Research Paper on:
Comparative Analysis of Nel Wright and Sula Peace in Sula by Toni Morrison

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
-- who grew up together in a small town in Ohio where: ".... white people lived on the rich valley floor in that little river town in Ohio, and the  blacks populated the hills above it, taking small consolation in the fact that every day they could literally look down on the white folks" (Morrison 5). It is clear that  the women of the story will have to address their differences and their similarities, regardless of how their lives unfold. Ultimately, Morrison defines the ways in which women who began  with connections in common can still go in different directions, even if those different directions end up in the protagonists coming back together again. What the reader also encounters is  the undeniable fact that regardless of the historical, social, and cultural limits that define "acceptable" female behavior, individual sensibilities are those which will serve as the final determinants of who  a person will be and what decisions she will make. Nel and Sula Nel Wright and Sula Peace are women who have been girls together and who have  defined themselves as residents of the same world despite the fact that their realities are so very far apart. But from the very beginning of the book a reader understands  that this will not be, in any way, a "usual" story, especially as the logic behind Shadracks "National Suicide Day" is presented. In introducing Nel first of the two women,  Morrison establishes that she is: "...obedient and polite. Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by her mother until she drove her daughters imagination underground" (18). Helene trains and  controls Nel, much as she has trained herself -- with determination, pride, and the understanding that she must never allow herself to be at the mercy of others. She becomes