counterparts. She has different beliefs from what society expects of a black girl. She dresess and speaks like a white girl and also has the ideas of a white person. This is an indication that she is not fond of her African culture. She hates the African culture, which explains why she is insecure. To cover her insecurities, she acquires European education while living in Paris. However, education does not give her any comfort as black women keep intimidating her and even spitting at her. As a result, Jadine ends up feeling guilty and fearful. All these insecurities arise because of Jadine alienation from community and the African culture.

Another character that is alienated in Toni Morrison’s Sula is Shadrack. Shadrack’s alienation is triggered by racial discrimination and ruthless war. His entire life, Shadrack has experienced abundant violence, war, abandonment, and tease. He is tortured and afflicted by war, and he tries his best to get rid of the war. The text says Shadrack was “blasted and permanently astonished by the event of 1917” (Morrison, 23). It is the first time Shadrack is going through the war. Morison makes it clear that Shadrack has transformed significantly after coming back from war. Previously, Shadrack was an innocent, naïve, and romantic young person that had no chance to become acquitted with violence and evil. Shadrack becomes a desolate and alienated soul that is trampled upon by the war. Following the impingement of mainstream white culture and torture from the war, Shadrack cannot help but remember that dreadful events that take place on the battlefield. Anything that is connected to the war triggers miserable memories for him. Shadrack’s trauma is an indication of how alienation affected him throughout his life.

The third way Toni Morrison shows alienation is through the character of Sula. Sula is a woman of strong will who is brave enough to do whatever she likes. Sula has no regard for the ways that the black community has labeled as acceptable. She is defiant to the beliefs of her own community. Sula is not involved in a stable relationship with people of color from her own community as she subscribes to the saying, “It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you” (Yan, 13). This quote shows that she does not like to date her kind but rather prefers to associate herself with white men. Sula’s association with white men causes disagreement within the community. Additionally, Sula is alienated when her girlhood friendship with Nel dies down during adulthood. Although the two girls had a strong relationship as children, the bond disintegrated as they continued to mature. It is evident that the patriarchal structure of class, race, and marriage were a threat to female bonding. The author uses the ultimate failure of Sula and Nel’s relationship to remind women of color about how destructive the power of patriarchy can become. The biggest factor in Nel’s and Sula’s estrangement is Jude and Nel’s marriage. The marriage had everything to do with the structure of class and race. Additionally, Sula is a real example of the problems of intra-racial discrimination because she is deemed an outcast by her black community. She is a victim of endless marginalization because she refuses to abide to the restrictions put in place by her black community.

In closing, alienation in Toni Morrison’s novel is exhibited in the characters of Jadine, Sula, and Shadrack. Jadine chooses to ignore the black culture way of life because white culture is viewed as more dominant. Before the war, Shadrack was naïve and innocent but he becomes a desolate and alienated soul that is trampled upon by the war. Sula is also defiant of the beliefs of her black community and leaves an alienated life.

References

Ahmad, Shabeer, Muhammad Ilyas Mahmood, and Sajid Abbas. “A Study of Alienation in Toni Morrison’s Sula: Passive Patriarchy, Marriage and Female Friendship.” Research Journal of Social Sciences and Economics Review 1.4 (2020): 322-328.

Morrison, Toni. Sula. Random House, 2014.

Yan, Rui. “Analysis on Character’s Behavioral Alienation in Sula.” Open Access Library Journal 9.2 (2022): 1-13.