Silvia-Antonia Rus

HONORS 394
06.08.2018
Self-actualization as Empowerment in Black Feminism (5)

Many remember the powerful cries of the social movements that were unraveling during

the 1960s and 1970s, but few remember to mention the sometimes bridged-over craters between

those movements. The feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were taking place

simultaneously, but neither of them presented a strong interest in the women of color who

participated in them, thus giving rise to an adjacent movement that encompasses values of

feminism and civil rights, known as black feminism. In the Combahee River Collective

Statement, black feminism is defined “as the logical movement to combat the manifold and

simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face” (Combahee River Collective, 1). This

paper will use an extended version of this definition, claiming that black feminism is a social and

political movement that battles any kind of oppression directed towards women of color by using

self-actualization as a tool for empowerment.

While the second wave of white feminism was an exclusive movement, black feminism

was (and is) an inclusive movement that manipulates black aesthetics in literature (and other

media) to emphasize how self-actualization is a tool for empowerment. In her novel, Sula, Toni

Morrison raises philosophical questions such as “Who am I?”, “What is my purpose?”, and

“How am I essentially different?” to augment the importance of individuality, acceptance, love

of self and self-ownership as parts of the self-empowerment needed to retaliate against white

feminism.
 Childhood is an important stage in which the development of self takes place. Children

are the most vulnerable as they seek to define themselves without accepting what society

dictates. Morrison uses Nel’s epiphany of self-definition (of individuality) to underscore that

children are still developing and act as clean slates that can either be molded by social

expectations of race and gender, or can produce their own versions of self, isolated from outside

pressures. After the long trip to Louisiana, ten-year old Nel looks at herself in the mirror,

realizing that “I’m me.”. “Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like

power, like joy, like fear. (Morrison, 28). Even though she is only a child, Nel embodies what

will later be defined as the “erotic” by Audre Lorde in her work Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as

Power. Lorde argues that the erotic is not obscene, but it is “a measure between the beginnings

of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings” (Lorde, 54). Nel’s innocence while

she discovers who she is in this scene refutes the common perception of the erotic created by

white European men. She is in a stage between peace and chaos as she vacillates between her

self-definition and what that definition means because “[she] didn’t know quite what she meant,

but on the other hand, she knew exactly what she meant” (Morrison, 28). Her emotional conflict

also reflects her vulnerability to responding to both inner, and outer influences imposed by her

parents, and by extension, by society. She refuses to acknowledge that she is Nel and that she is

her parents’ daughter, instead developing a sense of power by repeating that she is “me”. During

the 1970s, the erotic has resurfaced as part of some black feminist movements, as an equivalent

to liberation, to emotions, and to self-actualization. Nel’s empowerment through the repetition of

the word “me”, alongside the amplification of joy and fear reflects these values of the erotic in an

innocent manner. The author engages the juxtaposition between the young age of the character
and the radical nature of the erotic to oppose the emotional oppression enforcws by society on

young women of color who are vulnerable to the many influences around them.

Nel is placed between the mirror and the chestnut tree outside of her room to mimic the

crossroads that females are situated in their daily lives between inner desires and outside

expectations. As she rests back in her bed, she stares outside to the chestnut tree as she repeats

that “I want… I want to be… I want to be wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful!”

(Morrison, 28). By looking outside while she expresses motivation to be wonderful, Nel makes a

step away from her self-definition, and one toward being defined by society. Her request to Jesus

to make her wonderful as she stares at the tree betrays Helene’s strong influence on her daughter,

as a substitute for society. The girl’s action is a manifestation of frustration with her situation,

which can also be found in other feminist works such as the Combahee River Collective

Statement that reinforces that “racial politics… do not allow most Black women, to look more

deeply into our own experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness to build a

politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression” (Combahee River

Collective, 2). The writer manipulates Nel’s unspoken frustration to educate her audience about

the significance of self-consciousness, of individuality in one’s development as the character

tries to answer to the question of “Who am I?”. The chestnut tree plays a dual role in this

situation as it represents both Nel’s potential for self-advancement by growing on her own

beliefs, like the tree grows on its own in nature, and Nel’s loss of individuality as she accepts

social norms and becomes part of the “outside”, of the limiting society she had just tried to

reject, like the tree being part of the outdoors. Morrison uses this moment to foreshadow Nel’s

complete change later in her life. The wish to be wonderful is Nel’s last spoken sentence before

she falls asleep, her mother’s influence being betrayed in her last words, so that Nel presents the
subconscious belief that she had to abide by her mother’s, and thus society’s norms to become

wonderful.

Nel’s switch of self-definition to an “outside definition” underscores the extent of the

influence society has over its members. Nel betrays her complete switch indirectly, as she argues

with Sula about her “independent-like” behavior being unnatural because she is a woman of

color. Her attitude is more decisive regarding what she thinks a woman of color can do; however,

she limits her own possibilities based on her race and gender applying the social teachings of her

parents out of the fear of not being wonderful. She believes that between her and Sula, she was

the good one because she followed the rules, being “externally defined… accept[ing] many

facets of our oppression as women” (Lorde, 58). During this dialogue, Nel confirms that she

gave in to the social oppression and even became part of it as she tries to limit Sula’s own beliefs

and as she refuses to acknowledge her independence. Nel calls out Sula for acting “independent-

like”, even though Sula does not act independent because she is fully independent of her family,

and of society (Morrison, 142). Sula does not try to maintain appearances to appease Medallion’s

society, instead she pursues her definition of self to find her purpose in the world, uncovering a

strive to greatness, a salient topic in black feminism. Sula rejects the imposed limitations by

telling Nel that she repeated herself with the statements she made, attacking what used to be part

of Nel’s self-empowerment (the repletion of “me”), and taking it away like a man would do. By

taking instead of receiving, Sula proves her independence while also criticizing the stereotype

that only men can take what they want, while women can only receive. Furthermore, she insists

that a man and a black woman can both act the same, proving that they have equal potentials to

act similarly, but their behavior is often dictated by circumstances. In this situation, Nel is

alluded to be an empty echo of society as she “repeats” her statement, just as she would repeat a
memorized lesson, without any of the feelings and emotions of the erotic that would otherwise

empower her. The only feelings that Nel could have in this discussion are envy and frustration

with her inability to take something and then make it her own, as she subconsciously

“continue[s] to operate under exclusively European-American male tradition”, the rules being

ingrained in her as a part of society (Lorde, 59).

The conversation between the women illustrates the two options women of color have in

their lives: to follow oppressive rules or to fight oppression as social pariahs. Even though they

come from different households, Nel and Sula still have similar origins from a general

perspective, and yet they arrive at different manners of definitions and at different levels of

acceptance of oppression, proving that people can have similar origins, and yet adopt various

systems of beliefs once they reach adulthood. Nel accentuates the gap between their belief

systems further as she tells Sula that “You a woman and a colored woman at that” (Morrison,

142). She distinguishes between the two groups, portraying one of the driving forces of the black

feminist movements during the 1970s: “to publicly address racism in the white women’s

movement” (Combahee River Collective, 6). Morrison uses Nel’s speech to educate her audience

about the discrepancy between the two feminist movements and their implications for the women

involved in terms of values and empowerment. Unlike the white feminism movement, the black

feminist movement seeks empowerment through learning about, and then accepting and

appreciating themselves as valuable people. While Sula becomes more marginalized as she tries

tackling another philosophical question (“How am I essentially different from…?”), she also

criticizes society for trying to limit her choices because she is a woman, an attitude that surfaced

before in her talk with Eva earlier in the novel, and an attitude expressed by black feminism in

many statements and theoretical essays.

 The author criticizes social expectations of women by mimicking the tactics that men use

on women, shaming them for refusing to abide to social expectations as they try to learn about

and advance themselves, like Eva tries to shame Sula for choosing to “make herself”. She calls

Sula “selfish” after she declared that she “don’t want to make somebody else. [I] want to make

myself” (Morrison, 92). Morrison uses Eva’s ambiguity as a strong female character, and as a

voice of traditional, social norms in her conversation with Sula to emphasize the importance of

choice in the development of the love of self. In the first part of the novel, Eva chooses to live

outside of social norms as she is running her estate as a boarding house for social misfits, but in

the second part, she chooses to be an advocate of society for Sula. Despite her duality, Eva

argues that her and Hannah’s lifestyles were not due to their own choices, but they were instead

pushed into them by uncontrolled circumstances. However, Sula disregards her grandmother’s

denial and insists on choosing her own advancement by telling her, and therefore society, to be

quiet because she is not selfish. In a later discussion, the audience finds out that Sula did not

want children, which reinforces the “un-selfish” choice of working on herself. Evolutionarily,

having children is a selfish act because it is a manifestation of one’s genes to maintain

themselves on the planet, as described by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene,

therefore, Sula is being altruistic by deciding against procreating, enabling resources for others

who would want to procreate. The character’s attitude of entitlement to working on herself as she

struggles with finding her purpose is reminiscent of men’s attitudes of entitlement regarding their

rights. Morrison engages the audience through this parallelism to advance her stance that men

and women of color should have the same expectations from society, instead of the latter being

limited in many domains, such as creativity and emotional intelligence.

 Even though Sula is often criticized for lacking emotions, she displays high emotional

intelligence when she faces Eva, recognizing that outsiders to her mind objectify her to diminish

her strength. Sula retaliates by accepting that she is a body, but she personifies the body as she

claims that “This body does…” (Morrison, 92). Moreover, the word “this” impliea that it is not

just any body that tells Eva to “shut up”, but it is Sula’s body, empowering herself by using

social objectification to her advantage. Sula takes the stereotype and the stigma of the erotic and

uses them towards self-empowerment, responding to oppression with “the knowledge and use of

which, [she is] now reclaiming in [her] language… [her] life” (Lorde, 55). She expresses the

wish to be treated as a person, mirroring the main issue in the 1970s black feminist movements:

for black women “To be recognized as human, levelly human”, educating Eva and the readers

about the core of black feminism that sets it apart from white feminism (Combahee River

Collective, 2). By taking care of herself while manipulating the stigma of the erotic towards

empowerment, Sula acknowledges herself as a worthy woman of color.

In her last moments, Sula reaches self-actualization as she proudly argues that there is no

importance to showing others that she lived, but it is important that she had her experiences, her

knowledge and herself, therefore dying as a self-empowered woman. Sula claims that she had

lived in this world, but Nel asks her what she had to prove that. Sula first asks about whom she

would show her life to, therefore denying their importance and relevance in her life. Sula does

not need to show anybody her life, only needing to be content with her mind and herself. The

character claims ownership over her own mind and emphasizing that she “made herself” into

something worth to be displayed retrospectively as she approaches death. Unlike those who

follow the social norms of the “European-American tradition”, Sula leaves the world outside of

them, not being chained to an “external definition”, and thus achieving self-actualization by
possessing her own definition of herself (Lorde, 58). She reasserts this self-actualization as she

continues saying that she also had “me” when she leaves the world. Sula takes this “me” from

Nel; however, she gives it a clearer definition with which she is comfortable with. Even though

she does not directly state what “me” meant, she alluded that it meant someone who took

something she wanted, who had a choice, and who did not care about limiting social norms and

definitions of what was good and what was bad. Sula’s and many black feminists’ attitude is best

summarized in Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, as the manifestation of “the

erotic knowledge [that] empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of

our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning

within our lives” (Lorde, 57). As Sula looks back upon her life, the audience is presented with a

clear confirmation of her self-actualization and empowerment as she honestly evaluates her life

and gives it value. Morrison uses the erotic to reach self-awareness of emotions and feelings,

reinforcing the black feminist agenda. Furthermore, the motifs of intellectual property as self-

ownership encourage the audience with black feminist values, rejecting social norms, and

reaching self-consciousness as individuals, as Sula insists of claiming her loneliness as her

property.

In many anti-feminist and racist propaganda, women who went against the norms and

tried to achieve self-empowerment were shown as casted away from society and shamed for their

actions. In her last moments, Sula indirectly criticizes this propaganda by taking the loneliness

and claiming it as her choice, as her property. Through her claim, she takes away society’s power

of shaming and turns it against itself, by attacking Nel who is part of this society. In the end, Sula

becomes “me”, as a final attempt to self-empowerment and to show her friend who does not see

the limitations around her. Through Sula’s dramatic and final separation from Nel, the author
argues that self-ownership in addition to self-love, acceptance, and individuality can lead to great

empowerment that can (eventually) make a change in the social structure, like how Nel changes

her opinion of herself when she remembers the death of Chicken Little at the end of the story.

The story ends with Nel calling Sula’s name who became a symbol of empowerment herself,

wishing she had understood earlier that she was longing for Sula’s lessons as a final attempt to

find “me” again.

Both Nel and Sula tackle philosophical questions of identity as they navigate through life.

Despite their similarities, they became representatives of two opposites: black feminism and the

European-American traditional model. Throughout her novel, Morrison uses the erotic as a

method of self-empowerment, implying that the individuality, the acceptance, the self-love, and

the self-ownership that originate from it are salient to the advancement of women of color.

Through her novel, Sula, the author underscores significant features and issues of the black

feminist movement as responses to the narrowness of white feminism and of the Civil Rights

Movement, educating her audience about the discrepancies in belief systems, methods, and

boundaries.
 Work Cited

Eisenstein, Z. The Combahee River Collective Statement. 1977.

Lorde, A. Sister Outsider- Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power. Crossing Press, 1978.

Morrison, T., Sula, Vintage Books, 1973.