Personality of the Women Characters on Toni Morrison’S Sula
THE ‘FALSE SELF’ PERSONALITY OF THE WOMEN
CHARACTERS ON TONI MORRISON’S SULA
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
LIA HARININGTYAS
Student Number: 014214097
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2009 THE ‘FALSE SELF’ PERSONALITY OF THE WOMEN
CHARACTERS ON TONI MORRISON’S SULA
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
LIA HARININGTYAS
Student Number: 014214097
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2009
i ii iii Though you cannot go back and start again,
you can start from now and have a brand new end. (anonymous)
iv This Undergraduate Thesis is dedicated to
My Beloved Parents, My Big Brothers, & Myself.
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is imperfect but the love and support given during the journey
finishing it are honest. It is not merely about the result, but the process. I worship
Thee, the Almighty Jesus Christ, to whom I walk with, for His undemanding
love, for always waiting for me whenever I run out from Him and get lost.
I would like to thank my beloved father, Hari Santoso, for supporting me
in his unique ways and my loving mom, Chatarina Martanti for love, prayers and
patient in every ‘evil’ thing I do. I thank my two big brothers, Andre Wahyu
Widoyo and Febrian Hari Putro for big love, laugh and hug.
An enormous gratitude goes to my advisor, Dra. Theresia Enny Anggraini,
M.A., for her patience, attention, corrections, and helpful suggestion, my co- advisor, Dewi Widyastuti, S. Pd., M. Hum, for giving suggestions and corrections and I greatly thank my examiner, Maria Ananta Tri S, S. S., M. Ed, for useful discussion.
A phase of life in Sanata Dharma has united me with lots of precious
people with whom I improve my life. I thank Xantie, Fany ‘Jutex’,Imel, Petriza,
Deny, Fonny, Im-Boed and Monda, for sharing love and tears. Once I ask Him
friends, He gave me angels. I thank my ‘sisters’, mb Yeni, mb BJ, mb Njunk for
never ending support, brothers and sisters in PSM Cantus Firmus, Sekawan choir,
Kontjo Kenthel choir, Pasca Sarjana USD staff and the generation 2001 of
English Letters Department for invaluable life experiences. All of you complete
my drawing book.
Lia Hariningtyas
vi vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE i APPROVAL PAGE ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE iii MOTTO PAGE iv DEDICATION PAGE v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi STUDENT ORIGINALITY STATEMENT vii LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PUBLIKASI viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ix ABSTRACT x ABSTRAK xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 A. Background of the Study 1 B. Problem Formulation 4 C. Objectives of the Study 4 D. Definition of Terms 4
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW 6 A. Review of Related Studies 6 B. Review of Related Theories 9 1. Theory on Character and Characterization 9 2. Relation between Literature and Psychology 11 3. Theory of the ‘False self’ 12 C. Theoretical Framework 24
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 25 A. Object of the Study 25 B. Approach of the Study 26 C. Method of the Study 27
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS 30 A. The Characterization of the Women Characters 30 1. The Characterization of Sula Peace 30 2. The Characterization of Nel Wright 39 B. The Description of the Women Characters as Representative of ‘False self’ 48 1. The Description of Sula Peace as Representative of ‘False self’ 49 2. The Description of Nel Wright as Representative of ‘False self’ 58
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 67 BIBLIOGRAPHY 72 APPENDIX 74
ix ABSTRACT
LIA HARININGTYAS (2009). THE ‘FALSE SELF’ PERSONALITY OF THE WOMEN CHARACTERS ON TONI MORRISON’S SULA. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This undergraduate thesis studies the personality of women characters in the novel, Sula by Toni Morrison to reveal their characterization as representation of ‘false self’ person. This novel was published in 1973 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York but the novel edition used in this thesis is the hardcover edition published by Plume Book, New American Library in 1982. The story is centered on the friendship between two adult black women, Sula and Nel. Though they were raised in the different way by their mothers, they develop themselves as the representatives of ‘false self’. To analyze the novel, the writer formulates two problems. The first is how the two women characters, Sula and Nel, are characterized. The second is how both characters are described as representative of ‘false self’. The approach used in this thesis is psychological approach that took psychological theory of ‘false self’ that mainly develops to be a result of the quality of mothering the child receives. The mother’s function as a mirror to the child’s gestures and experiences permits the child to make emotional connections with other people. When she fails to understand the child’s gestures, then the child were subjected to the mother’s needs and he/she incorporates him/her feeling to the mother’s. Therefore, the mother-daughter relationship in the novel is revealed because it is the core of the theory and it influences their characteristics. Through the application theories, the result of first analysis is that Sula was characterized as autonomous and independent woman but lack of guidance, she is emotional when making decisions and doing things but dares to confront with others to explore her life. Though she lives her thought and emotions freely, on the other hand it shows her lack of ambition because she has no purpose of life so that she chooses to live alone. In fact, she rules her life. Nel, the other character was described as polite, obedient, not emotional, calm and mature in making decisions and doing things. But after all, it shows her disability to rule herself and incorporated her demands on others. She is spiritless and unconsciously, depending herself to others. The result of second analysis shows that Sula and Nel represent themselves as ‘false self’ through their characteristics. Sula’s characteristics that are independent and free rather than Nel, but in other ways, put herself as ‘false self’ since she fails to make emotional relationship with others and focuses most on her own thought. Nel’s characteristics suited most with ‘false self’ traits because her obedience shows her struggle to incorporate her needs to her mother’s and society’s needs. Nel’s characteristics represent ‘false self’ characteristics. Based on the analysis, the writer concludes that even though they are different in their characteristics, they are presented as ‘false self’. Their relationship with the mother influences much to the development of their personality that later may lead them as representatives of ‘false self’.
x ABSTRAK
LIA HARININGTYAS (2009). THE ‘FALSE SELF’ PERSONALITY OF THE WOMEN CHARACTERS ON TONI MORRISON’S SULA. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
Dalam tesis ini, penulis mempelajari kepribadian para tokoh wanita pada novel berjudul Sula karangan Toni Morrison untuk mengungkapkan penokohan mereka sebagai penggambaran ‘diri yang salah’. Novel ini dipublikasikan tahun 1973 oleh Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York namun yang digunakan dalam skripsi ini adalah edisi hardcover yang diterbitkan oleh Plume Book, New American Library tahun 1982. Novel ini bercerita mengenai persahabatan diantara dua wanita berkulit hitam, Sula dan Nel. Meskipun mereka dibesarkan oleh ibu mereka dengan cara yang bertolak belakang, perkembangan pribadi mereka merupakan penggambaran ‘diri yang salah’. Untuk mendapatkan hasil dari analisis ini, penulis merumuskan dua permasalahan. Pertama adalah bagaimana penokohan kedua tokoh wanita, Sula dan Nel, dan yang kedua adalah bagaimana penokohan kedua tokoh tersebut menggambarkan ‘diri yang salah’. Tesis ini menggunakan pendekatan psikologi yang mengambil teori psikologi ‘diri yang salah’ yang merupakan hasil pola pengasuhan yang diterima anak dari ibunya. Fungsi ibu sebagai cerminan sikap tubuh dan tingkah laku anak memudahkan anak untuk menjalin hubungan emosional dengan orang lain. Ketika ibu tidak mampu memahami sikap tubuh anak, maka si anak dipaksa untuk memahami dan menyesuaikan keinginannya dengan keinginan ibu. Karenanya, hubungan ibu dan anak dalam novel ini menjadi inti pembahasan karena ini juga mempengaruhi penokohan para tokoh wanita tersebut. Hasil analisis pertama menunjukkan penokohan Sula sebagai wanita mandiri dan bebas namun tanpa arahan, emosional dalam bertindak tapi berani bersikap dalam masyarakat. Kebebasannya berekspresi juga menunjukkan tidak adanya ambisi. Pada kenyataannya, dia memilih untuk hidup sendiri dan mengatur kehidupannya sendiri. Tokoh wanita lainnya, Nel, digambarkan sebagai wanita sopan, patuh, kalem dan lebih matang dalam berfikir dan bersikap. Namun ini menunjukkan ketidakmampuan mengatur dirinya dan berusaha menyelaraskan keinginannya dengan orang lain serta tanpa sadar, menggantungkan dirinya pada orang lain. Hasil analisis kedua menunjukkan bahwa penokohan Sula dan Nel menggambarkan diri mereka sebagai ‘diri yang salah’. Penokohan Sula yang bebas dan mandiri menunjukkan ‘diri yang salah’ karena dia gagal menjalin hubungan emosional dengan orang lain dan terpusat hanya pada keinginannya. Penokohan Nel sesuai dengan penokohan ‘diri yang salah’ karena kepatuhannya menunjukkan perjuangan menyesuaikan keinginannya dengan keinginan orang- orang di sekitarnya. Berdasarkan hasil kedua analisis, penulis menyimpulkan bahwa kedua penokohan yang berbeda ini menggambarkan ‘diri yang salah’. Hubungan dengan ibu sangat berpengaruh terhadap perkembangan pribadi kedua tokoh tersebut dan menunjukkan keduanya sebagai sebagai penggambaran ‘diri yang salah’.
xi CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Society is the place where someone lives, interacts, responds, and communicates with others to fulfill his or her needs. In a society, people can produce sets of culture, norms, and regulations to be society’s competence to regulate any person by giving sanctions in order to maintain the existence of the society (Zahn, 1964: 5-9). A person has to deal with the norms to make him or her easier in getting his or her needs. Someone’s ability to adapt with the norms of society is indirectly influenced by his or her personality development. Personality development of person determines by the individual’s heredity endowment, early experiences within the family, and important events in later life outside the home environment. It can be understood that not just the development of conscience, his or her sense of right and wrong, but also his or her identification with his or her parents’ moral judgments and moral standard espoused by the peers will influence his or her moral view that help him or her in suiting themselves to the norms.
Family as the closest environment to a child plays important role in a child’s personality development before he or she enters a society. Stagner in Psychology of Personality says that the family is a learning situation in which the parent is also a model of pattern which may be imitated by the child (1948: 352). Imitated by the child, mother as the caretaker needs to provide a situation that is liberating and supportive so that the child able to develop a sense of independence in line
1 2
with the exercise of his or her ego functions (Elliot, 2002: 31). The child is allowed to feel free to express his or her desire and knows how to differentiate good from bad actions, whether that is right or wrong and whether that is acceptable or not.
If the mother fails to provide the liberating and supportive situation, the failure can lead the child to a ‘false self’. Winnicott defines the ‘false self’ in
Anthony Elliot’s Psychoanalytic Theory: an Introduction the same as a person unable to establish stable emotional relations with others (Elliot, 2002: 32). A
‘false self’ person can either be ignorant to others or internalize the attitudes and reaction of others by abandoning his or her own desire.
Sula and Nel, the two women characters on Sula, were raised in a family with the absence of male power and led by women. The friendship they had during childhood is complementary relationship in which Nel can relief herself from neatness she had from her mother and vice versa, Sula enjoys the neatness of
Nel’s house since her mother never states a strict role on her. In their adult life,
Sula becomes a pariah of community because of her contradictory behavior to the norms. Nel herself becomes identical with women in her society, having a family and become a mother. To sum up, they are the product of their mother’s breed.
Though they described differently, both of them are the representative of the ‘false self’. Sula consciously disregards her woman responsibilities though it against the society while Nel behaves identically with women in her society in order to be accepted by the society. How they can be the representatives of ‘false self’ become the interesting topic to analyze. 3
The writer is interested to explore the topic of this thesis because the answer of the topic will help the readers understand how someone can be said as the ‘false self’. This topic is also interesting to analyze because readers can learn that family and environment around them are contributed much to their process in suiting themselves in society. Studying this topic may add readers’ knowledge as they may get something from the literary works. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs in their book, Fiction: An Introduction to Reading and Writing say that,
Literature helps us grow, both personally and intellectually; it provides an objective based on our knowledge and understanding; it helps connect ourselves to the broader cultural, philosophic, and religious world of which we are a part; it enables us to recognize human dreams and struggles in different places and times that we would never otherwise know (1989: 2).
Regardless of the representative of ‘false self’ could be either male or female, the topic might enriched the discussion on women-centered psychology. The analysis drawn in this thesis might show one of the psychological conditions experienced by (black) women at World War II as the impacts of economic deprivation. Diane Gillespie and Missy Dehn Kubitschek said in their essay that
Toni Morrison’s Sula, a contemporary novel about female friendship, “offers a view of female psychological development that defies traditional male-centered interpretations of female development and calls out for an expansion of the women-centered paradigm” (Iyasere, 2000: 20).
Related to this thesis, the writer will explain how the ‘false self’ of both women characters is described through their personality and behavior and it presented through the characters’ characterization. Then, this thesis observes how 4
the different personality of the characters leads them as representative of ‘false self’.
B. Problem Formulation
In order to analyze the story, the writer limits the discussion into two problems formulated as follows:
1. How are the two women characters, Sula and Nel, characterized in the story?
2. How are both characters described as representative of ‘false self’?
C. Objectives of the Study
The aims of this thesis are first, to know the personality of the two women characters, Sula and Nel, through each characterization. Second, is to identify both women characters as representation of ‘false self’ based on the characterization drawn previously.
D. Definition of Terms
There are several words appear as keywords related to the analysis. To avoid ambiguity, the words need to be defined as follow:
1. Personality that according to The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology means a
simple description of an individual’s characteristic modes of behaving,
perceiving, and thinking (Reber, 1995: 556).
2. Self, according to International Encyclopedia of Psychology, means a complex
and multifaceted entity that is a combination of what an individual is currently 5
like, and what others would like the individual to be; because the self is
created through, and has implications for; an individual’s interactions with
others (Magill, 1996: 1480).
3. ‘False self’, based on the explanation in Psychoanalytic Theory, means a self
that compulsively anticipates the reactions of others. This self is at once a
defense against the failure of maternal object as well as an attempt by the
infant to establish some form of object relationship, however frail and brittle
(Elliot, 2002: 74).
The term ‘false self’ will be described broadly in the review of related theory and the other words mentioned in the title and analysis can be understood using
English dictionary because it has been common words that generally used in daily life. CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
Toni Morrison, the author who is being discussed in this study, is an
American author and an educator who becomes one of the greatest and most influential figures in African American literature. Winning Nobel Prize in
Literature, Morrison then is recognized internationally as an outstanding, fine writer. Each of Morrison’s novels is as original as everything that has appeared in black literature in the last twenty years. Like what Charles Larson stated
The contemporaneity that unites them (the troubling persistence of racism in America) is filled with an urgency that only a black writer can have about our society (www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lakhia/morrison/biograph.html).
Morrison writes what she called as ‘village’ literature, fiction for her people which is necessary and legitimate but acceptable with all sorts of people. The idea of protection, particularly the black family’s efforts to offer emotional and physical sanctuary against slavery or economic deprivation becomes a great theme in her literature (Reynolds, 1999: 197-198). Likewise Encyclopedia Americana
Volume 19 stated that her writing is rooted in the desire to bear witness to the enslavement of African Americans as an essential American cultural fact and the significant characteristic of her novels is that it deals with the effort of African
Americans to survive within cultural, economic, and social disruption in their communities (1995: 475).
6 7
When there was an explosion of talented black writers to the attention of the
American reading public in 1960s, Toni Morrison perceived a void in the canon where a black female voice should be. A chronological reading of Morrison’s work, like Birch explained in Black American Women’s Writing, will show that her own voice gathers strength in later work as she considers the issue of female friendship, different aspects of love, and the help provided by community like in
The Bluest Eye (1970) and Sula (1973), in which she focuses on the Black female
(Birch, 1994: 150).
Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature mentioned that Sula examines (among other issues) the dynamics of friendship and the expectations for the conformity within Black community (1995: 781). In Sula, Morrison points to what can be lost when community disappears. Technological progress had brought isolation; a distancing of individuals from the emotional nutrition which had characterized the Bottoms, the community in the novel. Morrison suggests that in striving to survive ‘whole’ within community in twentieth-century
America, Black American should nourish and in turn are nourished by, their own community. With this, they can preserve the sense of identity, which Nel and Sula in their own ways, had set about finding (Birch, 1994: 163-164).
Morrison’s need to articulate the uniqueness of female experience is realized in the women-centered The Bluest Eye and Sula which chart the progress of her female protagonists from childhood into womanhood. The characters in those novels show the unmitigated life experiences they had for having double burden as both woman and black, like what Birch stated 8
The dragged Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye is doomed to live forever in a state of perverted childhood, whilst Sula and Nel live into adulthood ultimately only given coherence by the death of Sula and Nel’s belated recognition of an abiding friendship.’ (1994: 150-151).
This thesis, which tries to show the different personality of the characters as a representation of ‘false self’, is a study that could enriches the discussion on
Sula especially in women-centered psychology since the characters analyzed in the thesis are women. Dianne Gillespie and Missy Dehn Kubitschek state in their essay Who Cares? Women-centered Psychology in Sula that,
Minority literature offers women-centered psychology another expansion of the female self beyond the Euro-American mother-daughter or friend-friend dyad; Afro-American literature often explores a self-in-community (Iyasere, 2000: 20).
The mother-daughter relationship, powerful social and economic forces are crucial and affect much in the development of the female self, including Sula and
Nel. Their representation as ‘false self’ cannot be separated from their relationship with family and community. This thesis topic is different from other topics even though it uses the psychoanalysis as its approach. This thesis topic is more to the psychological condition of the two woman characters, Sula and Nel, by applying a certain theory in psychology which is ‘false self’. It traces deeply to the personality of Sula and Nel, shaped mostly by their mother and their interactions to society, to see them as a description of ‘false self’ person. The writer positions this undergraduate thesis as the supporting evidence of other studies concentrated on Afro-American woman in the early 20th century. 9
B. Review of Related Theories
The related theories reviewed in this chapter will be used in order to answer the problems. The related theories are the theory on character and characterization, relation between literature and psychology, also the theory of
‘false self’.
1. Theory on Character and Characterization
This undergraduate thesis will analyze both characters as representative of
‘false self’ based on their personality. Before analyzing their personality, the writer needs to know their characteristics using the theories on characters and characterization.
Character is an imagined person who inhabits a story. In A Glossary of
Literary Terms, Abrams defines character as
person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the readers as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say-the dialogue and by what they do-the action (1981: 23).
In the story, its characters act in a reasonably consistent manner and the author has provided them with motivation; the basic in the characters’ temperament, desires, and moral value for their speech and actions; or sufficient reason to behave as they do (Kennedy, 1999: 45).
The description of characters attitudes in the literary works is not only a process to make literary works alive but also a process to present the idea of moral uprightness in the human personality (Holman and Harmon, 1986: 81). M.J.
Murphy in his book Understanding Unseen: An Introduction to English Poetry 10
and English Novel for Overseas Students (1972: 161-173) illustrates some ways in representing the characters or what Rohrberger and Woods said as characterization, the process to create characters (1971: 20). The author attempts to make his characters understandable and to come alive for the readers. a. Personal description refers to physical appearance of the characters. The description is often related to his psychological condition. The personality itself can be reflected from the external appearance. b. Character as seen by another means the author can directly describe the character through the opinion of another. Other characters will give explanation about what the character is like. Other’s thought about a certain character can be significant factors to build an understanding of him. c. Through speech, the author can give us insight into the thought what the character says. Whenever the person is speaking, he is giving the readers some clue to his character. d. Past life of characters is always closely connected to his present life. By learning about a person’s life past, the author can give the reader a clue that has helped to shape a person’s character. It was given through direct comment by the author, through the person’s thought or through other person. e. Conversation with others and the things they say about him are the author’s clues to a person’s character. We need to pay attention towards the conversations of other characters. It is useful to go to speech-by-speech to determine exactly what it is meant or implied by each of them. f. Reactions to various situations and events could depict the person’s character. 11
g. Direct comment is a straightforward description of the characters given by the author. h. There are several parts in a story when the author describes clearly what the characters have in their mind. The readers trace in the characters’ mind to know their thoughts of something. i. Mannerisms or habits done by the characters may tell the readers something about the characters.
2. Relation between Literature and Psychology
Analyzing literary works relating to psychology means an application of the rule of psychology within works of literature, as Rene Wellek and Austin Warren explain in their book, Theory of Literature:
By ‘psychology of literature’, or the study of the creative process, or the study of the psychological types and laws present within works of literature, or, finally, the effects of literature upon its readers (audience psychology) (1956: 81).
Critics might interpret literary work without any reference to its author’s biography, though it is allowed. David Daiches explains further in his book
Critical Approaches to Literature that a critic can look at the behaviors of characters and the interactions among it in the novel under the modern psychological knowledge and when their behaviors confirm with what he or she knows about the subtleties of the human mind, he or she can use the theory as a mean of explicating and interpreting the work (1981: 337-338). 12
In this thesis, the writer observes the behavior of the two woman characters and relates it to a psychological theory to know the psychological types of personality of the characters presented within works of literature.
3. Theory of the ‘False Self’
The psychological theory used as a mean of explicating and interpreting the work of literature applied in this thesis is a theory of the ‘false self’, a theory of self conceptualized by D. W. Winnicott. D. W. Winnicott is an influential figure in British school of object relations theory who defines the concept of the ‘false self’. The object relations theory itself is an offshoot of psychoanalytic theory that emphasizes interpersonal relations, primarily in the family (whoever the first caretaker of the child) and especially between mother (mostly) and child. Victor
Daniels mentions that inner images of the self and other and how they manifest themselves in interpersonal situations with environment become an interest of object relations theorists (www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/objectrelations).
Anthony Elliot, in Psychoanalytic Theory: an Introduction, adds that
…object relations theory sees a fundamental link between self-formation and the environmental and emotional provisions provided by significant other persons (the dynamics of human interactions) (2002: 69).
The interest of object relation theorists is on the close relationship of mother and child connected with how it affected the manifestation of child inner images.
Mother plays an important role in a child effort to develop itself as an individual, especially in the very first stage of child personality development. Infancy is a period in human life in which the first sense of self was constructed. In this stage, 13
newly born infant has to develop a sense of self from an original state of
‘unintegration’. This struggle of the self for an individuated existence characteristically centers on the quality of object relation between child and mother and ties to a state of what is called as ‘primary maternal occupation’.
Winnicott conceptualizes that for a child to develop a healthy, genuine self, the mother must be a ‘good-enough mother’ and provides environmental provision called ‘good-enough mothering’ which is necessary for the development of a belief in benign environment.
(www.sci.csuhayward.edu/~dsanberg/PSYTXLECTS/ PsyTxLect04ObjRelt)
The mother, to be a ‘good-enough mother’, functions as a ‘mirror’ to reflect back to the child its own experiences and gestures, offers a special sort of presence (non-intrusive), or devotion (non-demanding support with external reality), which allows the child to experience itself as self-identical and feel free to create a ‘representational world’, imagine, desire, also be able to develop a sense of independence in line with the exercise of his or her ego functions (Elliot,
2002: 31 & 73). The mother, as a mirror, shows the child that she understands emotional states of jubilation and distress that leads a contact between the child and the real external world. Farnham and Lundberg in their essay further explain that in a family, a girl is already provided with the mother in whom she will have to believe that her mother’s nature, temperament and attitudes are ideals in which a girl depends on and strives as a woman before she discovers other ideals and models (Showalter, 1971: 237). Child’s ability to inhibit actions that are disapproved by society and to be concerned about the welfare of others is 14
influenced by the identification with the parents. The way they are rewarded or punished for behavior in specific situations will influence their moral views and relations with others (Atkinson, 1983: 81). Therefore, the appearance of a stable core of selfhood depends on establishing the kind of relationship and provision that are at once liberating and supportive, creative and dependent, defined and formless. The repetition of the satisfaction of instinctual needs, the child comes to see the world as benevolent that corresponds to the child’s own capacity to create, develop good object relations and remain healthy.
From this angle, Winnicott draws his distinction between the ‘true self’, a person capable of creating living, and the ‘false self’, a person unable to establish stable emotional relations with others. These selves develop as a result of the quality of the mothering the child receives (Elliot, 2002: 74). The good-enough mother, who understands and responds to the child spontaneous gestures, gives child’s weak ego the strength necessary to retain the expression of the ‘true self’.
The child’s ego development has led to the creative and spontaneous expression of human needs and feelings. While on the other hands, the not good-enough mother, who cannot understand and react to such expressions, subjects the child to her own needs. The child tries desperately to make emotional relation with the mother by abandoning his or her own wishes and incorporating her demands, desires, and feeling.
Each individual or a child needs positive regards, which are acceptance, liking, warmth, empathy, and respect from others who are significant to him or her. Such positive regards help the individual to accept, be himself, and reveal his 15
or her true feeling behind a mask. Lacking a sense of trust from significant others close to him or her, human interaction for child is perceived as terrifying. The mother as the first and most significant other for the child plays an important task to give positive regards to the child so that the child can improve his or her self confident and express his or her feeling. When he or she is able to develop feeling of true positive regards for others, a harmonious relationship with others could maintain. Having a best friend relationship with somebody, a child might satisfy his or her needs because friendship pair functions to satisfy certain needs in each child, can act as vehicle of a child’s self-expression and to share values, attitudes, and expectations both for each other and for outsiders (Craig, 1979: 401).
On the contrary, when he or she is unable to adequately express inner needs and emotional longings, he or she turns defensively against himself or herself by internalizing the attitudes and reactions of others (Elliot, 2002: 32) and fails to maintain a healthy relationship with others. He or she will tend to repress his or her needs to meet with others’. It is the essence of the ‘false self’, for Winnicott, that it operates to hide the ‘true self’ which it does by compliance with environmental demands. It is through the ‘false self’ that the child builds up a false set of relationships.
In (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm), Peter K. Gerald listed 42 typical behavioral traits of ‘false self’ wounds that helped the writer to analyze the characters. The traits are listed as below.
1) S/He usually thinks in black-or-white ("bi-polar") terms: s/he sees things as either right or wrong, good or bad, relevant or not, logical or "stupid" - not 16
somewhere between, or a mix. S/He's mildly to very uneasy with ambivalence, vagueness, or uncertainty. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm).
2) S/He is often a (compulsive) perfectionist: achieving perfection is just "normal"
(vs. special); S/He has trouble enjoying her/his own achievements, and is often uncomfortable accepting merited appreciation and praise.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
3) S/He is often rigid and inflexible. S/He thinks obsessively, and/or acts compulsively, even if personally unpleasant, unnecessary, or unhealthy; or s/he is overly passive and compliant, fearing to take personal, social, and occupational initiatives. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
4) S/He is usually serious, intellectual, and analytic, wanting to understand life and situations, and know in great detail why things are as they are. S/He may be interested in psychology, counseling, and/or study and discuss human behavior
"endlessly." (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
5) S/He is often confused, disorganized, overwhelmed, and "helpless;" or is fiercely independent, controlling, and over competent.S/He depends excessively on, or chronically procrastinates or avoids seeking appropriate medical, psychological, social, and/or spiritual help (self neglect).
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
6) S/He is uncomfortable being silly, spontaneous, or child-like ("doesn't know how to play"), or is always silly, simplistic, and joking.S/He is uncomfortable with, and frequently avoids, prolonged emotionally-intimate personal contacts.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm) 17
7) S/He is extremely responsible (over-willing to take charge, organize, and fix things, even if personally taxing); or frequently irresponsible and undependable; and probably denies, minimizes, or rationalizes (explains) doing either one.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
8) S/He often has trouble feeling and/or expressing strong emotions, and/or tolerating them in others - especially anger, hurt, fear, and sadness. S/He often feels "nothing," or has frequent unpredictable or inappropriate outbursts of rage, sadness, weeping, "depression," or anxiety. S/He may never apologize, or apologizes "all the time." (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
9) S/He compulsively needs to control personal emotions, key relationships, and interpersonal situations. S/He is either overly aggressive, rigid, and domineering, or subtly, persistently manipulative - e.g. using guilt-trips or a "helpless victim” stance, striving to "always" get her/his way. Where true, s/he probably denies, minimizes, jokes about, or rationalizes this. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
10) S/He has significant memory gaps about early childhood years and events, and one or both parents. S/He knows little about one or both parents' childhood experiences and feelings, and finds that unimportant or unremarkable.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
11) S/He's socially very shy or very adept, and has few or no real (intimate) friends.S/He has a history of relationship avoidances and/or "failures," including divorce/s.S/He feels high discomfort with interpersonal commitment and/or intimacy, and consistently denies, minimizes, or rationalizes (intellectually explains) this. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm) 18
12) S/He may be sexually dysfunctional - e.g. impotent, frigid, or compulsively avoids sexual contact; or s/he is harmfully seductive and promiscuous, and/or secretly uncomfortable with, or ashamed of, her or his gender, body (parts), sexual feelings and fantasies, and/or behavior. S/He may have been, or was, sexually molested or abused as a child or young adult. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
13) S/He "never gets sick," or suffers chronic illnesses like migraines or other headaches, back, neck, or other muscle pain; insomnia or apnea, obesity; asthma; gastric, intestinal, or colon problems; anxiety attacks; phobias; allergies, or other emotional or physical maladies which may not respond to appropriate medications or therapies. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
14) S/He is highly uncomfortable about revealing personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences (excessively distrustful or often discloses personal things inappropriately (insensitive, over-trustful). (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
15) S/He is uncomfortable giving, getting, and/or observing affectionate and appropriate touching and hugging ("stiff" or "cold"), and/or often touches others dutifully, awkwardly or inappropriately. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
16) S/He often avoids personal conflicts with or between others, by changing or controlling the conversation, getting intensely angry, "collapsing," or withdrawing physically and/or emotionally ("numbing"); or s/he seems to often enjoy triggering or experiencing conflict with or between others.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
17) S/He is compulsive about and/or is (or was) addicted one or more of these:
_ alcohol in some form _ prescription drugs _ illegal ("hard") drugs 19
_ excitement / drama _ a special hobby _ pain / death _ sugar / carbohydrates _ money / wealth / saving / _ cleaning / neatness spending / gambling _ food / dieting / nutrition _ another person _ work or "busy-ness" _ sex / masturbation / porn _ fitness / health / _ God/worship/church / exercising salvation / hell / Satan _ lying/secrecy/truth/honesty _ "justice" / "fairness" _ image /others' opinions _ a social "cause" _ caffeine / nicotine _ material possessions _ emotional "recovery" _ _
18) S/He has children, relatives, and/or past or present partner/s who obsess about, or are or were addicted to, one or more of the above.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
19) S/He has recurring depression apathy, and/or tiredness "for -no reason."S/He may have periodic sleep disorders (e.g. insomnia) and/or nightmares, and may use medication for these. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
20) S/He repeatedly feels empty "something's missing (in me)," or "I'm different
(than other people) somehow...", without knowing why.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
21) S/He is fairly to very uncomfortable being alone, or prefers solitude to an unusual degree, and seems socially isolated. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
22) S/He has consistently low self-esteem; Often harshly self-critical; Discounts her/his own successes; Constantly apologetic or defensive; Usually discounts merited praise; Consistently avoids making or keeping solid eye contact with some or most men / women / authorities / people; Commonly uses "you" or "we" rather than "I." (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm) 20
23) S/He often experiences "mind-racing" or "mind-churning": ceaseless "inner voices" (thought streams), which are frequently anxious, fearful, critical, argumentative, and/or chaotic. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
24) S/He is often hyper-vigilant: i.e. anxiously alert to the present and expected future actions of other people; Tends to "mind-read" and assume others' (usually negative) beliefs or intentions, and react to things that haven’t happened yet as though they had. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
25) S/He often smiles and/or chuckles automatically and inappropriately when nervous, hurt, confused, scared, angry, or worried (i.e. often); If so, s/he is usually unaware of this habit, can’t explain it, and may joke about it to hide anxiety.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
26) S/He often feels vaguely or clearly victimized by others or "fate"; Regularly avoids taking responsibility for her/his own choices, and denies or endlessly rationalizes doing so; or assumes too much responsibility, and blames themselves harshly (feels guilty) for things beyond their control.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
27) S/He is highly sensitive to real or imagined criticism from others;
Unnecessarily rationalizes, explains, and defends their own actions and values;
S/He is quick to blame others, or often empathizes with "the other guy’s" situation and gives in easily. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
28) S/He commonly fears, distrusts, is tense around, and/or argues with some authority figures. S/He either feels very anxious without clear instructions, or compulsively resists them and acts independently. 21
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
29) S/He fears saying "no," and setting appropriate limits with others; S/He feels reluctant to - and guilty about - asserting her/his own needs and ideas.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
30) S/He confuses pity with love, and/or associates love with pain. S/He usually focuses on others' needs first, and tends to rescue or "fix" them; or is over- concerned with their own needs ("self centered"); S/He avoids intimacy, or cyclically seeks, then runs from it (has a history of cyclic "approach < > avoid" relationships). (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
31) S/He hangs on desperately to "toxic" relationships - i.e. ones regularly yielding significant shame, fear, guilt, stress, and pain; "Over-loyal." S/He may repeatedly cycle between intense jealousy and guilt; Major personal relationship- choices are often largely based on fears of criticism, "being wrong," rejection, and abandonment. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
32) S/He feels bored, restless, or uneasy without current personal or environmental crisis chaos, or excitement; At times s/he seems to seek or make crises, and denies or rationalizes (justifies) this.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
33) Typically s/he either waits and reacts to situations, or is often self-harmfully impulsive and proactive. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
34) S/He often feels alone, disconnected, or lonely, even in a group or crowd.
Rarely feels s/he really belongs anywhere. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm) 22
35) S/He often seeks pleasure and gratification now, vs. later; S/He may defend or minimize this, rationalize by saying "I can't help it," or deflect from it by joking. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
36) S/He prefers to work independently (e.g. as a consultant, craftsperson, or entrepreneur) and/or in a solitary setting. S/He either changes jobs often, or stays at the same job for years. S/He works in a human-service occupation or avocation
(nurse or doctor, teacher, counselor, lawyer, clergyperson, professional consultant
…) (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
37) S/He either rarely or frantically initiates social activities.S/He habitually avoids or compulsively seeks being the center of social or occupational attention.
(http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
38) S/He is frequently either self-centered and grandiose, or subtly or clearly self-abusive, self-deprecating, self-sabotaging, and/or self-neglectful (e.g. never seeing a doctor or dentist). (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
39) S/He habitually withholds or shades the truth, or lies, to avoid expected criticism, rejection, or "hurting others". S/He denies doing so to Self and/or others, and secretly feels guilty and ashamed. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
40) S/He is secretly or openly critical or ashamed of their "looks," appearance, or body. S/He may be either extremely modest or very immodest; S/He consistently grooms and dresses either shabbily and drably, or "loudly," over- formally, or "perfectly"; (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
41) S/He repeatedly chooses people with significant false-elf wounds as mates, friends, and associates; (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm) 23
42) S/He denies having many or most of these traits to excess, explains them defensively, and/or minimizes their personal significance - and s/he probably denies this denial, or jokes about it. (http://sfhelp.org/01/f+t_selves.htm)
Later, the writer applies only 18 traits which are appropriate to the characters’ characterization that is already drawn before applying the ‘false self’ theory. The
18 traits are the trait number 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 21, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31,
32, and 39. Those traits listed might be experienced different for each character and the numbers of the traits are differing for each character but both characters are also experience the same traits.
Basically, each person has a ‘true self’ and ‘false self’ within their personality and its development is influenced much by the environment around him or her. People are unconsciously do the ‘false self’ behavioral traits, rarely or even completely unaware of its dominance, and its impacts within them. The traits experienced are different and the number of traits experienced are vary for each person but having (almost) all the traits listed above, he or she might be overly dominated by his or her ‘false self’ personality. But once identified, ‘false self’ dominance can be significantly be reduced over time and ‘true self’ enabled through self-motivated personal recovery. In fact, ‘false self’ is not a personality disorder therefore it can be cured through medication and routine counseling to the psychiatrist. But being over controlled by ‘false self’, tending someone to have extremely personality fragmenting and the ‘true self’ is repressed most of the time. 24
C. Theoretical Framework
The analysis takes some theories to answer the problems proposed in the problem formulation. There are theories on character and characterization, relation between literature and psychology, and the theory of ‘false self’.
Since the study is on the two women characters, Sula and Nel, therefore the analysis needs the theories on character and characterization in order to understand their characteristics before analyzing their difference of personality.
This thesis learns characteristics of the characters by examining their dialogue, actions, and other characters’ opinion on the two women characters discussed. By analyzing the characterization of the main characters first, the writer can use this as the basic before analyzing the two woman characters’ difference in their personality.
To relate the novel with the psychological theories, the writer presents a theory on relation between literature and psychology. The main discussion deals with a certain type of personality, the writer presents the theory of ‘false self’ as the main theory to analyze the characters, especially their personality and behavior which are describing the ‘false self’ person. CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The object of the study to analyze in this thesis is a novel written by Toni
Morrison, the only black woman who received the Nobel Prize of Literature up to now. The novel is entitled Sula and it was published in 1973 by Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., New York. The novel used in this thesis is the hardcover edition published by Plume Book, New American Library in 1982, and consists of 177 pages. The story is divided into two parts in which each part is divided again into several sub chapters. The sub chapters are initiated by a configuration of numbers that are showing the setting of the time of the story.
Sula is Morrison’s second novel. It becomes an alternate selection for the
Book-of-the-Month club and an excerpt in a major American literary anthology,
The American Tradition in Literature also in the popular women’s magazine
Redbook (Iyasere, 2000: xvi). Sula is nominated for the National Book award for fiction and receives the Ohioana Book Award in 1975.
(www.milikin.edu/aci/crow/chronology/ morrisonbio.html)
Sula is centered on the friendship between two adult black women, Sula and
Nel. Previously mentioned, the story is divided into two parts. The first chapter or part, initiated by named years from 1919 to 1927, depicts the childhoods and background of Sula and Nel while the second part, from 1937 to 1965, depicts their adulthood, their broken friendship, the death of Sula, and the lonely ageing of Nel after Sula’s death. Sula and Nel, the two main woman characters analyzed,
25 26
have their own families that are contrasted. Nel is the product of a family that believes deeply in social conventions while Sula is taught to be free in doing anything since her mother, Hannah, and her grandmother, Eva, never state a strict role in the house. Moreover, the town sees Eva and Hannah as eccentric and loose.
Despite their differences, Sula and Nel become fiercely attached to each other during adolescence since both of them do not have a father. Nel’s father was absence after her birth while Sula’s died when she is only three years old.
Later, Nel chooses to marry and settles into the conventional role of wife and mother while Sula lives a life of fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. Shortly after Nel’s wedding, Sula leaves Bottom (their community) for a period of 10 years but then she returned. Nel breaks off her friendship with
Sula because Sula has an affair with Nel’s husband, Jude. Then the town regards
Sula as the very personification of evil for her disregard of social conventions supported by her affairs with men. In the end of the story, just before Sula’s death,
Sula and Nel achieve a half-hearted reconciliation. With Sula’s death, the harmony that had reigned in the town quickly dissolved.
B. Approach of the Study
In relation with the topic of the thesis, the writer applies the psychological approach, especially the theory of ‘false self’ since both characters represent those kind of self though they have different personality and behavior. Rohrberger and
Woods define psychology approach as follow, 27
“Psychology approach is the effort to locate and demonstrate certain recurrent patterns, but from different body of knowledge that is psychology” (1971:13).
This approach uses the psychological theories to explain human motivation, personality, and behavior patterns written in literary objects (1971:13-15).
The psychological approach perhaps least appreciated by many readers but it is challenging and rewarding since its proper application to interpret the literary work can enhance the researchers’ understanding and appreciation of literature
(Guerin et al, 1999: 125). The approach lets the readers to analyze psychologically the characters or situations in the literary works.
The reason why the writer chooses the approach in analyzing the topic is because the writer studies the psychological aspects of the main character in the novel and its connection, either influencing or being influenced, by the family and society that lead them as the representative of ‘false self’ using psychological knowledge of ‘false self’ the writer has.
C. Method of the Study
In completing its analysis, the writer applied library or desk research. It means that the data, theories about literature, criticisms, and any other information that enriched the study were collected from the books.
There were two kinds of sources used in this study. The first was the primary source that was the novel itself as the main source of this study. The secondary sources were taken in order to support the analysis of the study. They were the theories on the literary works and some psychological theories for the analysis. 28
The theories on character and characterization were taken from the books M.H.
Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary Terms, C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon’s
A Handbook to Literature, M.J. Murphy’s Understanding Unseen: an
Introduction to English Poetry and English Novel for Overseas Students. Since this thesis using psychological approach, the writer needs to know the relation between literature and psychology based on the explanations in Rene Wellek and
Austin Warren’s Theory of Literature, and David Daiches’ Critical Approach to
Literature. Theories of ‘false self’ are taken from Anthony Elliot’s book,
Psychoanalytic Theory: an Introduction, Introduction to Psychology by Rita L.
Atkinson, Richard C. Atkinson and Ernest R. Hilgard and online resources connected with the theory.
The study took some steps to answer the problems on the problem formulation. The first step was to read and reread the novel as the primary data of the study until the writer got a full comprehension of it, by focusing the attention on the two main woman characters’ personality development that was influenced by the society. The conversations and descriptions given directly by the author led to the comprehension of their different personality.
Secondly, this study obtained theories on character and characterization, relation between literature and psychology, and theory of ‘false self’. When read and reread the novel, the personality of the characters, Sula and Nel, can be identified based on the theories on characters and characterization. Relation between literature and psychology and theories of ‘false self’ were used to identify the characters’ personality that leads them as ‘false self’. 29
Thirdly, the writer listed the characteristic of the characters, Sula and Nel, to answer the first problem and described the characters’ ‘false self’ based on the traits of ‘false self’ wounds cited to answer the second problem that lead to the understanding of the topic based on the theories proposed before. Finally, the conclusion could be drawn based on the analysis. CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the analysis of the problems proposed in the previous chapter. There are two problems that need to be analyzed further. The first problem is about the characterization of the women characters who are Sula and
Nel. The second problem is about the description of women characters’ personality as ‘false self’ based on the psychological theory used.
A. The Characterization of the Women Characters
Previously mentioned, the focus of the discussion is on Sula and Nel personality. Therefore, how Sula and Nel are presented in the story will be analyzed by applying the theory on characterization. The analysis will be divided into two parts, subtitled the characterization of Sula Peace and the characterization of Nel Wright.
1. The Characterization of Sula Peace
The first way of characterization is personal description in which the author describes the character’s physical appearance (Murphy, 1972: 161). In the novel,
Sula Peace appears as a common black girl, a wishbone thin girl with a heavy brown skin color. She has wide large eyes which in one of her eyes, there is a birthmark shaped like a stemmed rose. People easily recognize her from the birthmark.
Nel Wright and Sula Peace were both twelve in 1922, wishbone thin and easy-assed…. Sula was a heavy brown with large quiet eyes, one of which
30 31
featured a birthmark that spread from the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed rose. It gave her otherwise plain face a broken excitement and blue-blade threat like the keloid scar of the razored man who sometimes played checkers with her grandmother. The birthmark was to grow darker as the years passed, but now it was the same shade as her gold-flecked eyes, which, to the end, were as steady and clean as rain. (Morrison, 1982: 52)
Sula is an autonomous woman. She is independent in learning things in society, making up her own mind and judgment of things, making decisions by her own and does everything that she thinks right. Her childhood life shows how
Sula’s personality was shaped. According to Murphy, the author might gives clues to events in character’s past life that have helped to shape the personality (1972:
166). Sula, during her childhood, lives together with her mother, Hannah and her grandmother, Eva, is having neither affection nor attention from men. Thus, the examples Sula has to imitate are her mother and her grandmother. Either a boy or a girl in struggling to become an adult must rely upon some pattern or model which he or she can derive a design for masculinity and femininity. Hannah, as a single parent, is supposed to play the role of mother and father, give examples especially about femininity and household jobs which are included as womanly obligations then explain it to Sula to help her becoming an adult woman. As a mother, Hannah should teach Sula how to take care of the house, cook meals, wash the dishes and other household duties while as a woman, she is supposed to teach Sula about a man and woman relationship, about marriage and being a wife and mother. In fact, she does not give enough models as a mother or a woman.
She does not give enough love, care, attention and directions to Sula. Sula is an abandon child for not having love from Hannah but at the same time, she is 32
autonomous and independent. The description of Sula’s house shows less supported circumstance for a child to grow up.
Similarly, Sula, also an only child, but wedged into a household of throbbing disorder constantly awry with things, people, voices and the slamming of doors…
…Sula’s wooly house, where a pot of something was always cooking on the stove; where the mother, Hannah, never scolded or gave directions; were all sorts of people drop in; where newspaper were stacked in the hallway, and any dirty dishes left for hours at a time in the sink, …(Morrison, 1982: 52 & 29).
When a child should be given an education about sex by the parents, Sula is smart enough to figure it out herself by seeing her mother relationships with men, mostly the husbands of her friend and neighbors. Her relationship with men indirectly
…taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent but otherwise unremarkable. Outside the house, where children giggled about underwear, the message was different. So she watched her mother’s face and the face of the men when they opened the pantry door and made up her own mind. (Morrison, 1982: 44)
Hannah, not giving good examples of being a woman and mother, does not direct Sula as well in such manners normally occur in a society. She does not provide information about whether a thing is good or not, right or wrong, acceptable or not, never scold to Sula whatever she does and gives unlimited space for Sula to do whatever she wants and lets her to make up her own judgments of things and decide by herself what she has to do, whether that is right or wrong, based on her own understanding. It is a good thing when parents allow children to explore their self without any limitation, but feedbacks from parents still needed in order children can recognize whether their behavior and judgments 33
of things are wrong or right. Hannah frees Sula to control of her own life, but she does not give feedbacks so that Sula hardly recognized which one is right or wrong, acceptable or not. Sula becomes unable to decide good from bad based on the norms and regulation that society has, on the other hand, she is able to make her own choices of life.
Lack of love, attention and directions, Sula has to understand everything happened in her life by her own because her mother would not lead or guide her.
It makes her become an autonomous woman and it influences how she makes decisions of her life by her own and free to do things that are right according to her understanding though it might wrong but can be said as an awkward behavior done by a girl. Like an event when she slashes off the tip of her finger in front of white boys who like to harass black school children. She is bravely slashing her finger with a knife and calmly speaking to them that if she can do that to herself, she can do the same thing to them. Sula is so scared that the boys will harass them so that she slashes her finger just to intimidate them. It shows that Sula is very emotional when making a decision and behaving in severe situations which is not based on deep thinking of the risks and the impacts the decisions may cause, even that she has to hurt herself. The author describes or comments about it directly in the novel (Murphy, 1972: 170).
Sula, like always, was incapable of making any but the most trivial decisions. When it came to matters of grave importance, she behaved emotionally and irresponsibly and left it to others to straighten out. And when fear struck her, she did unbelievable things. (Morrison, 1982: 44)
The one she tried to protect Nel, she had cut off her own finger tip and earned not Nel’s gratitude but her disgust. From then on, she had let her emotions dictate her behavior. (Morrison, 1982: 141) 34
She behaves emotionally and does unbelievable things to protect her because she learns that she cannot count on herself to others to help and protect her, not even her mother. Unintentionally, Sula hears Hannah’s statement about her. From quotation taken below, in the conversation between Hannah and her friends,
Hannah mentions that loving and liking Sula is different thing.
Hannah smiled and said, “Shut your mouth. You love the ground he pee on.” “Sure I do. But he still a pain. Can’t help loving your own child. No matter what they do.” “Well, Hester grown now and I can’t say love is exactly what I feel." “Sure you do. You love her, like I love Sula. I just don’t like her. That’s the difference.” “Guess so. Likin’ them is another thing.” “Sure. They different people, you know…” She (Sula) only heard Hannah’s words, and the pronouncement sent her flying up the stairs. In bewilderment, she stood at the window fingering the curtain edge, aware of a sting in her eye. (Morrison, 1982: 57)
When a mother who should protect her child, Hannah does not provide enough safety Sula needed. From then on, Sula loses her trust to others and believes that it is only herself she could count on. She becomes selfish.
Although her behaviors were done emotionally, but it shows that Sula is a courageous woman. She dares to do unbelievable thing that no one would ever think to do. She is not afraid to confront with white boys. It shows that she has power inside herself and not just giving up to others. She shows that she is the leader and her life is her own. If she dares to confront with white boys, she also dares to confront with society in her adult life. She chooses not to marry but has relationships with men either white or black, husbands of neighbors or a bachelor, not in marriage constitution. Society call her as a pariah for her relationships with white men in which at that time, a white man and black woman relationship is 35
called rape. The birthmark she has now is taken into notice that it is a sign of her wicked behaviors by society. Her relationship with men is one way she frees her thoughts and emotions, an experimental life and she does not care about what society said.
Sula never thinks about how to gain good prestige in society, which she has to control her behavior in order to get appreciation or compliments from others, while most people try to gain their pride. She pleases others when others please her as if she has no obligation to it. Having a good name in society is not the important thing for her. She lives out her life to explore her thoughts and emotions.
Eva’s arrogance and Hannah’s self-indulgence merged in her and, with a twist that was all her own imagination, she lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless their pleasure pleased her. (Morrison, 1982: 118)
Not just because she thinks that gaining good prestige in society is unimportant, but in fact, she has lost ambition of everything and does not want any possessiveness of anything. Since childhood, Hannah does not require her to be someone in society. She frees Sula to be whatever she wants. Moreover,
Hannah statement asserts her for not to be someone because no one wants her to be. No one has hopes for her. Because she is never required to be someone for others, she makes no demands on others to be what she wants. She does not intend for being involved in a person’s life because she respect others as they are. She does not care of what people do or think. She never thinks of competition to gain something not because she is unable, but because she sees no needs to do that. She accepts her life as it is and she is happy enough with how she runs her life, lives 36
an exploration life. Therefore, she is completely has no ambition to marry, having a husband and children, posses wealth and compliments from others.
She was completely free of ambition, with no affection for money, property or things, no greed, no desire to command attention or compliments-no ego. For that reason she felt no compulsion to verify herself-be consistent with herself. (Morrison, 1982: 119)
Once she feels alive is when she is with Nel. Nel was her best friend during childhood. They attached to each other as if an old friend. They shared dreams about men, opinions of things and the relationship is a relief for each other’s personality despite of their family condition. With Nel, every day is a new thing and it raises spirit in Sula to live out herself though her mother is not giving much attention. But it was changed after Nel’s marriage. Sula left Bottom and returned again in 10 years. Throughout her journey, she has many relationships with men but she cannot find the comfort she had with Nel in her love relationships. She missed the comfort, affection and appreciation. All of her men teach nothing but love tricks, share nothing but worries, give nothing but money and cannot be a friend Sula is trying to look for from them as she had with Nel. After all, her lovemaking is an escape for Sula from sadness of losing a friend. She is lonely because she does not have a friend like Nel to share dreams and understand her thoughts.
She went to bed as frequently as she could. It was the only place where she could find what she was looking for: misery and the ability to feel deep sorrow. (Morrison, 1982: 122)
Previously mentioned, Sula is an independent woman. She does not feel she needs somebody by her side to live with. When she understands that she cannot count on others, she does not want to have someone to be counted. She only cares 37
about herself not others. She wants to do everything by herself without help from others. She does not need others to fulfill her needs or to help her. She does not see the importance of fulfilling her needs also so that she does not find a work or getting money. She is selfish person, thinks only about herself. Therefore, she refuses to have a family. She is enjoying living alone without thinking of a husband and children because it will limit her self expression. She does not want to be burdened by others. When it is uncommon things done by a woman, Sula insists to be on that way. She does not care of what people said about her and takes the risk being isolated from the society and lives alone without relatives or friend to take care of her, even until her death time.
“Well, don’t let your mouth start nothing that your ass can’t stand. When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.” (Eva spoke) “I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.” (Sula spoke) “Selfish. Ain’t no woman got no business, floating around without no man.” (Morrison, 1982: 92)
“What are you talking about? I like my own dirt, Nellie. I’m not proud. You sure have forgotten me.” “Maybe. Maybe not. But you a woman and you alone.” “And you? Ain’t you alone?” “I’m not sick. I work.” “Yes. Of course you do. Work’s good for you, Nellie. It don’t do nothing for me.” “You never had to.” “I never would.” “There’s something to say for it, Sula. Specially if you don’t want people to have to do for you.” “Neither one, Nellie. Neither one.” “You can’t have it all, Sula.“ Nel was getting exasperated with her arrogance, with her lying at death’s door still smart-talking. “Why? I can do it all, why can’t I have it all?” “You can’t do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can’t act like a man. You can’t be walking around all independent-like., doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don’t.” (Morrison, 1982: 142) 38
Though society consider Sula as pariah because her way of living, in fact,
Sula is critical in what happened to women in her society. Through her conversation with Nel in her near death time, Sula is trying to explain how Nel, the same with other women, is suffering because of their family.
“You still going to know everything, ain’t you?” (Nel spoke) “I don’t know everything, I just do everything.” (Sula spoke) “Well, you don’t know what I do.” “You think I don’t know what your life is like just because I ain’t living it? I know what every colored woman in this country is doing.” “What’s that?” “Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those red-woods. I sure did live in this world.” “Really? What have you got to show for it?” “Show? To who? Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on it. Which is to say, I got me.” “Lonely ain’t it?” “Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else’s. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain’t that something? A secondhand lonely.” (Morrison, 1982: 143)
Black, either men or women, suffer because of racism and being oppressed by White. However, Black women suffers more when Black men oppressed them who shares nothing but his oppressed feeling to his wife while she also faces another problems such as economic condition and children rearing, but she cannot share it to him because she doe not want to burden him. They are lonely because they repress their will, emotion and thoughts to meet her family’s needs. They do whatever needed to run their family well, on the contrary, their children and husband does not care about it. While this condition is unrealized by women in
Bottom, Sula sees it clearly through their tiring faces, when she sees
“…how years had dusted their bronze with ass, the eyes that had once opened wide to the moon bent into grimy sickles of concern.” (Morrison, 1982: 121) 39
Sula is different with women in her society. She is brave to do something different and uncommon that she believes as the best for her but the difference shown is not a proof of reaching something. Sula lives her days spiritless because she does not have goals to reach and the days she spent are for excitement and pleasure. She seeks no needs to achieve something and there are no exact reasons for her behavior. She does not improve anything of herself and gain nothing for improving her life.
2. The Characterization of Nel Wright
The first way to characterize Nel is her physical appearance description given by the author (Murphy, 1972: 161). Nel is a girl in the same age with Sula and they have similar family condition. Both of them does not have a father and only have a mother. Sula’s father died when she was only three years old while Nel’s father left her mother just before she was born. The author describes Nel as a wishbone thin girl, just like Sula, her skin color is as dark as wet sandpaper and she descends her father’s face, not her mother’s beauty since Nel’s grandmother is a Creole (Creole is someone descended from both Europeans and Africans).
Her daughter was more comfort and purpose than she ever hoped to find in this life. She rose grandly to the occasion of motherhood-grateful, deep down in her heart, that the child had not inherited the great beauty that was hers: that her skin had dusk in it, that her lashes were substantial but undignified in their length, that she had taken the broad flat nose of Wiley (although Helene expected to improve it somewhat) and his generous lips. (Morrison, 1982: 18)
About Nel’s personality, the author states it directly in the novel that Nel is polite and obedient to what her mother said or tell her to do so (Murphy, 1972: 40
170). Different with Hannah, Helene states strict roles on Nel to obey in order to guide Nel in suiting herself with the society, behaving gracefully with good manners so that she can be a well-mannered woman.
Under Helene’s hand the girl become obedient and polite. Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed are calmed by the mother until she drove her daughter’s imagination underground. (Morrison, 1982: 18)
Nel never does an awkward thing because it will not be accepted in the society. Under her mother guidance, she grew up as a girl who knows how to behave in every occasion and not react aggressively to a situation based on emotion like what Sula did when four boys try to harass them. When Sula slashed off her finger to intimidate them, Nel does not think it as a heroic act and a girl should not do such act like it because it is uncommon things to do in society. Nel knows how to gain prestige in society by not doing awkward attitudes.
The one she tried to protect Nel, she had cut off her own finger tip and earned not Nel’s gratitude but her disgust. (Morrison, 1982: 141)
It shows that Nel is not as emotional as Sula and always thrives on crisis.
Compared to Sula, Nel is more calm, mature and able to determine which things she should do and which is not. She knows how to differentiate good from bad, right from wrong, polite from impolite things. Despite of her politeness, Nel is less aggressive to do what she wants because her mother would not let her to do it.
Nel is not as free as Sula in expressing her emotion, feeling or ability. Everything she does is not because she wants to do it, but merely because of her obedience to her mother roles. Helene does not give enough space for Nel to explore herself.
Through conversation of other characters or what they say about Nel, the reader may get Nel’s characterization the author wants to show (Murphy, 1970: 167). 41
Whether he was accurate in general, Ajax was right about Nel. Except for occasional leadership role with Sula, she had no aggression. Her parents had succeeded in rubbing down to a dull glow any sparkle or splutter she had. (Morrison, 1982: 83)
Though Nel is living on the dreadfully neatness and roles her mother had set, there is a moment in her childhood showing that she has unrealized power inside herself. This power is depicting her repressed emotion, feeling and imagination. It was when she had a trip by train with Helene to Sundown House, her great grandmother’s house to attend her great grandmother’s funeral. On the train, they entered a wrong car, which is a car for White, and with some embarrassment, they walked through it to the car for Black but a white conductor was stopping and insulting them for the mistake. At that moment, no one from black people there, especially the men, tried to help them, in fact, they contempt Helene and Nel’s foolishness. The occasion opens her mind of herself that she is a human and a girl who has to be respected. No one can underestimate her.
It was on the train, shuffling toward Cincinnati, that she resolved to be on guard-always. She wanted to make certain that no man ever looked at her that way. That no midnight eyes or marbled flesh would ever accost her and turn her into jelly. (Morrison, 1982: 22)
There are several parts in the story when the author describes clearly what the characters have in mind and the reader may traces in the characters’ mind to know their thoughts of something (Murphy, 1970: 171). In the quotation taken above, it shows clearly what Nel has in mind when no man helps her and her mother and they even contempt them. Nel sees her as dignified woman that deserves honor and respect from others. Despite of she is Black and a woman, she, as a human, would not let herself being threatened by others. She values herself 42
worthy. Over all, the trip changes her view of herself. For her, the trip represents freedom she missed. She feels that there is braveness, a power, joy and fear turn into one in her but she does not quite sure what it is.
“I’m me,” she whispered. “Me.” Nel didn’t know what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant. “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me.” Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear. (Morrison, 1982: 28)
Nel is an expressive girl but repressed. The trip has encouraged her will to leave home one day, frees herself from Helene’s over power upon her. The me- ness she has realizes her to be free, powerful, brave, and confidential person. She is as confidential as herself who has a power to control her life, able and dare to make decisions and choices then she frees to plan her own future and not always being ruled by Helene or others. That is why she is always dreaming of leaving
Medallion, the only way to explore herself. This me-ness also encourages her braveness to cultivate a friend with Sula though Helene prohibits it because Sula’s mother is sooty. With Sula, Nel suddenly forgets her goal to leave Medallion because their friendship already gives her enough space to express her repressed feeling.
For day afterward she imagined other trips she would take, alone though, to faraway place. Contemplating them was delicious. Leaving Medallion would be her goal. But that was before she met Sula, the girl she had seen for five years at Garfield Primary but never played with, never knew, because her mother said that Sula’s mother was sooty. The trip perhaps, or her new found me-ness, gave her strength to cultivate a friend in spite of her mother. (Morrison, 1982: 29)
Having a best friend relationship with somebody, a child might satisfy his or her needs with them because friendship pair functions to satisfy certain needs in 43
each child. Sula and Nel’s friendship is a relief of their own family condition, Nel with her mother’s neatness and Sula with her mother’s ignorance. Together they adventure an exploration of everything that interested them, abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their own perception of things. After she met
Sula, she starts to break her mother’s roles.
When Mrs. Wright reminded Nel to pull her nose, she would do it enthusiastically but without the least hope in the world. “While you sittin’ there, honey, go ‘head and pull your nose.” “It hurts, Mamma.” “Don’t you want a nice nose when you grow up?” After she met Sula, Nel slid the clothespin under the blanket as soon as she got in the bed. And although there was a still the hateful hot comb to suffer through each Saturday evening, its consequences-smooth hair-no longer interested her. (Morrison, 1982: 55)
It shows that the me-ness of Nel is getting clear for she becomes expressive in exploring things that interest her. When she is with Sula, she does what she wants, not what others want and does not think of good behaving or gaining pride in the society like what her mother wants her to. Nel feels that she has no obligation to please others, be what she does not want to be, or compete with others. In their friendship, Nel is free and independent in behaving without any involvement from her mother or Sula because Sula herself demands nothing from
Nel. Their friendship let them to improve their personality each other.
Their meeting was fortunate, for it let them use each other to grow on. (Morrison, 1982: 52)
Unfortunately, when Nel realizes the strength she has to take control of her life, it is slowly faded after she married. At first, she does not have the excitement as Jude has about their marriage, but being pleased by her feeling that Jude really loves and needs her, changes her. She serves her family very well and 44
unconsciously, she lets herself to be controlled by others. If during her childhood, she was controlled by Helene, in her marriage, she is controlled by Jude and her children. According to Nel, she is happy with her marriage life, but when Sula sees her again after 10 years, she looks tired and burdened. She is spiritless with everything except her family, represses her expressions of emotions and loyal to her family very well to make her family happy. It was clearly shown when Sula takes a visit on her after Sula is returning from her 10 years journey. They have a comfort conversation like the old time, laugh together and it raises a soft warm feeling on Nel that she realized she never had it during her life with Jude.
Damp-faced, Nel stepped back into the kitchen. She felt new, soft and new. It had been the longest time since she had forgotten how deep and down it could be. So different the miscellaneous giggles and smiles she had learned to be content with these past few years. (Morrison, 1982: 98)
The quotation above implicitly shows that happiness Nel has with Sula is different with the happiness she has with Jude. With Jude, her goal of life is to be a good wife and mother. Her happiness is to see her family happy in which she would do anything to take care of her family very well. She is industrious and loyal to her husband and children, just exactly like what Jude wanted when he decided to marry her. For Jude, having a wife is merely to prepare his and children needs, clean the house, take care of children and etc. Jude himself as a man needs somebody to share his oppressed feeling when he competes with White to get a job. He marries her because that is what a man should do to marry someone who is sweet, industrious and loyal to shore him up and comfort him in order to help him hide his raveling edges. While Nel becomes a wife and mother with all her heart until she sacrifices her feeling and put her needs aside. When she has a chat 45
with Sula, it is as if her free and expressive feeling that had been repressed during her marriage suddenly appears. She is happy because she wants to be happy, not caused by others. After all, she is repressed by her family.
Pointing to Nel’s personality which is calm, mature, and able to behave in such situation, in fact, she is dependant on the other side, especially after she gets married. Nel thinks herself as a lucky woman to have a husband like Jude and does not need to improve anything in her besides giving the best to her family.
She lets him controls her life so that when he left her for Sula, she feels empty and does not know what to do with her life and children for she had given up all her life to Jude and children. It is because she depends much on Jude as the bread winner of the family; and also because she depends on Jude’s love which she thinks as real so that she never thought of Jude will leave her.
It is not just with Jude on whom Nel is depended, but also with Sula. Sula is the one she thinks about when Jude left to help her cure her hurting feeling, even though it is Sula who becomes the woman Jude left Nel for. Sula can always cheer her up, make sure that everything would be fine, or just listen to her sadness. At the same time she thinks of Sula to calm her, she blames Sula for taking Jude and thinks that Sula betrays her. She is lonely person, losing a friend and lover in one moment.
She would have to ask somebody about that, somebody she could confide in and who knew a lot of things, like Sula, for Sula would know or if she didn’t she would say something funny that would make it all right. Ooo no, not Sula. Here she was in the midst of it, hating it, scared of it, and again she thought of Sula as though they were still friends and talked things over. (Morrison, 1982: 110) 46
Later on, in order to cope with her sadness and to continue her life and her children, she starts to find a work and focus all her strength to fulfill the needs.
She is now become the leader of her life. She makes the choices and decisions for her and her children by her own without any involvement of influence from others and becomes independent on everything. She is an autonomous woman by condition. If Jude never leaves her, she would not know that she has a power over her life, not merely dependent and being ruled by others. However, she still blames Sula for Jude’s left. When she pays a visit for Sula in her near death, Nel arrogantly mocks Sula for being alone, without relatives or friends, until her last time. She is surprised when she knows that Sula bedded down with Jude for no reason, not even love, like what she did with other men.
“But…” Nel held her stomach in. “But what about me? What about me? Why didn’t you think about me? Didn’t I count? I never hurt you. What did you take him for if you didn’t love him and why didn’t you think about me?” And then, “I was good to you, Sula, why don’t that matter?” Sula turned her head away from the boarded window. Her voice was quiet and the stemmed rose over her eye was very dark. “It matters, Nel, but only to you. Not to anybody else. Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don’t get nothing for it.” (Morrison, 1982: 144)
In Nel’s opinion, when she had done something good for others, she believes that they will do something good to her in return. Looking back to their relationship in the past, which had been broken after Jude left Nel for Sula, Nel remembered that she never does something harmful or intends to hurt Sula. That is why she cannot accept the reason Sula bedded down with Jude is only because she wants to do it with Jude, never because of love. On the contrary, Sula thinks that someone’s goodness is not always return into goodness to her or him means that people can never predict what else will do toward them whatever they had 47
done. Nel is someone who does everything on purpose. She does something for others because she wants others to do the same with hers to her.
Compared to Sula, as mentioned before, Nel is controllable, calm, and behave in right manners as what society thinks as good attitude of a woman. In fact, later after Sula’s death, she realizes that her calmness, maturity and controllable behavior show her selfishness upon Sula.
All these years she had been secretly proud of her calm, controlled behavior when Sula was uncontrollable, her compassion for Sula’s frightened and shamed eyes. Now it seemed that what she had thought was maturity, serenity and compassion was only the tranquility that follows a joyful stimulation. Just as the water closed peacefully over the turbulence of Chicken Little’s body, so had contentment washed over her enjoyment. (Morrison, 1982: 170)
When Chicken Little drowned, she does not feel afraid or guilty because she knows that Sula, who has a family with unusual condition and background and whose attitude are awkward such as when she cut off her finger tip to intimidate the boys, will be blamed by the society rather than her, who is behave in doing things. Sula panics when Chicken Little drowned, while Nel is very calm and tries to calm Sula. Though she seems more controllable in facing the condition, but she does not calm Sula down, but she calms herself that she is not going to be blame for it, but Sula will. Nel is selfish for letting Sula bear the guilty feeling by herself.
She thinks only her needs and her dignity so that she does not share the guilty feeling together with Sula. After Sula’s death, she realizes her selfishness and fear to be responsible for what had happened.
But it was there anyway, as it had always been, the old feeling and the old question. The good feeling she had had when Chicken’s hands slipped. She hadn’t wondered about that in years. “Why didn’t I feel bad when it happened? How come it felt so good to see him fall?” (Morrison, 1982: 170) 48
What she thinks as her maturity, calmness and controllable behavior followed by gained prestige in society show her disability to over rule herself. Nel incorporates herself to what society expected shows that she looses he me-ness power that able to free and rule herself. She is unable to express her real feeling and let herself to be over ruled by others.
B. The Description of the Women Characters as Representative of ‘False
Self’
The second problem to be analyzed in this thesis is the description of both women characters, Sula and Nel, as representative of ‘false self’. The analysis does by applying the psychological theory of ‘false self’ to the both characterization.
‘False self’, according to D.W. Winnicott in Elliot’s book Psychoanalytic
Theory (2002), is a person unable to establish stable emotional relations with others and this self along with ‘true self’, as its opposite, develops as a result of the quality of the mothering the child receives. If mother fails to understand and react to child’s spontaneous gestures of his or her needs, whereas she subjects the child to her own needs and the child tries desperately to make emotional relationship the mother by abandoning his or her own wishes and incorporating with the mother demands, feeling and desires.
From the previous analysis of Sula and Nel’s characterization, it is clearly seen how their personality development is influenced much by their experiences within their family and events in their life. Having similar condition of family, as 49
the only daughter of a single parent, their personality develops differently along with how they were raised, relationship with others and how they place themselves in the society. Sula and Nel’s characteristics are affected by the way their mother raised them, or in other words, both of them is the product of their mother’s breed and for that reason these mother-daughter relationships become the first focus of the analysis on each character beside the fact that mother- daughter relationships is the first significant memory of life for each characters.
The application of ‘false self’ traits to the characters’ characteristics will be used to analyze the woman characters, Sula and Nel, as ‘false self’ even though not all the traits listed in chapter 2 can be applied to each character. The analysis will be divided into two parts, subtitled the description of Sula as representative of
‘false self’ and the description of Nel as representative of ‘false self’.
1. The Description of Sula Peace as Representative of ‘False Self’
‘False self’ mainly develops to be a result of the quality of mothering the child receives. Winnicott emphasizes the mother’s function as a mirror to the child’s gestures and experiences. As a mirror, she supposes to understand and accept emotional states of jubilation and distress of the child and this acceptance, in turn, permits the child to make emotional connections with other people. When she fails to understand the child’s gestures, then the child were subjected to the mother’s needs and he/she incorporates him/her feeling to the mother’s. At this state, the child appears as ‘false self’. 50
Hannah, as described slightly in the previous discussion, does not provide supporting provisions for Sula as the only pattern Sula tries to imitate. In fact,
Hannah put no demands upon Sula and set no limits to everything Sula does, therefore, Sula is difficult to distinguish her wishes and Hannah’s wishes. Her behavior imitates her mother and she has no clue whether what she did is true or false, right or wrong, bad or good etc. Unconsciously, she incorporates herself to what she saw on Hannah and resembles Hannah’s attitudes. She does what she wants to do.
Eva’s arrogance and Hannah’s self-indulgence merged in her and, with a twist that was all her own imagination, she lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless their pleasure pleased her. (Morrison, 1982: 118)
Therefore, she fails to make emotional relationship with others in society as well as she fails with her mother. Later when she returned home from 10 years journey, people consider her the same with evil especially after she sent out Eva from the house to Sunnydale, place for the old people. She does not gain respects from others because of her attitudes and everyone consider her as a bitch.
When the word got out about Eva being put in Sunnydale, the people in Bottom shook their heads and said Sula was a roach. Later, when they saw how she took Jude, then ditched him for others, and heard how he bought a ticket to Detroit (where he bought but never mailed birthday cards to his son), they forgot all about Hannah’s easy ways (or their own) and said she was a bitch. (Morrison, 1982: 112)
The first trait of ‘false self’ is that ‘false self’ person has significant memory gaps about early childhood years and events, and one or both parents. Sula’s significant memory gap is her loosing of a father figure because her father died when she was 3 years old and the only parent she has is her mother therefore, the 51
only memory of parents she has is her memory with Hannah. Living with Eva, her grandmother, and Hannah, forces Sula to be an autonomous and independent woman. When she understands that she cannot count on others, even her mother, she does not want to have someone to be counted too. She only cares about herself not others. She wants to do everything by herself without help from others. She does not need others to fulfill her needs or to help her. This thought are based on her early childhood events when she heard Hannah statement for loving but not liking her and the Chicken Little’s drowning incident.
As willing to feel pain as to give pain, to feel pleasure as to give pleasure, hers was an experimental life-ever since her mother’s remarks sent her flying up those stairs, ever since her one major feeling of responsibility had been exorcised on the bank of river with closed place in the middle. The first experience taught her there was no other that you could count on; the second that there was no self to count on either (Morrison, 1982: 118-119)
Hannah does not provide the safety and love Sula needed, therefore, Sula loses her trust on others. And Chicken Little’s death caused indirectly by her that no one ever knows about it, except Nel, who convinces Sula that it was not her fault, teaches her that the only responsibility feeling she has, has been exorcised together in the bottom of the bank and she believes to have nobody to count on except herself. Both events influence her life and her personality much so that she lives her lives freely without any involvement from others. She prefers to be alone.
Sula’s friendship with Nel is also a significant memory of her childhood that influences her personality development when socializing in the society. Lack of love and safety from Hannah, Sula finds herself comfortable with Nel. Together they adventure an exploration of everything that interested them, abandon the 52
ways of other people and concentrate on their own perception of things. Their friendship let them to improve their personality each other. Sula values their friendship worthy so that Sula tries to protect Nel and put Nel’s needs first upon hers.
Their friendship was as intense as it was sudden. They found relief in each other’s personality... Yet there was one time when that was not true, when she held on to a mood for weeks, but even that was in defense of Nel. (Morrison, 1982: 118-119)
The one she tried to protect Nel, she had cut off her own finger tip and earned not Nel’s gratitude but her disgust. (Morrison, 1982: 141)
When Jude began to hover around, she (Nel) was flattered—all the girls liked him—and Sula made the enjoyment of his attention keener simply because she seemed always to want Nel to shine. They never quarreled, those two, the way some girlfriends did over boys, or competed against each other for them. In those days, compliment to one was compliment to the other, and cruelty to one was a challenge to the other. (Morrison, 1982: 83-84)
But after Nel got married, Sula leaves the town for 10 years without writing a letter to Nel or anybody. It seems that Sula is sad for loosing a friendship with Nel because Nel is now enjoyed the feeling of being needed by Jude that greater than her feeling to their friendship. It takes Nel away from Sula and Sula loses their friendship’s enjoyment.
‘False self’ person can be such over concerned with their own needs and prefers to isolate him/herself to unusual degree. Because he or she has a history of relationship failures then he or she feels discomfort with interpersonal commitment or intimacy, that is why, this kind of person only has few or even no real (intimate) friends. Those significant memories of events during childhood lead Sula to choose to live alone, neither getting married nor having children. The way she lives her life shows the trait of ‘false self’ for over concerned with her 53
own needs and prefers to isolate herself to unusual degree. Described in a paragraph (Morrison, 1982: 118), Sula explores her emotions and thoughts freely and feels has no obligation to please others unless they please her. Her mother statements and Chicken Little’s death lead her to understand that she cannot count on others, thus she does not want to have someone to be counted. She only cares about herself not others. She wants to do everything by herself without help from others. She believes that the only self she could count on is herself. She does not need others to fulfill her needs or to help her. She does not see the importance of fulfilling her needs also so that she does not find a work or getting money. She thinks only about herself. Therefore, she refuses to have a family.
Her relationship failure with Nel, when Nel decided to marry Jude, also contributes to her decision not to have a family because she does not find the comfort she feels when she is with Nel. Sula, as a ‘false self’, feels discomfort with interpersonal commitment so that she has many relationships with men, white or black, single or a husband, but she cannot find the comfort she had with
Nel in her love relationships. She missed the comfort, affection and appreciation.
All of her men teach nothing but love tricks, share nothing but worries, give nothing but money and cannot be a friend Sula is trying to look for from them as she had with Nel.
She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be—for a woman. (Morrison, 1982: 121)
After all, her lovemaking is an escape from sadness of losing a friend. The enjoyment is only at bed, not deeply feel into her heart. It is only a cycle of fake 54
relationship. She enjoys getting a new man, making love and leaving them for the other. There is no passion to put the relationship into a marriage and play it as a game, a cycle game that never ends. It shows another ‘false self’ trait Sula has is that she often associates love with pain because of the wound left after the relationship failures and feels discomfort and tends to avoid another intimacy and put herself into loneliness. Sula pulls herself from the society and prefers to live alone until her death time.
Other trait of ‘false self’ is that he or she has trouble and/or expressing strong emotions and/or tolerating it. He or she might have unpredictable or inappropriate outburst of rage, sadness, anxiety or depression. Sula has unpredictable or inappropriate outburst of rage and sadness. Behaves emotionally and does unbelievable things are Sula’s characteristics. Her emotionally attitude is when the boys try to harass her and Nel, unbelievably she cuts off her finger tips to frighten them, although, actually she scares that the boys will harass her and Nel. She is trying to protect Nel. The other unpredictable outburst of emotion is when Hannah died. Instead of helping and crying when she finds out that her mother was burned to death, she only watches her burned as if it is an exciting moment.
Eva said yes, but inside she disagreed and remained convinced that Sula had watched Hannah burn not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested. (Morrison, 1982: 78)
Hannah’s statement has put her to a deep sorrow to know that her mother does not like her and she does not have anyone to protect her. So when she saw her mother burned, she enjoys it as a moment when her sadness was paid. 55
‘False self’ person usually thinks in black-or-white terms. He or she cannot accept something that is in between or uncertainty. What he or she thinks as good means that it is good even if others do not think so. Therefore, he or she dares to confront with others. Correlates with Sula’s characterization, lack of love, attention and directions, she has to understand everything happened in her life by her own because her mother would not lead or guide her. It makes her become an autonomous woman and it influences how she makes decisions of her life by her own and free to do things that are right according to her understanding though it might not right or wrong but can be said as an awkward behavior done by a girl.
She does not care to what society think of her behavior as long as she thinks it is the right one. She does not feel have to corporate with what society thinks as good with hers. She lives her thought freely include in abandoning the norms though it triggers a conflict between her and society. Sula’s behavior shows the trait that dares to confront with society by refusing to marry and choose to live alone.
“Well, don’t let your mouth start nothing that your ass can’t stand. When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.” (Eva spoke) “I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.” (Sula spoke) “Selfish. Ain’t no woman got no business, floating around without no man.” “You did.” “Not by choice.” “Mama did.” “Not by choice, I said. It ain’t right for you to want to stay off by yourself. You need… I’m tell you what you need.” (Morrison, 1982: 92)
Refuse to have a family is uncommon thing in a society just because Sula is a woman and a woman should be kept by a man just like what Nel did. But Sula sees no importance of it since she cannot trust others, moreover, when she saw how the women in her town were burdened by their family routines, to take care 56
of her children and soothe her husband after he works for a day, but no one cares for them in return, not even their husband or children. Sula chooses by herself to be alone, do nothing and have no job. ‘False self’ person is fiercely independent, controlling and over competent therefore he or she chronically procrastinates or avoids seeking appropriate medical, psychological, social, and/or spiritual help.
Sula shows herself as ‘false self’ person to choose a free live independently and avoids social intimacy with society and medical help when she gets ill in her near death.
“I always understood how you could take a man. Now I understand why you can’t keep none.” (Nel spoke) “Is that what I’m supposed to do? Spend my life keeping a man?” (Sula spoke) “They worth keeping, Sula.” “They ain’t worth more than me. And besides, I never loved no man because he was worth it. Worth didn’t have nothing to do with it.” “What did?” “My mind did. That’s all.” (Morrison, 1982: 143-144)
“What are you talking about? I like my own dirt, Nellie. I’m not proud. You sure have forgotten me.” “Maybe. Maybe not. But you a woman and you alone.” “And you? Ain’t you alone?” “I’m not sick. I work.” “Yes. Of course you do. Work’s good for you, Nellie. It don’t do nothing for me.” “You never had to.” “I never would.” “There’s something to say for it, Sula. Specially if you don’t want people to have to do for you.” “Neither one, Nellie. Neither one.” “You can’t have it all, Sula. “ Nel was getting exasperated with her arrogance, with her lying at death’s door still smart-talking. “Why? I can do it all, why can’t I have it all?” “You can’t do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can’t act like a man. You can’t be walking around all independent-like, doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don’t.” (Morrison, 1982: 142) 57
‘False self’ person often feels vaguely or clearly victimized by others or
“fate” therefore he or she regularly avoids taking responsibility for his/her own choices, and denies or endlessly rationalize doing so. Nel represents the society and their thought. A woman should not be alone and doing nothing. Sula is known for her affair with men, especially Jude. Sula’s loneliness are seen as a pity of her while the society, especially the women, do not realize that they are also lonely, their loneliness that caused by another, their family. Sula is lonely because of her choice and the other women are caused to.
“You think I don’t know what your life is like just because I ain’t living it? I know what every colored woman in this country is doing.” (Sula spoke) “What’s that?” (Nel spoke) “Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those red-woods. I sure did live in this world.” “Really? What have you got to show for it?” “Show? To who? Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on it. Which is to say, I got me.” “Lonely ain’t it?” “Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else’s. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain’t that something? A secondhand lonely.” (Morrison, 1982: 143)
‘False self’ tends to incorporates him/herself to other demands in order to make an emotional relationship with others. In the analysis, it is shown that Sula is mostly lives her life explorative, frees her mind and thought and do not incorporates herself to society demands. But in other hands, she herself is clueless about the right or relevant or good things and no one has set demands upon her, so that she does not know whether her thoughts are right, good and relevant and she fails to understand her own demands. She does what she wants to do. Though she seems to be the ‘true self’ for capable to create a creative living, that allows the exploration of her thoughts, but she fails to make emotional relationship with 58
others and focuses most on her thought and considers everything based on her understanding without correlating to the society’s demands. She does not try to adapt with environment and most of the ‘false self’ traits suit her in living herself as ‘false self’ then she lives herself as ‘false self’.
2. The Description of Nel Wright as Representative of ‘False Self’
The first focus and the first trait to analyze Nel as ‘false self’ is mother and daughter relationship between Helene and Nel which was the very first significant event in Nel’s life.
Helene Wright was an impressive woman, at least in Medallion she was. Heavy hair in a bun, dark eyes arched in a perpetual query about other people’s manners. A woman who won all social battles with presence and a conviction of the legitimacy of her authority. Since there was no Catholic church in Medallion then, she joined the most conservative black church. And held away. It was Helene who never turn her head in church when latecomers arrived; Helene who established the practice of seasonal altar flowers; Helene who introduced the giving of banquets of welcoming to returning Negro veterans. (Morrison, 1982: 18)
From the slight description above about Helene’s attitudes in society, it can be drawn about how Helene raised Nel. As what had previously mentioned in
Nel’s characterization, under Helene’s hand, Nel becomes an obedient and polite girl. Helene states a rules to follow, demands to reach and hopes Nel has to be. To be a dignified woman is Helene expectation to Nel, since she is a respected woman in Medallion herself. So that Nel nearly lost her enthusiasms on anything and all her dreams are somehow are the culmination of her mother dreams.
Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed are calmed by the mother until she drove her daughter’s imagination underground. (Morrison, 1982: 18) 59
Her only child’s wedding—the culmination of all she had been, thought or done in this world—had dragged her energy and stamina even when she did not know she possessed (Morrison, 1982: 80)
Whether he was accurate in general, Ajax was right about Nel. Except for occasional leadership role with Sula, she had no aggression. Her parents had succeeded in rubbing down to a dull glow any sparkle or splutter she had. (Morrison, 1982: 83)
When Mrs. Wright reminded Nel to pull her nose, she would do it enthusiastically but without the least hope in the world. “While you sittin’ there, honey, go ‘head and pull your nose.” “It hurts, Mamma.” “Don’t you want a nice nose when you grow up?” (Morrison, 1982: 55)
As a mother, Helene succeeds in providing Nel with safety that Hannah cannot provide it to Sula, but in other ways, Helene repressed Nel’s emotions and jubilation because of too much rules and demands to be fulfilled without any opportunity for Nel to reveal her own thoughts and feelings. Her obedient and polite attitudes did because her mother wants her to do so and not because of she wants to, otherwise, she does not have any wishes to do or to be. Nel applies ‘false self’ trait in her behavior that is she tends to fear of saying ‘no´ and feels guilty or reluctant to assert her own needs and ideas. She is overly passive and compliant, fearing to take personal initiatives and feeling very anxious without clear instructions. Nel regresses her own feeling and incorporates herself to Helene’s desires and society’s demands and she has no idea to reject her mother’s demands.
She does it without excitement because she feels reluctant to do it. In this way,
Nel starts to hide her ‘true self’ and reveals her ‘false self’ as compliance to
Helene and society expectations.
Though she reveals as ‘false self’, there is significant other moments in her life that once change her perception on herself. It was when she visits her great 60
grandmother with Helene. During the trip, Nel experiences of being disrespected as human, despite of as black woman. The society, represented by black men and women in the car, she tries to incorporate does not help her when she and Helene were insulted by white conductor in a train to Cincinnati. From the experience, she would not let herself being threatened by others. She values herself worthy.
She learns that the society cannot always help her in the real world, so that she has to protect herself and not to be underestimated by others. Over all, the trip changes her view of herself, that she has a power to rule her life, her me-ness.
She wanted to make certain that no man ever looked at her that way. That no midnight eyes or marbled flesh would ever accost her and turn her into jelly. (Morrison, 1982: 22)
“I’m me,” she whispered. “Me.” Nel didn’t know what she meant, but on the other hand she knew exactly what she meant. “I’m me. I’m not their daughter. I’m not Nel. I’m me. Me.” Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear. (Morrison, 1982: 28)
And because of its power, she dares to ignore her mother’s advice not to be friend with Sula because Helene said that Sula’s mother is sooty. When Nel is with Sula, she does what she wants, feels that she has no obligation to please others or compete with others and to be what she does not want to. In their friendship, Nel is free and independent in behaving without any involvement from her mother or Sula because Sula herself demands nothing from Nel. Their friendship let them to improve their personality each other. But the friendship is over when Nel decided to marry and Sula leaves Medallion.
In the quotation “Her only child’s wedding—the culmination of all she had been, thought or done in this world—had dragged her energy and stamina even 61
when she did not know she possessed” (p. 80), it is stated that Nel’s marriage is somehow Helene’s culmination, and the couple itself, Nel and Jude is a perfect combination even though the marriage purpose for each Nel and Jude is differ.
The marriage is not considered as special achievement for Nel, it is just a ‘normal’ achievement since she has less excitement about marriage than Jude. Jude feels that as a black man, he needs a woman to prepare his appetites and to take care of his hurt after working for a day competes with White. Then for Nel, it is more to a pleasure feeling to be needed by someone after discovered Jude’s pain and this feeling represses the free and independent feeling she has when she is with Sula because she puts Jude’s and her children needs first rather than her needs. She confuses her love with pity (on Jude) and tries to rescue him. It is suited with a trait that ‘false self’ person confuses pity with love and usually focuses on others’ needs first and tends to rescue them. Once she focuses on others’ needs, she is extremely responsible or over-willing to take charge, organize and fix things. So that, she hangs on desperately to “toxic” relationship with Jude in which she is regularly yielding significant shame, fear, stress, and pain and her major personal relationship-choice based on fear of criticism, rejection, and abandonment. Nel does her role as a loyal wife and mother and responsible for all household jobs.
‘False self’ person often feels vaguely or clearly victimized by others or “fate” therefore he or she assumes too much responsibility and blames themselves harshly (feels guilty) for things beyond their control. Nel is realizing her “fate” as a wife and mother therefore she puts her needs aside and takes a full charge to organize and take care of her children and husband. In fact, she unconsciously lets 62
herself to be controlled by her family. She becomes what should a woman to be in a society, a loyal and good wife for her family, therefore, she hangs on desperately to Jude. She does not want to make any unimportant quarrels because it is not a woman should do to her husband.
Because of the “toxic” relationship with Jude, Nel as ‘false self’ person is fairly to very uncomfortable being alone. That is why it becomes a very hard condition to Nel when Jude left her after having an affair with Sula. She feels empty and does not know what to do with her life and children for she had given up all her life to her family and left her needs fulfilled by Jude. It is not just with
Jude on whom Nel is depended, but also with Sula. Their friendship is also a
“toxic” relationship for Nel and it puts Sula as an important part for Nel. Sula is the one she thinks about when Jude left to help her cure her hurting feeling, to cheer her up, make sure that everything would be fine, or just listen to her sadness, even though it is Sula who becomes the woman Jude left Nel for. At the same time she thinks of Sula to calm her, she blames Sula for taking Jude and thinks that Sula betrays her. Nel is incapable to show her emotions of loosing Jude and missing and hating Sula at the same time.
She would have to ask somebody about that, somebody she could confide in and who knew a lot of things, like Sula, for Sula would know or if she didn’t she would say something funny that would make it all right. Ooo no, not Sula. Here she was in the midst of it, hating it, scared of it, and again she thought of Sula as though they were still friends and talked things over. (Morrison, 1982: 110)
‘False self’ has trouble feeling or expressing strong emotions, and/or tolerating them in others – especially anger, hurt, fear and sadness. He or she can be apologizes all the time and avoids personal conflict. Nel, on contrary with Sula 63
emotion expressiveness, has trouble of expressing her sadness and anger.
Therefore, she prefers not to make personal conflict with Sula for Sula’s betrayal and focuses her strength to stand up for her life. So that when she heard that Sula was ill, she deliberately goes to see her just to show her sympathy for ill person that had no visit from nobody. Later, their meeting is no longer about visiting the illness, but such a conversation to reveal the reason why Sula bedded with Jude, the reason that Nel never knows before. And still, even though Nel tries to betray her voice to be heard as a good woman with her pride and curiosity who had visit a sick person, their conversation reveals how both Sula and Nel has a different view of life.
“You look fine, Sula.” “You lying, Nellie. I look bad.” She gulped the medicine. “No. I haven’t seen you for a long time, but you look …” “You don’t have to do that, Nellie. It’s going to be all right.” “What ails you? Have they said?” Sula licked the corners of her lips. “You want to talk about that?” Nel smiled, slightly, at bluntness she had forgotten. “No. No, I don’t, but you sure you should be staying up here alone?” “Nathan comes by. The deweys sometimes, and Tar Baby …” “That ain’t help, Sula. You need to be with somebody grown. Somebody who can…” “I’d be rather be here, Nellie.” “You know you don’t have to be proud with me.” “Proud?” Sula’s laughter broke through the phlegm. “What you talking about? I like my own dirt, Nellie. I’m not proud. You sure have forgotten me.” “Maybe. Maybe not. But you a woman and you alone.” “And you? Ain’t you alone?” “I’m not sick. I work.” “Yes. Of course you do. Work’s good for you, Nellie. It don’t do nothing for me.” “You never had to.” “I never would.” “There’s something to say for it, Sula. Specially if you don’t want people to have to do for you.” “Neither one, Nellie. Neither one.” 64
“You can’t have it all, Sula. “ Nel was getting exasperated with her arrogance, with her lying at death’s door still smart-talking. “Why? I can do it all, why can’t I have it all?” “You can’t do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can’t act like a man. You can’t be walking around all independent-like, doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don’t.” (Morrison, 1982: 141-142)
Through the conversation, it can be seen that Nel’s statement represents the society thought that a black woman should not be alone and someone should go to work to fulfill his or her needs. Nel’s view of Sula’s life is much influenced by how Helene had raised her. She thinks that everything that is awkward and not in line with society norms or habits, then it is consider either wrong, bad, not relevant or stupid. Nel thinks like a ‘false self’ person who usually thinks in black- or-white terms. She cannot accept something that is in between or uncertainty.
Different with Sula, who has her own measurement in deciding something is good, relevant, right or logical and does not care even if others do not think so,
Nel considers much on the society norms to measure it, so that she also incorporates her paradigm on seeing a thing with society. Therefore, she thinks that what Sula did is uncommon, include with the reason why Sula bedded Jude.
Finds out that Sula bedded Jude not because she loves her but more to fulfill her emptiness for while in a right moment, Nel cannot accept it because of her attitude, Jude left her and her children so that she has to stand for her family without Jude.
“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.” “You mean you didn’t evenlove him?” The feel of the brass was in Nel’s mouth. “It wasn’t even loving him?” Sula looked toward the boarded-up window again. Her eyes fluttered as if she were about to fall into sleep. 65
“But…” Nel held her stomach in. “But what about me? What about me? Why didn’t you think about me? Didn’t I count? I never hurt you. What did you take him for if you didn’t love him and why didn’t you think about me?” And then, “I was good to you, Sula, why don’t that matter?” Sula turned her head away from the boarded window. Her voice was quiet and the stemmed rose over her eye was very dark. “It matters, Nel, but only to you. Not to anybody else. Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don’t get nothing for it.” (Morrison, 1982: 144)
Nel puts herself in “helpless victim” stance when tries to rationalize Sula’s reason, as what ‘false self’ person did in order to put others in her view, to get the same ideas of a thing. She is angry and sad in the same time because Sula never thinks of her when doing it with Jude. She never does anything harm to Sula, but why Sula is capable of doing such a thing to her and she tries to put Sula in her view, as her victim. But in fact, Sula gives Nel other thoughts that being good and mean to somebody is risky, that we cannot accept somebody to do what we had did to them in turn, that being good to others does not guarantee that they will love and good to us. Still, Nel refuses to believe it. Even she mocks Sula for not having a friend and how she can expect others to love her despite of everything she had did.
“And you didn’t love me enough to leave him alone. To let him love me. You had to take him away.” (Nel spoke) “What you mean take him away? I didn’t kill him, I just fucked him. If we were such good friends, how com you couldn’t get over it?” (Sula spoke) “You laying there in that bed without a dime or a friend to your name having done all the dirt you did in this town and you still expect folks to love you?” (Morrison, 1982: 145)
Nel, as a ‘false self’, uses to avoid personal conflict in order to get no criticism or being rejected by society, therefore, she does everything good as compliance to demands from society, including withholds the truth where doing something wrong, such as in Chicken Little’s drowning accident. Her calm and 66
controlled behaviors are a cover of her fault to avoid rejection from society because she knows the accident and then she lets Sula bear the guilty feeling by herself. She does not want to be blame because of the accident. As a daughter of a dignified woman and a girl with perfect behavior, she does not want to be considered as bad person, so that she kept silent about the accident.
Compared to Sula, Nel suits more to the ‘false self’ traits so that she reveals her ‘false self’ in her life. It caused more because of Helene’s failure to free and fairly control Nel’s thought and feeling and subjected Nel to her desires. Nel herself unable to distinguish her needs to her mother’s and incorporates her demands to others’. CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
In studying the literary text, Sula, this undergraduate thesis raises the topic of ‘false self’ representation on woman characters, Sula and Nel, in which the discussion is formulated in two problem formulations. In the analysis, the writer applies the theory of ‘false self’ where the first focus is on the mother and daughter relationship of the woman characters to their own mothers, then suits the characterization depicted in the woman characters, Sula and Nel, to the ‘false self’ traits to see how they represent the ‘false self’. Therefore, the first analysis is focused on their characterization using the theory of character and characterization. Later, the second analysis is conducted to reveal their personality as representative of ‘false self’.
The characterizations of the main characters are analyzed through several ways to make the characters understandable and help the main characters develop their characteristics. The characterization of characters include personal description of characters’ physical appearance, past life, reaction to certain circumstances, mannerism or habits done by characters, characters’ speech, description from the author of what the characters had in their mind, direct comment from the author and characters seen by others and their conversation with others.
Through application of the ways above, Sula, the first woman character being analyzed, is characterized as autonomous person who is independent in
67 68
learning things, making up her mind and her judgment of things, making decisions by her own and does everything that she thinks it is good. Unfortunately, she herself does not have directions or guidance to know that her paradigm of things is right, good and acceptable to others, thus, her understanding she believes as the good, right and acceptable one. Sula is emotional when making decisions without depth thinking of its consequences but in the other hand, she is described as courageous woman who dares to do something uncommon or awkward and does not afraid to confront with others and society. She lives out her life exploring her thoughts and emotions and put herself in unusual degree without any will to posses a family and wealth. Her loneliness shows her lack of ambition and indirectly, shows her power offer herself because her loneliness caused by her while other women loneliness, the one with family and has job, caused by their family. They burdened by their family but never know it and Sula aware of it and choose to be different.
While Nel, the second woman character being described, characterized as a polite and obedient girl who knows how to behave in society, not emotional, calm and mature in making decisions. But after all, her politeness is her disability to rule herself and let others, her mother and society, to put demands upon her.
Her mother succeeds in rubbing down Nel’s ambition and put her will to Nel.
Likewise in her marriage life, she is loyal and put her family’s need first though later, Jude left her for Sula. She becomes spiritless than others and unconsciously dependent on others, on Jude and Sula. After Jude’s leaving, she becomes an autonomous woman who is works for herself and her children. Later when Sula 69
died, she realizes that she is a selfish person to let Sula bear the guilty feeling for their childhood accident.
From the characterization, second analysis is drawn to reveal their ‘false self’ by applying ‘false self’ traits to the characters. Sula’s characterization presents several characteristics of ‘false self’ person that also includes mother and daughter relationship between Sula and Hannah as the core of the ‘false self’ theory. Sula’s independence as a result of her significant memory gaps about early childhood years and events, and one or both parents, that are the way Hannah raised her and her relationship with Nel. Her loneliness also represents ‘false self’ traits who prefers to isolate herself to unusual degree and feel discomfort with interpersonal commitment or intimacy because she often associates love with pain then choose to live alone and over concerned with her needs as a result of her failure relationships with her mother and Nel. Her emotional behavior shows her incapability as ‘false self’ person to express emotions that might have unpredictable or inappropriate outburst of rage, sadness, anxiety or depression. It also shows that she dares to trigger conflict with others when her understanding of things is different with others. In fact, she is clueless about the right or relevant or good things and no one has set demands upon her, so that she does not know whether her thoughts are right, good and relevant and she fails to understand her own demands then lives herself as ‘false self’.
Similar to Sula, first analysis of ‘false self’ representation on Nel is focused on mother daughter relationship between Nel and Helen that is also become significant memory of her early childhood year with her parents. 70
Mentioned previously, Nel characterized as as a polite and obedient girl who knows how to behave in society, not emotional, calm and mature in making decisions. On the other hand, she characterized ‘false self’ person who fears to say
‘no’ and feels guilty or reluctant to assert her needs and ideas. She overly passive because her mother always control her and she fears to take personal initiatives and feels very anxious without clear instructions. So that, her achievement is not purely her achievement and she considers her marriage as a ‘normal’ achievement since she less excited about it. But pleased by her feeling of being needed by Jude, she puts Jude and her children needs first upon hers. It is suited with the traits that
Nel, as ‘false self’ person, confuses her love to Jude with pity because she feels that Jude needs her. Then, she puts others needs first and extremely responsible or over-willing to take charge, organize and fix things. So that, she hangs on desperately to “toxic” relationship in which, she is regularly yielding significant shame, fear, stress, and pain and her major personal relationship-choice based on fear of criticism, rejection, and abandonment. She does her role as a wife and mother perfectly. Because of the “toxic” relationship, Nel feels uncomfortable of being alone so that when Jude left her, she feels empty and spiritless. At the same time she feels angry to Sula for bedded Jude, but she thinks of her also as the only one that can ease her pain. She is dependent on Sula either and it shows her trouble in feeling or expressing her emotions and tends to tolerate it and avoids personal conflict.
As a product of her mother neatness, Nel thinks only in white-or-black terms in which her paradigm of things is what commonly people have in their 71
mind. So that she cannot accept Sula’s reason for bedded Jude is that only for fun.
As ‘false self’ person, she puts herself in “helpless victim” stance when rationalizing Sula’s reason. But then, she realizes that she is selfish to Sula to let her bear the guilty feeling in Chicken Little’s accident because Nel avoids personal conflict with society and does everything as compliance to demands from society, including withholds the truth where doing something wrong.
Both the main characters reveal themselves as ‘false self’ person through the characteristics they acquired after analyzing the characterization. Though the characterization of Sula and Nel might differ, but both of them suit the traits and live themselves as ‘false self’. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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APPENDIX: Summary of Toni Morrison’s Sula
The main focus of Morrison’s Sula is the life of both women characters presented, Sula and Nel, from their childhood into their adult life. Both of them live in Medallion which is located in the hills above the valley. Nel’s life with her mother is the first story to tell in the novel, how Helene raised Nel, her only daughter without a presence of a father who had left Helene just when Nel was born. Much of Helene’s energy is spent trying to smother all signs of creativity and spontaneity in her daughter, Nel. Seemingly, Helene is a model mother and citizen. In this chapter, Helene is taking her daughter, Nel, by train to New
Orleans, hoping to arrive before the very old and gravely ill Cecile (Nel’s great grandmother) dies. Although Nel is only ten years old, she is painfully aware of the simmering hate that seethes within the other black passengers on the train as they watch Helene’s all-too-eager, ready-smiling attempts to please and appease the loud-mouthed, hostile, white conductor. Helene and Nel arrive too late; Cecile has already died. Unexpectedly, Nel meets her grandmother, the infamous
Rochelle, presumably still a prostitute and still working and living in the Sundown
House. The exchange between Helene, her mother, and Nel is very brief, but the trip to New Orleans and the image of her grandmother greatly affect Nel, who appears to gain a stronger sense of self from the experience. After Helene and
Nel’s return to the Bottom, Nel befriends a young girl named Sula. At first,
Helene is opposed to the girls’ friendship—she doesn’t respect Sula’s mother,
Hannah; however, Helene soon grows accustomed to Sula’s playing with Nel.
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Next, the story tells about Sula’s life with Hannah, her mother, and Eva her one-leg-grandmother. Eva is a breadwinner of the family. People in society argue each other whether Eva intentionally threw herself under a train in order to collect insurance money or not to fulfill the family’s needs because there is no man as a bread winner. Sula’s grandfather left Eva for other women while Sula’s father died when she was only 3 years. Hannah, after her husband death, is never attaches to other man in marriage and enjoys a sweet and flirtatious life. One by one, she collects the town’s men as her lovers but never attaches herself to any of them. Sula herself enjoys her friendship with Nel, a friendship that will last throughout their lifetimes. In one another, the girls discover their other half; they seem mystically tied to each other’s thoughts and feelings. Nel comes from an orderly, tidy home; Sula, from disorder and chaos. Nel’s mother is custard- colored; Sula’s is sooty. Many things happened, including Chicken Little’s death, during their friendship shows how spontaneous Sula is and how solid and consistent Nel is.
In their adult life, Nel decides to marry Jude Green and Sula leaves the town soon after Nel’s wedding ceremony. Sula feels that she and Nel can no longer be the inseparable friends they once were. After all, Sula is unpredictable, and Nel has now acquiesced to society’s demand that women must marry, have children, and serve their men.The two girls that promised each other to always chase the power and joy ever themselves and be wonderful women of their own are now separated because Nel conforms to the community norms and values of social purpose. Sula then leaves the Bottom for 10 years. 76
After 10 years journey, Sula went back. Seeing her appearance and her behavior that has many relationships with men, single or husband, white or black, society considers her as a pariah moreover after she puts Eva in nursing home. But for Nel, Sula’s return is as if she finds the joy she ever had before. Nel feels happy and full of spirit again after meeting Sula but then it becomes a nightmare for Nel when she finds out that Sula bedded Jude. Nel feels so sad to loose a husband and a friend at the same time. She would never accept the reason Sula for bedded Jude that is only for fun, not because of love. Nel never imagine that she would be betrayed by her best friend since she always be a good friend to Sula. The conversation in Sula’s near death time of who is good and who is bad between two women, Sula and Nel, is never resolved since Nel always put herself as the good one. She is a good and deserted mother, wife and woman while Sula is a pariah. But Sula thinks differently that maybe, she is the good one and Nel is the bad one. Shaken, Nel leaves Sula. Sula herself is never meant to hurt Nel but Nel cannot accept her again as a friend because Sula has taken Jude from her side.
Still, Sula thinks of Nel when she died.
Several years later after Sula’s death, Nel visits Eva in nursing home and surprised, Eva recognizes her as Sula. Though she convinces Eva that she is Nel, but Eva said that she and Sula are no difference. They are the same. It opens Nel’s memory of Chicken Little’s death. When Nel is able to remember the scene on the riverbank so long ago, she finally accepts her dark complicity in the little boy’s death. She questions herself about why it felt so good to see Chicken Little disappear under the water and drown. Later, as she stands beside Sula’s grave, she 77
discovers that she has denied this perversity all her life. Her own act of cool, evil composure at the river balanced Sula’s anguished goodness, and, afterward, all the rest of Nel’s charitable deeds balanced Sula’s so-called acts of evil. In spite of death, she and Sula are bonded forever—and the novel closes with Nel keening for Sula.