Sula's Argumentative Analysis

In reading this essay, we found that we agreed with the argument that there is somewhat of a ‘pecking order’ of oppression that results from the intersection of race and gender. We disagreed with, however, the idea that Sula’s version of agency is the only version or ‘correct’ version, and that Nel and Helene somehow betray their race by not having the same type of agency. We believed that the intersection of race and gender creates a different type of discrimination: a white woman and a black woman will have different experiences based upon their skin tone, and even though they are both women, are also not equal in social and institutional status. We argue that black women are at the bottom of the ‘ladder’, and white men are at the top. In
It is also human nature to make assumptions, whether those assumptions are based on personal thoughts or shared experiences. This is not inherently bad, but it can quickly become detrimental to some when discussing the intersectionality between race and gender. For example, a traditionally feminist white woman will often look at a black woman and see her as someone who faces the same level of discrimination as her and has the same experiences, since the black woman is a woman. However, what the white woman is missing in this scenario is the fact that race provides privilege as well as gender. The white woman may know this applies to black and white men, but her personal experiences with sexism and white privilege will prevent her from recognizing this in
We as a group disagreed with this concept completely. In Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, there is a woman named Helene. She’s the daughter of a prostitute, and has spent most if not all of her life trying to become the opposite of her mother, to avoid the negative stigma that surrounds that birth. This avoidance of her past includes looking down upon those who she believes are below her, such as the Peace family. When Helene gives this smile to the white conductor, there were two African-American soldiers who witnessed this dazzling smile directed at a white man, and confronted it with utter disgust. It was as if suddenly, she overstepped a line that society had clearly set out for her. From this line, it appeared that she stepped into a territory where African-American men decided that they could no longer control her, someone who’s from the only part of this “pecking order” that they, as African-American men, were deemed higher than. It was a smile where she supposedly “used her femininity.” The aforementioned African-American soldiers in the segregated part of the train refused to assist Helene when she needed it, watching the scene with total indifference, likely to save themselves from the trouble she currently faced on her own. As a last resort, as her