n makes it clear here that Nel is a calm and unimaginative girl who conforms completely to her mother's strict orders. Sula, on the other hand, comes from a totally different background. She is her own person as she has "none of her mother's slackness" (p.29) and, unlike the "oppressive neatness"(p.29) of Nel's house, lives in a woolly house, where a pot of something was always cooking on the stove; where the mother, Hannah, never scolded or gave directions; where all sorts of people dropped in; where newspapers were stacked in the hallway, and dirty dishes left for hours at a time in the sink, and where a one-legged grandmother named Eva handed you goobers from deep inside
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