Quotations and Analysis

1) “What she had regarded since as unbecoming behavior seemed fitting to her now; they were screaming at the neck of God, his giant nape, the vast back-of-the-head that he had turned on them in death. But it seemed to her now that it was not a fist-shaking grief they were keening but rather a simple obligation to say something, do something, feel something about the dead. They could not let that heart-smashing event pass unrecorded, unidentified. It was poisonous, unnatural to let the dead go with a mere whimpering, a slight murmur, a rose bouquet of good taste. Good taste was out of place in the company of death, death itself was the essence of bad taste. And there must be much rage and saliva in its presence. The body must move and throw itself about, the eyes must roll, the hands should have no peace, and the throat should release all the yearning, despair and outrage that accompany the stupidity of loss.”
This quote describes the part of the book where Nel is in the bathroom after discovering that Jude and Sula have slept together and that Jude is leaving her. This passage not only portrays the importance of death in this novel but in the way Nel regards what has just happened to her. She sees both her husband and Sula as dead. They have crossed a line with Nel and in her eyes, no longer deserve the life they once had with her. This passage also shows Nel as having human, physical emotions. Throughout the story thus far, Nel has been portrayed as perfect, stoic and unfeeling. This passage turns all that around. I feel that this passage marks a shift in Nel’s character. For the first time in the novel, Nel is thinking just of herself when she lets loose this flood of emotions; this is something she has never done before.
2)”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.” P. 119
This passage describes Sula’s reasons for sleeping with Jude and gives great insight into her character. This passage shows how distanced and detached Sula is from society, how independent she truly is. Sula needs no one- except Nel. We discover that Sula truly had no intention of malice when she slept with her best friend’s husband. We also discover how closely Sula and Nel are linked. The two see no difference between themselves; they do not know where one ends and the other begins. For this reason, they shared everything until now. Sula cannot comprehend how much things have changed. She is surprised that Nel’s husband is off-limits. She really has no idea how the society of women works, and this is why she is so loathed by all women.