Many works of contemporary American fiction involve one individual's search for identity in a stifling and unsympathetic world. In "Sula," Toni Morrison gives us two such individuals. In Nel and Sula, Morrison creates two individual female characters that at first are separate, grows together, and then is separated once more. Although never physically reconciled, Nel's self discovery at the end of the novel permits the achievement of an almost impossible quest - the conjunction of two selves. And that is what I think really makes the novel work. I found that it’s a great book that gives us a look at these two great characters.
             Morrison says she created Sula as "a woman who could be used as a classic type of evil force" and that she "wanted Nel to be a warm, conventional woman." She says "there was a little bit of both in each of these women... if they had been one woman... they would have been a rather marvelous person. But each one lacked something the other had." Morrison, thus, creates two completely different women yet allows them to merge into one. The sustainment of the two selves as one proves difficult and Morrison allows them to pursue different paths. But the two women's separate journeys and individual searches for their own selves leads to nothing but despair and Sula's death. Nel's
             realization that they were only truly individuals when they were joined as one allows them to merge once again.
             Morrison portrays Sula and Nel as binary opposites at the beginning of the novel. In our first view of Nel she is as conventional and conforming as a young lady can be: Under Helene's hand the girl became obedient and polite. Her mother calmed any enthusiasms that Nel showed until she drove her daughter's imagination underground. (p.18) In this passage Nel is merely an extension of her mother with no autonomy of her own. Helene's hand is the iron fist of authority from under which Nel cannot release herself. Morriso...