The Concept of Sula’s Identity in Toni Morrison’s Sula

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle,” wrote Lewis Carroll in his famous novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, implying that the self is a complex entity and that identity is a mysterious conundrum difficult to unravel. The puzzling theme of identity and self-discovery is one prominent in literature around the world, specifically in American literature. This theme overrides in many of Toni Morrison’s works, including Sula. Although she does not declare identity as one of the basic themes she uses, “if one takes all of her writing into account… it becomes apparent that even though she doesn’t specify it as such, her grand theme is actually that of self-discovery, or its close variation, the issue of self-definition” (Carmean 15). In her novel Sula, Morrison uses an identity theme to show that identity is not a definite thing but rather a notion that is fluid, always being shaped and molded by life; she does this through the character of Sula. Although ...