Sula’s Sex Powers
Sula’s Sex Powers
I thought that the pedagogization of sex that was present throughout the novel was an interesting contrast to the Stevenson essay in which women equated sex with principle. As a previous poster stated, Sula learned her sexual behaviors from her mother, Hannah. Hannah was described as sleeping with men easily and often. At the same time though, Hannah’s reputation or principle was not unquestionably sullied by her actions. It was stated that the women of the town viewed her as more of an annoyance than anything (44) because she had meaningless sex and put the prostitutes out of work. It didn’t matter if they were married and her affairs were without emotion. It was stated that Hannah was kind and did not get jealous, which leads the reader to believe that she simply enjoyed sex for what it was: physical pleasure. Growing up with a mother who attached no emotional significance or stigma to sex, Sula came to view it as a no-strings-attached act of pleasure as well.Though Hannah didn’t exercise power through sex, it can be argued that Sula did. Though the town frowned upon her sending her grandmother to a home, it was sleeping with her best friend’s husband that really caused the town to turn on her. Yet, Sula’s actions were explained by the fact that she grew up “with women who thought all men available, and selected from among them with a care only for their tastes” (119). To me, this was a flimsy defense and I felt that Sula was exercising her power by sleeping with Jude and later other men in the town. Sula was exercising power where her mother had not because she used sex to separate herself from the rest of the women in the town. As said, “Hannah had been a nuisance, but she was complimenting the women, in a way, by wanting their husbands. Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow” (115).
I think that Sula’s method of exercising her power was to isolate herself from the community as much as possible. She was already perceived as different due to her appearance and the fact that she went away to college, but her sexual behaviors solidified any differences between Sula and the other women that were already perceived. Her sexual behaviors set her apart from other women in the community because she did not fit into any one category: at the ripe old age of 3o she remained unmarried, she was not a prostitute, she did not have enduring affairs. Her sexual behaviors could best be described as a string of one night stands, almost as if she were better than the men and women in town because she did not get attached to any of them. At least, that is how they perceived her actions. Though the people of Bottom would probably hate to admit it, Sula’s outsider status influenced their thoughts and actions, meaning that she held more power than any one of them.
