Issues of Sexual Morality and Society in Sula

In Toni Morrison’s Sula, the society of Hannah and Sula is divided over each character’s sexual choices. Even though they both engage in the same activities, they are each judged for these actions differently. Society has no qualms with the sexual choices of Hannah. Her character sleeps with many men throughout the novel, and all the while, society never objects. This is because she was once married. After her husband died she longed …

…what is not. Because Hannah is a victim and is searching for a loving relationship to replace the one that she lost when her husband died, she gains her communities sympathy. Sula is a different story: by using men for her own personal sexual satisfaction, Sula is placed as an outcast to society. The society in which she has been brought up in will not accept sexual relations that do not condone an equal relationship.