Sula By Toni Morrison Essays - Sula, Toni Morrison, Nel

Sula By Toni Morrison Many works of contemporary American fiction involve one individual's search for identity in a stifling and unsympathetic world. In "Sula," Toni Morrison gives us two such individuals. In Nel and Sula, Morrison creates two individual female characters that at first are separate, grows together, and then is separated once more. Although never physically reconciled, Nel's self discovery at the end of the novel permits the achievement of an almost impossible quest - the conjunction of two selves. And that is what I think really makes the novel work. I found that it's a great book that gives us a look at these two great characters. Morrison says she created Sula as "a woman who could be used as a classic type of evil force" and that she "wanted Nel to be a warm, conventional woman." She says "there was a little bit of both in each of these women... if they had been one woman... they would have been a rather marvelous person. But each one lacked something the other had." Morrison, thus, creates two completely different women yet allows them to merge into one. The sustainment of the two selves as one proves difficult and Morrison allows them to pursue different paths. But the two women's separate journeys and individual searches for their own selves leads to nothing but despair and Sula's death. Nel's realization that they were only truly individuals when they were joined as one allows them to merge once again. Morrison portrays Sula and Nel as binary opposites at the beginning of the novel. In our first view of Nel she is as conventional and conforming as a young lady can be: Under Helene's hand the girl became obedient and polite. Her mother calmed any enthusiasms that Nel showed until she drove her daughter's imagination underground. (p.18) In this passage Nel is merely an extension of her mother with no autonomy of her own. Helene's hand is the iron fist of authority from under which Nel cannot release herself. Morrison makes it clear here that Nel is a calm and unimaginative girl who conforms completely to her mother's strict orders. Sula, on the other hand, comes from a totally different background. She is her own person as she has "none of her mother's slackness" (p.29) and, unlike the "oppressive neatness"(p.29) of Nel's house, lives in a woolly house, where a pot of something was always cooking on the stove; where the mother, Hannah, never scolded or gave directions; where all sorts of people dropped in; where newspapers were stacked in the hallway, and dirty dishes left for hours at a time in the sink, and where a one-legged grandmother named Eva handed you goobers from deep inside her pockets or read you a dream. (p.29) Where Nel is confined, Sula is free. Where Nel has been raised to be an extension of her mother, Sula has surprisingly few ties to hers. Nel's imagination has been so restricted that the messiness of Sula's house along with its strange inhabitants and many visitors must seem like an absolute dream world. Similarly, the tidiness of Nel's house compared with the disorderliness of her own allows Sula to "sit still as dawn." (p.29) Morrison makes it clear in these instances that "each one lacked something the other had." That "something" is neither small nor insignificant. It is the fundamental make-up of each girl's character. Morrison deliberately portrays Nel and Sula in this manner to illustrate emphatically how entirely different they originally are. They are so different, in fact, that they are two facets of the same being - Nel conventional and orderly; and Sula unconventional and unsettled. The comfort each feels in the other's home demonstrates their initial and subconscious desire to merge into one being. Morrison intimates, in these instances, that the two facets cannot thrive individually and hints that they will soon become one. This merger takes place most dramatically with Sula's accidental murder of Chicken Little. Looking back on this incident Nel recalls that: All these years she had been secretly proud of her calm, controlled behavior when Sula was uncontrollable, her compassion for Sula's frightened and shamed eyes. Now it seemed that what she had thought was maturity, serenity and compassion was only the tranquillity that follows a joyful stimulation. Just as the water closed peacefully over the turbulence of Chicken Little's body, so had contentment washed over her enjoyment. (p.170) This passage reveals that the original binary opposite characters are no longer very different. During this incident Nel, the former calm and

Drugstore and Soda Fountains Essays

Drugstore and Soda Fountains Essays Drugstore and Soda Fountains Essay Drugstore and Soda Fountains Essay During the early 1900’s in America, the average drug store is comprised of three parts: pharmacy, retail sales, and the ‘soda water fountain’. The soda fountain is a dispenser of flavored syrups and carbonated water. Soon enough soda fountains were also used to describe ice-cream parlors, while counters in pharmacies started selling soft drinks (Leonard, R. B. , 1916, p. 322; Soft drinks, 2007). The soda water fountain’s popularity can be credited to the creativeness of American pharmacists. Already in the business of selling soda water, the American pharmacists later added flavors derived from fruits, nuts, berries, roots, herbs, and other plant sources to the unflavored mineral water. Various ingredients from plants and trees were used such as birch bark, dandelion, sarsaparilla, and other fruit extracts, some of which were purposely chosen for their medicinal value. The other additives were chosen to enhance the appearance of the clear sparkling mineral water. City dwellers as well as small town folks enjoyed drinking soda in these establishments. However, the fame of soda water fountains started to collapse with the advent of fast foods restaurants, commercialized ice cream, and bottled soft drinks. But this did not mean the collapse of the soft drinks industry. In fact, soft drinks underwent much development through time. There have been many different kinds of carbonated soft drinks formulated throughout history and various companies engaged in its production. Nevertheless, this paper will focus only on the two giants in the industry: Coca-cola and Pepsi Cola. Coca Cola What is today the big name ‘Coca Cola’ was discovered and established in 1886 by a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia named Doctor John Pemberton. By concocting a medication that contained extracts of caffeine-rich kola nuts and of the cocaine-rich coca plant to cure headache and hangover, he produced Coca-Cola (Carbonated Beverage, 2004, p. 8495). Ingredients of the Coca-Cola formula and the how it was manufactured by Doctor John Pemberton is discussed in a book by Mark Pendergrast entitled, ‘For God, Country and Coca-Cola’. Mr. Pendergrast was given the opportunity to access archival material of Coca-Cola and to interview people within Coca-Cola. This privilege gave him important data from Coca-Cola sources (The Coca-Cola Recipe, 2007). It was established in his research that the production of soft drinks takes quality. For instance, even though the water that is used in its manufacture already comes from a safe and potable source, further purification processes are held in place to ensure the quality of the product. In manufacturing soft drinks as a whole, measures must be taken to ensure purity and uniformity of the ingredients because any impurity that is not screened would be carried on to the final soft drink product (Soft drink, 2007). John Pemberton constructed a primitive filtering contraption in his house made of sand from a nearby river. It is in this primitive filtering contraption that he pours the flavoring mixture made from his recipe to remove solid particles and whatever impurities the water from the municipal supply and other items in his syrup mixture may still contain (The Coca-Cola Recipe, 2007). Before John Pemberton died, ownership of Coca-Cola changed hands in 1887. The new owner Asa Candler, an Atlanta pharmacist and businessman, also changed Coca-Cola’s formula. Candler’s intention in doing this was to prohibit imitators from producing soft drinks which are similar to Coca Cola since a bunch of people already knew its original formula at the time Candler purchased the rights to produce it exclusively. Further, Candler made some additions in the formula such as preservative in the form of glycerin, phosphoric acid as replacement for citric acid, reduction of its caffeine content, and removal of cocaine as an ingredient. In the revised formula of Asa Candler, the ingredients were sugar, caramel, caffeine, phosphoric acid, coca leaf cola nut extract, lime juice, flavoring mixture, vanilla and glycerin (The Coca-Cola Recipe, 2007). At present time though, changes have already been made in the aforementioned Candler’s formula including. With corn syrup now used as a sweetener instead of sugar, its packaging also evolved with the changing demands of the consumers. Today, far from the original sodas of the drug store’s soda fountains, carbonated soft drinks are packaged for sale in various containers, such as aluminum or tin cans, plastic bottles, and glass bottles. The company also released a ‘New Coke’ formula on April 23, 1985, but it did not do well to those accustomed to the old Coca-Cola flavor so the old formula was reinstated. Coca-Cola’s success and popularity can be attributed to Asa Candler’s aggressive marketing of Coca-Cola. Together with Coca-Cola’s success, the demand for syrup sales increased. The company sells syrup to independent bottling companies which have been given license to sell the soft drink. Nowadays, Coca-Cola soft drinks that are being consumed each day rise up to 9 digit figures (Bellis, 2007). Pepsi-Cola In 1898, Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist in North Carolina, had a soda fountain in his drugstore. This is where he served his customers refreshing drinks: carbonated water mixed with medicinal and flavorful ingredients which he himself chose. What he termed as ‘Brad’s drink’ became his infamous drink in his soda fountain. The ingredients of the said drink were sugar, carbonated water, rare oils, pepsin, cola nuts and vanilla. He created the drink back in 1893 (Bellis, 2007). This particular concoction is to become ‘Pepsi Cola’ in 1898. It was renamed after the key ingredients, pepsin and cola nuts. In that same year, Bradham purchased from a competitor that went bankrupt the trade name ‘Pep Cola’ at the price of 100 US dollars. In June of 1903, the name Pepsi Cola was first introduced and trademarked. It was Bradham’s neighbor who took the job of designing the first ever logo of Pepsi Cola. Business was successful until he gambled on the fluctuations of sugar prices during World War I resulting in the bankrupt of Pepsi Cola in 1923. The year 1931 saw to the transfer of Pepsi Cola ownership to the ‘Loft Candy Company’. The then company president Charles G. Guth changed the Pepsi Cola formula. However, this change made it difficult for Guth to make Pepsi Cola a winner in the industry so he resorted to selling Pepsi Cola to the Coca-Cola Company, but to no avail. 1940 saw to the creation of Pepsi Cola history because it was at that time when the first commercial jingle, entitled ‘Nickel Nickel’, was made and aired throughout the United States of America (Bellis, 2007). Like its competitor, Coca-Cola, changes were introduced in Pepsi Cola. In 1964, ‘Diet Pepsi’ was offered in the market.