Ten years later, she mysteriously and unexpectedly returns to the Bottom, but it is immediately clear that she still has the fiery personality she had before she left she still does the unexpected. When Nel marries, Sula leaves the Bottom and goes to Tennessee, where she attends college for an unspecified amount of time. Sula is impulsive, daring, and independent Nel, in contrast, obediently does what is expected of her. The girls are best friends even though they have completely opposite personalities. Sula also explores the life of Nel, Sula's best friend. In between these chapters, we learn of the events that shape Sula's and the black community's identities between 19. When the novel ends, the year is 1965, and the narrator tells us more about this neighborhood metamorphosis. The Bottom's black residents are moving down into the valley. Medallion's white citizens are moving up into the Bottom and building homes, television towers, and plush golf courses. When it begins, the narrator is explaining what has happened to the Bottom, the black neighborhood in the Ohio hills above the valley town of Medallion. Also, she questions to what extent mothers will go to protect their children from a harsh world, and whether or not these maternal instincts ultimately are productive or harmful. Morrison delves into the strong female relationships between the novel's women and how these bonds both nurture and threaten individual female identity. Sula, Morrison's second novel, focuses on a young black girl named Sula, who matures into a strong and determined woman in the face of adversity and the distrust, even hatred, of her by the black community in which she lives.

Sula by Toni Morrison