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spontaneous person. She always does something without thinking the long effect. It can be seen from the incident when some Irish Boys are bullying Nel, Sula tries
to protect her by mutilating her own finger to make them scared of her. Holding the knife in her right hand, she pulled the slate toward her and
pressed her left forefinger down hard to its edge. Her aim was determined but inaccurate. She slashed off only the tip of her finger. Sula raised her
eyes to them. Her voice was so quiet. “If i can do to my self, what you suppose I’ll do to you?” p.54-55
b. Sula’s Independence
When her friend Nel decides to get married, Sula chooses another extremely different way. She goes to the city for college and works. While other
women obey society’s demand, Sula does different things. Besides, she feels that she loses Nel because since her marriage Nel shares her feelings to her husband
and does not have much time for her. She goes to the city by her self and never returns in ten years. Eva teaches Sula about how to be an independent woman.
Sula sees and watches her grandmother everyday. She learns that a woman can do everything by herself. Later, she becomes a selfish person because of her
independence. Her grandmother is a very independent woman. When she is left by her husband, she tries hard to fulfill her children’s needs by her self. It is really
difficult but she does it. When she returns to Bottom only with one leg, still, she is able to direct the people in building her a big house and to be the leader of the
house. She is the only one who earns money for her family and some outsiders who live with her in one roof.
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c. Sula’s Toughness
According Hurlock, the role of grandparents is the most important determinant on family relationship, especially, when the grandparents live in one
house with their grandchildren. They are as the models for their grandchildren, mainly grandmother. She will affect her grandchildren’s personality, if she stays
in a long time with them and has great role in the fa mily. It is known that a child usually forms the value of life based on her family background first 1974: 505.
Sula moves to her grandmother’s house when she is three years old and her mother dies ten years later. She keeps living with her grandmother. Eva Peace
influences Sula greatly in her personality because she is a dominant person. Sula’s toughness can be seen through how Sula faces the community. The
treatment of community is not welcome. The community has some standard of values that should be obeyed by its members, but Sula rejects it. Community
considers that a woman should marry and handle the house work, but Sula does not. She lives in her own way just like her mother does. The community sees her
as a disturbed and peculiar person. As the result, Sula becomes a person hated by the society because of her attitudes. One of evidence is teapot’s mother, Sula’s
neighbor, looks upon Sula as a bad woman and she does not want her son to be close to her, so she pretends that she sees Sula pushes her son and the community
believes it. The fact is, Sula wants to help Teapot from falling down to street. It proves that Sula is disliked by the members of community. Another evidence
comes from Patsy, Hannah’s friend. She tells that Sula likes to go with boys and drink beer p.115. Sula is judged extremely bad by the community. Community
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thinks that Sula’s existence has caused the death of other people. They tell the rumor that Mr. Finley’s death is caused by her and those bad things happen
because of her. Other things happened, Mr. Finley sat on his porch sucking chicken bones,
as he had done for thirteen years, looked at up, saw Sula, chocked on a bone and died on the spot. That incident and Teapot’s mamma cleared up
everybody the meaning of the birthmark over her eye: it was not a stemmed rose, or a snake, it was Hannah’s ashes marking her from the
very beginning. p.114
The community sees Sula as evil for it is shown how an oddity of nature that emerges with a natural disaster emerged when Sula returns to B ottom.
In spite of their fear, they reacted to the oppressive oddity, or what they called evil days. With an acceptance that bordered on welcome. Such evil
must be avoided, they felt and precautions must naturally be taken protect themselves from it. But they let it run its course, fulfill itself, and never
invented ways either to alter it. To annihilate it or to prevent its happening again. So also were they with people. p.90
They do not want to kill her or to destroy her. They simply protect themselves from her. They regard her as an evil person for neglecting the cultural mores of
being a different woman Community also judges her as a pariah because of her attitudes and Sula
knows it but she does not care about it. She thinks that she knows the best for herself and ignores others’ opinion.
She was pariah, then, and knew it. Knew that they despised her and believed that they framed their hatred as disgust for easy way she lay with
men. Which was true. She went to bed with men as frequently as she could. p.122
Being treated badly, Sula realizes that she should be alive and faces it by her self, though without any comrade.
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In 1939, Sula begins a love affair with Ajax. Ajax likes Sula because Sula is different from others, because her willingness in a sexual relationship is based
upon the free will rather than marital obligation. Then, Sula discovers the meaning of possession in her relationship with Ajax. Then, she is thinking of taking care of
Ajax. Sula feels that her love -relation with Ajax is a real pleasure she has been searching for. They have genuine conversations just like what Sula has been
looking for. But it was not the presents that made her wrap him up in her thighs. They
were charming of course especially the jar of butterflies he let loose in the bed room, but her real pleasure was the fact she talked to her. They had
genuine conversations. He did not speak down to her or at her, nor content her with the puerile questions about her life or monologues of his own
activities. Thinking that she was possibly brilliant, like his mother, he seemed to expect brilliance for her and she delivered. p.127-128
Her relationship with Ajax is totally different. She feels comfortable with him. Ajax knows that Sula wants to possess the long relationship with him, he does not
like this. He likes having relationship without any commitment, but when Sula wants more, he abandons her. Sula experiences the pain of the absence of a man
for the first time in her life. Sula began to discover what possession was. Not love perhaps, but
possession or at least the desire for it. She was astounded by so new and alien a feeling. p.131
She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence. An absence so decorative, so ornate, it was difficult f or her to understand
how she had endured, without falling dead or being consumed, her magnificent presence. p.134
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Sula’s suffering is greater since Jude abandons her. Moreover, the community judges her as a witch and her friend become one of them. Sula is totally alone but
she knows that life must go on. The way of Sula faces the community and all her problems shows her
toughness. She is not depressed in her loneliness. She struggles to keep alive. Sula learns from her grandmother that life is difficult and she should face the
community.
d. Sula’s Egoism
