The kind of books that stick with people are the compelling ones. For a story to command its reader’s attention and become a fond memory, it needs to tell a story with characters that feel alive. A book that is considered successful, with characters that function in this way can be said to have good characterization. Successful characterization in fiction can make the reading experience a personal one. To the individual, literature that becomes successful like this can turn into a portal into any time, and the individual can embed themselves into a fictional world. Stories like Wonder and Moby have this ability, they let the individual experience the story alongside the characters through their vivid depictions.
Sula follows the life of Sula Peace, a girl who lives with her mother, grandmother, and several adopted family members in The Bottom, a relatively poor neighborhood. The story takes the reader through the life of her and some of the other members of The Bottom, eventually culminating in Sula’s staunchly different worldview leading her to become alienated from her community, and ending in her death. The rich characterization of the characters in Sula, whether they are Sula herself or other less prominent characters such as Jude, is what makes the story successful.
In Sula, the character of Jude is part of what makes the book successful because of how relatable his yearning for purpose and meaningful work is. Jude works as a hotel waiter, but he craves meaningful work, and a legacy. In a passage where he has the chance to work on building a bridge, he reveals his motivations: “Jude himself longed more than anybody else to be taken. Not just for the good money, more for the work itself… His arms ached for something heavier than trays, for something dirtier than peelings; his feet wanted the heavy work shoes, not the thin-soled black shoes that the hotel required” (Morrison 92). Jude has a desire to do something other than the job he sustains himself with. The dissatisfaction with his hotel job that he feels is a common experience to a lot of people, and this desire he has makes him relatable to the reader. Jude also expresses a desire to have accomplished something that lasts long after he is gone, and this want for a legacy is also potentially relatable at the personal level to many readers, which is likely to interest readers. Jude feels that, “More than anything he wanted the camaraderie of the road men: the lunch buckets, the hollering, the body movement that in the end produced something real, something he could point to. “I built that road,” he could say. How much better sundown would be than the end of a day in the restaurant, where a good day’s work was marked by the number of dirty plates and the weight of the garbage bin. “I built that road.” People would walk over his sweat for years” (Morrison 92). Speaking for myself at least, I think that I share Jude’s desire to put something into the world that people can benefit from for many years to come. The reason that Jude’s motivations and desires are the sort that can be found in people in general is due to precise and insightful characterization, and this is why Sula is a memorable and successful piece of literature.
The characterization of the title character of the story, Sula, is a key element in making the book the work of art that it is. The starkly alien perspective that Sula is shown to hold forces the reader to attempt putting themselves in Sula’s shoes, and to try and understand this strange person’s actions. Towards the end of the story, this perspective is shown:
She had no thought at all of causing Nel pain when she bedded down with Jude. They had always shared the affection of other people: compared how a boy kissed, what line he used with one and then the other. Marriage, apparently, had changed all that, but having had no intimate knowledge of marriage, having lived in a house with women who thought all men available, and selected from among them with a care only for their tastes, she was ill prepared for the possessiveness of the one person she felt close to. She knew well enough what other women said and felt, or said they felt. But she and Nel had always seen through them. (Morrison 125)
Morrison’s vivid description of Sula’s state of mind forces the reader to try and empathize with Sula, and leads the reader to question their initial reactions to social taboos. When Sula sleeps with Jude, the natural reaction of most people would be shock or disgust, and perhaps some sort of morbid curiosity as to why Sula does this. This curiosity in reading about the whys in Sula draws out in the reader is what compels the reader to keep reading. Taking advantage of a reader’s morbid curiosity in this way is only possible with the careful characterization that is necessary to create a realistic character that lacks certain key human traits, but still is possible to empathize with. The reason that Sula is a joy to read is because of this command of the characters within it.
Some might say that Sula is an unsuccessful story because the main character is completely and utterly alien to the reader. Sula’s actions throughout the book alienate the reader from her, and it is difficult to form any sort of attachment to her because of her bizarreness. In the passage where her personality is described, Morrison describes Sula as someone who, “in the midst of a pleasant conversation with someone [might] say, ‘Why do you chew with your mouth open?’ not because the answer interested her but because she wanted to see the person’s face change rapidly. 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 125). Sula’s inability to conform to transactional norms makes her a more difficult character to relate to for a reader. Going by the idea that what makes a story compelling is the depth of the characterization, Sula’s weird behavior shows a lack of good characterization, and therefore is the reason the story is unsuccessful. However, while Sula’s character does have a certain alienating factor, I would argue that the blend between the parts of her personality that are impossible to relate to and the more relatable emotions that she shows in certain passages are what makes her character so compelling. In a later passage, it is said that Sula “went to bed with men 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. She had not always been aware that it was sadness that she yearned for” (Toni Morrison 128). The specifically identified feelings of misery and sorrow when contrasted with the difficult to empathize goal of seeking this misery gives the reader the ability to understand Sula more completely, through this complex and two-pronged characterization.
In sum, Sula succeeds in telling a compelling story because of the strength of its characters. Through looking at Sula and Jude’s desires and inner feelings, we have found that their characters are successful in different ways: Jude, because he has relatable motivations, and Sula, because her actions contrast the relatable and alien. The characterization on display in Sula is a prime example of how literature that aims to transport their readers should design their characters. Having more characters like Sula would make the literary world emotionally richer. Sula shows us characterization done right, and keeps us thinking of other perspectives.