Identity and Sexuality in Sula: A Lacanian Reading Lilly Milman College

In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, the characters’ attitudes towards their sexualities are shaped by their identity-forming processes. Sula and Nel, despite their similarities, have clashing beliefs about sex due to the vastly different female role models they each grew up with. Their beliefs are further influenced by the preexisting race and gender roles of their society, which created a complicated web of rules and double standards that simultaneously sexualize women while also discouraging them from participating in sexual activity. This results in the formation of inconsistent sexual identities for the protagonists of the novel because they identify with characters who are also struggling to navigate the complex and paradoxical concept of female sexuality. This can be proven through a Lacanian reading of the text, as the older characters in the novel act as imagos for their younger counterparts and help them define their societal roles.

According to Jacques Lacan’s essay “The Mirror Stage,” a person begins forming an identity when he or she first looks in a mirror and recognizes the image as a representation of the self. Lacan refers to the mirror stage “as an identification” or as “the transformation that takes place in the...