Sula Peace in Sula,
by Toni Morrison, is a girl who rejects the role she is meant to play in
society. Meursault in The Stranger,
by Albert Camus, is an ordinary man with a very different outlook on life then
the rest of society. There are some obvious differences between the characters.
Sula is a black girl living in a small black community in Ohio from 1920 to 1940.
Meanwhile, Meursault is a white French man living in a city in French Algeria
in the 1940s. Sula was written in 1973
while The Stranger was written in
1942. These two characters lived very different lives in very different places.
The thing that makes them similar is the way that they both rejected society’s
views and opinions on how they should act.
The biggest similarity between Sula and Meursault is that
both are at odds with society. Meursault differs from everyone else in the way
he views life. He is unemotional, amoral, and believes that life is
meaningless. This causes him to act and think very differently from everyone
around him and leads other people to view him as a monster. Sula refuses to
conform to society’s role for her, and instead lives her life the way she
wants. She does not pursue a relationship or marriage and has casual sex with
lots of men. When Nel asks her why she had sex with Jude, Sula 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” (Morrison 133). Sula
sleeps with men not to get something from them, but to try and fill the
emptiness inside of herself.
Another similarity between Sula and Meursault is that
neither is concerned with the way they are seen by society. Meursault does not
try to appear as though he is grieving the death of his mother during her
funeral and does not lie about his reasons for killing the Arab, saying it was
because of the sun. Sula rejects society’s role for her and is unconcerned with
her image as a pariah. Neither pretends they are like everyone else, even when
it would make it easier for them.
Both Sula and Meursault also have difficulty establishing
emotional connections. Meursault did not establish an emotional connection with
anyone and the only emotions he had throughout most of the book were a direct
result of the physical things he was experiencing. “That evening, Marie came by
to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn't make any
difference to me and that we could if she wanted to” (Camus 40). Meursault’s
relationship with Marie and friendship with Raymond are not born out of actual
emotional connections, but because it is easier for him. Sula also had a
difficulty making emotional connections. The only person she cares about for
her entire life is her friend, Nel. Sula has sex with many men, but does not
love or care about any of them.
The difference between Meursault and Sula is their
motivation for being different then the society. Meursault is different because of his philosophic
views. He says “It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that
Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing
had changed” (Camus 23). Meursault does not grieve for his dead mother because
he feels it does not matter. He thinks life is pointless and is completely focused
on the physical aspects of life. This sets him apart from society, it was not a
conscious decision for him. Alternatively, Sula chooses not to be like everyone
else. She chooses not to accept the role of wife and mother because she wants
to become herself and not somebody else’s opinion of what she should be. When
her grandmother tells her she has hellfire inside her she replies,
"Whatever's burning in me is mine!" (Morrison 89). Her only goal is
to find herself.
Sula Peace from Sula
and Meursault from The Stranger are
similar in their rejection of society’s views and because it is difficult for
them to establish emotional connections. However, their motivations for this rejection
are very different. Because of this, the impact they have on both the reader
and on the other characters in their book are also very different.
1 comment:
I'm glad that you compared these two characters, because I was on the verge of doing the same thing. However I traded Sula for Arthur Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter, mostly on the basis that I did not like the book "Sula" that much. Opinions aside, Sula and Meursault are definitely characters with many similarities. The quote you provided from the novel regarding Sula and Jude made me realize how similar Sula's response was to the internal monologues of Meursault. In fact, I am convinced that The Stranger must have been an impact on Toni Morrison from that line alone. All of your comparisons lead me to question myself why I liked Meursault as a character more than Sula. It may indeed lie in the differences that you pointed out: Meursault is an outcast by nature, Sula is an outcast by choice. I am not a big fan of the mantra to "be unique" when it results in unnecessary conflicts with aspects of society that never needed challenging. It seems to me that Sula's choice to stick out seemed to create more issues problems than solutions. On the other hand, Meursault never tried to create any problems. They just sort of formed around him and he didn't think much of them. In any case, I cared little for Sula during the eponymous book while I did sympathize with Meursault's issues. Perhaps it is also because The Stranger is written in a way that makes Meursault seem like a victim of sosciety, while Sula is written in a way that merely makes Sula Peace seem like a warrior against it. But since opinions cannot be considered in objective analysis, I praise you for comparing and contrasting these two similar characters, Brendan.
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