Close Reading of the Two Holes Passage of Toni Morrisons Sula :: Sula Essays

A Close Reading of the Two Holes Passage of genus Sula Toni Morrisons original Sula is rich with paradox and contradiction from the name of a conjunction on top of a hill called Bottom to a family amply of discord named Peace. There are no clear distinctions in the novel, and this is most(prenominal) apparent in the meaning of the relationship surrounded by the ii main(prenominal) characters, Sula and Nel. Although they are characterized differently, they also father many similarities. Literary critics have interpreted the girls in several different ways as lesbians (Smith 8), as the two halves of a single person (Coleman 145), and as representations of the dichotomy between good and evil (Bergenholtz 4 of 9). The ambiguity of these two characters allows for infinite speculation, except regardless of how the reader interprets the relationship their bond is undeniable. The most striking modelling of their connection occurs right before the accidental death of Chicken Little . In the passage preceding his death, Nel and Sula conduct an almost ceremonial cargo to one another that is sealed permanently when the water darkened and unlikeable quickly over the place where Chicken Little sank (Morrison 61) Together they worked until the two clutters were one and the same. When the depression was the size of a half-size dishpan, Nels fasten on broke. With a gesture of disgust she threw the pieces into the hole they had made. Sula threw hers in too. Nel adage a bottle cap and tossed it in as well. Each indeed looked around for more debris to turn over into the hole paper, bits of glass, butts of cigarettes, until all the small defiling things they could find were collected there. Carefully they replaced the soil and covered the entire weighty with uprooted grass. Neither one had spoken a word. (Morrison 58-59) The image of the girls working together to dig holes in the dirt begins with each girl digging her get hole, but symbolically the two separate h oles become one, representing the merging of Sula and Nel into a deep and meaningful relationship. The imagery of a hole is apply to describe the whole of Sula and Nel, indicating the completeness of the two when they are together. When the girls concurrently throw their twigs into the hole it is as if they are throwing themselves into each others consciousness, fashioning a permanent connection with one another. Each twig represents their self-directed selves being joined with the other when they are thrown together into the hole to be buried.