earticle

영어

This paper aims at approaching the relations between the disgust and the self-realization of Sula and Nel, analysing the trauma of hatred and disgust based on self-disgust. Circumscribed from childhood by blacks and white communities, Sula and Nel learn to protect themselves by acting in aggressive and independent ways. Sula insults the women by sleeping with their husbands once and discarding them, and her lack of empathy makes her stir the feelings of intense revulsion when she sleeps with Jude. Unfortunately, Jude’s abandonment reactivates self-disgust’s trauma Nel felt as a child on the train with her mother. But, unlike Sula, Nel sleeps with her children for their comfort and for hers to keep away from her self-disgust. Sula’s aggressive sexuality which lies in this attraction-repulsion dynamic does not lead to healing, while Nel’s independent self-realization ends up overcoming self-disgust. Accordingly Sula says that this lack of stable identity perpetuates the cycle of hatred and disgust.