Gender in Sula

Gender in Sula

            In Sula, although men are an integral part of the women characters' lives, the women form relationships with them based only on need and not on love. The relationships between men and women are at best friendships of utility. They are never deep, honest or loving as the relationships between the women are. The most deeply explored relationship in the novel is that of Nel and Sula. The two women grow up together, know each other better than anyone else, and love each other. Their friendship falls apart over Jude. When Nel asks her, Sula is honest about her reasons for sleeping with him. She says, "Well, there was this space in front of me, behind me, in my head. Some space. And Jude filled it up. That's all. He just filled up the space"(144). While Nel is initially angry that Sula took her husband away from her and didn't even love him, she too realizes that Jude didn't mean all that much to her. It was Sula she was sad to lose because that was the relationship with love in it. Another shallow male-female relationship is Sula's with Ajax. Sula and Ajax only last together while their relationship is based on lovemaking and companionships. As soon as Sula shows signs of wanting to enter into a deeper relationship, Ajax leaves. "Ajax blinked. Then he looked swiftly into her face. In her words, in her voice, was a sound he knew well. For the first time he saw the green ribbon. He looked around and saw the gleaming kitchen and the table set for two and detected the scent of the nest. Every hackle on his body rose.  . ."(133). Overall, Sula sends a message about gender that men and women cannot have deep relationships with each other. While they can be friends, and fill each other's shallower needs, they can never enter into the sort of relationship that women can. They can't know each other as Nel and Sula do. Also, Sula portrays men as unreliable. Not only are they incapable of having deep relationships with their wives or lovers, but they can't even be expected to fulfill the role of a father. As Sula says, "[If I had children] then I would really act like what you call a man. Every man I ever knew left his children"(143). 

Vocabulary

1)Solicitous
- Characterized by or showing interest or concern in
- Adjective
- The same hope that kept them . . . solicitous of white people's children. . .
- The parents were too solicitous of their teenage daughter; she began to get into trouble just to spite them.

2) Malevolence

- A wish to do evil to others 

- Noun

- There was the promise: leaf-dead. The teeth unrepaired . . . the slurred remarks and the staggering childish malevolence of their employers.

- There was a certain, unnerving, malevolence in the way he glared at his enemy. 

3)  Fastidious

- very concerned and attentive to accuracy and detail.

- Adjective

- She had neither iron nor clothes but did not stop her fastidious lining up of pleats or pressing out of wrinkles even when she acknowledged Nel's greeting.

- The wedding planner was especially fastidious about the table decorations.

4) Dirge

- A mournful song, or piece of music, chant, or poem. Especially having to do with funerals or death. 

- Noun

- On January third the sun came out-- and so did Shadrack with his rope, his bell and his childish dirge.

- The funeral dirge was so beautiful and sorrowful that it made even those at the funeral who weren't close to the deceased weep. 

5) Unassailable 

- unable to be attacked questioned or defeated

- adjective

- The sealed window soothed her with its sturdy termination, its unassailable finality.

- The heavily guarded fort was unassailable.

6) Timbre 

- The character or quality of a musical sound or a voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.

- Noun

- It gave her voice the timbre she wanted it to have: free of the least hint of retribution.

- Depending on what kind of song you are singing, you'll want to play with the timbre of your voice for stylistic reasons.

7) Ornate 

- Made with intricate or complex details.

- Adjective

- An absence so decorative, so ornate, it was difficult for her to understand how she had ever endured. . . his magnificent presence.

- The picture frame had many details and was very ornate.

8) Mercurial 

- Subject to sudden or unpredicted changes of mood or mind

- Adjective.

- . . . she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature. . . served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him. . .

- Two year olds have  naturally mercurial behavior; one minute they're laughing and the next they're screaming.

9) Trepidation

- a feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen.

- noun

- LINDA, hearing Willy outside the bedroom, calls with some trepidation: Willy!

- My sister opened the admissions letter from Washington University with much trepidation.

10) Imbue

- Inspire or permeate with a feeling or quality

- Verb

- That's just the spirit I wanted to imbue them with!

- The pastor imbued his congregation with a good feeling through his lively sermon.