Women Solidarity: ‘SELF’ and ‘Other’ in Toni Morrison'S Sula

Black women's common experience of oppression urges them to form bonds leading to solidarity so as to fight back the impact of race, class and gender. Female friendship not only helps women counteract the effects of patriarchy but it also provides them with comfort, security and even healing. Sula Peace and Nel Wright in Sula form bonds in their girlhood that allow them to nurture each other and soothe the pain of patriarchal oppression. Their bonding offers them an opportunity to build new identities, develop new understanding of the relationship between self and other, defend and protect each other, and share not only joys but also sorrows. However, Morrison chooses deliberately to portray failed relationship in order to emphasize the power of patriarchy and warn women about the danger a lack of bonding is likely to cause in their lives. Morrison shows the impact of patriarchal structures like race, class and even marriage on female bonding and what it means to be black and woman.