sula essay

In Sula, Toni Morrison shows how a woman named Helene has gone through so much in her childhood that it has impacted her for the rest of her life. Helene was raised by her grandmother because her mother was a “Creole whore” (17). Her grandmother didn’t think it was right for her Helene to be under such a bad influence so she “took Helene away from the soft lights...of the Sundown House and raised her under the dolesome eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary, counseling her to be constantly on guard for any sign of her mother’s wild blood. Her grandmother taught Helene to be a patriarchal woman, a woman who doesn’t have a mind of her own and listens to everything they’re told to do. Helene was raised under very strict rules so when she had a daughter of her own she was going to have her grow up the same way. Her daughter wanted to be free but “any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by [her] mother until she drove her daughter’s imagination underground” (18). Helene is unaware of the trauma she’s causing in Nel’s life by suppressing her imagination. She uses regression by not acknowledging the fact she’s telling her daughter to stop using her imagination, which is a negative thing. Because of the way Helene was taught to be with her grandmother and how she was raised to be proper, she doesn’t want her daughter to be any different,she wants her to feel the same as she did. When Nel was born, “She rose grandly to the occasion of motherhood...that the child had not inherited the great beauty that was hers:that her skin had dusk in it…”(18). Helene doesn’t believe that her daughter is beautiful and she’s happy about that because men won’t be as attracted to her. Helene thought her daughters features could be improved more, she compared Nel to herself because she considered herself beautiful. Helene has gone through experiences with her mother being a whore and her grandmother raising her to believe in God, she doesn’t believe in having a fun life. She takes away