Sula: Things To Think About

1. Shadrack: Can you explain him? What is his significance and the meaning of National Suicide Day in the novel?

2. The “Bottom” was what sociologists call a face to face community. What do you think this means? Does a community have to be a place or will a group of people make a community? How did living in the Bottom affect Sula and Nel? Relate the community in this book to the one in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

3. Toni Morrison writes of the people in the Bottom: “They did not believe death was accidental—life might be—but death was deliberate.” How might this statement apply to the structure of the novel? Who dies? Do only people die?

4. What are people looking for in terms of relationships in this book? In terms of love? In terms of sex? In terms of companionship?

5. What is the function of Sula in this story beyond her role as a character in the narration?

6. In some ways Sula asks us to suspend judgment about the morality of the events in the book. What are examples of this?

7. In her essay “Rootlessness” Morrison says a novel should have something in it that enlightens; something in it that opens the door and points the way; something in it that suggests what the conflicts are, what the problems are. What is it in Sula that does this—what are the conflicts and the problems?

8. The end of the book: was it necessary? Was it satisfying?