An Interpretation Of Toni Morrison’s Sula From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Toni Morrison is the first black American woman writer awarded the Nobel Prize and sheis a famous writer in the literary circle around the world. Most of Morrison’s works are rooted inthe black cultural tradition in which the heroes live at the bottom of America. Morrison paysmuch attention to the rough lives of black American people. She is delicate in the frame of hernovels, her writing is exquisite and the language of her novels is full of lyrics and myths.Sula is Morrison’s second novel and it receives a wide popularity soon after its publication.The novel focuses on the development of the friendship between two black girls named Sula andNel. A plenty of ethical elements are involved in the novel and this thesis attempts to analyzeSula from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, thus to find out Morrison’s ethical views.This thesis is aiming at exploring the ethical elements of Sula from the perspective of ethicalliterary criticism on the following three levels: relationship between one and oneself, relationshipbetween one and the other, and the relationship between the black and the society.Concerning the first level, the thesis will mainly focus on the development of the twoprotagonists named Sula and Nel in order to find out the unbalanced relationship between oneand oneself in American society during that time. Sula is a rebellious black girl, she suffers froma weak girl to independent for a period. However, due to her rebellious personality, she diesalone in the end. Her life is a tragedy. Nel, on the contrary, is a conversional black woman, shebecomes bewildered for a period, but she finally realizes what she really cares about. Throughthe analysis of Sula and Nel’s development, the author tries to get the conclusion thatrelationship between one and oneself is an unbalanced one in Sula. Morrison shows her ethicalview of establishing a world in which people can develop in a balanced way.As for the relationship between man and the other, this thesis explores the relationshipbetween mother and child and the relationship between man and woman to show readers theloveless interpersonal relationship. Relationship between mother and child in the novel is acomplex one, to some extent, the mothers love their children. However, they don not know theright way. Therefore, relationship between mother and child is hard to define. The relationshipbetween man and woman is a deformed one. Man and woman have complex sexual relationshipsbut they do not know what real love is. Therefore, due to the analysis of the relationship betweenone and others, the author finds that this relationship is a complex one. Through the presentationof the loveless relationship, the author of the thesis finds that Morrison is expressing her ethicalview to establish a society where people love with each other deeply.In the third level, this thesis will analyze the relationship between the black and the society,focusing on the apathy of the white community on the black and the apathy of the black community on the black to show an indifferent and unharmonious relationship. The blackcommunity suffers from the oppression of their white masters. As a result, they are lacking inconfidence and the sense of belongings. In Sula, the black community is treated unfairly. Thewhite people show their prejudice on the black. What’s worse, the black themselves treat theirfellows in an unharmonious and loveless way. Through the presentation of the unharmoniousrelationship, Morrison wants to show readers her wish to establish an equal community, acommunity where the black can have equal rights as the white. Only in this way can therelationship between the black and the society become harmonious.Through the analyses of these three ethical levels, this thesis tries to draw the conclusionthat Morrison has an ethical view which is full of self-balance, love and harmony by thedescription of the three ethical levels.