This study will discuss the topic of sexuality as it is treated by Toni Morrison in her novel Sula and by Maxine Hong Kingston in her autobiographical The Woman Warrior. The study will focus on the differences in the ways the main characters learn about sexuality. It will also focus on the differences and similarities between the African-American and Chinese-American cultures in the ways they view sexuality, and especially the sexuality of females. In general, the African-American culture is more open and liberal with respect to sexuality, and the Chinese-American culture is more closed and conservative. The women in Morrison's novel are more free to express themselves sexually, while the women in Kingston's book are discouraged from such free sexual expression. At the same time, the woman who decides to live an openly sexual life will pay a price for such freedom in the African-American culture, as we see in the case of Sula.
In Morrison's African-American world, sexuality seems to be a part of every aspect of life. Sexuality is a way for African-Americans in this novel to express their desire for a connection to life in the midst of poverty and prejudice:
He might see a dark woman in a flowered dress doing a bit of cakewalk, a bit of black bottom, a bit of "messing around" to the lively notes of a mouth organ.
. . . The black people watching her would laugh and rub their knees, and it would be easy . . . to hear the laughter and not notice the adult pain that rested somewhere under the eyelids (Morrison 4).
Sexuality is an open part of the African-American culture, but it is not all simple pleasure. Morrison makes it clear that sexuality for her characters is a way to escape their suffering.
Helene learns early that she does not want to be like her mother in her sexuality. She sees her mother as a loose woman who exposes her sexuality and is looked at with contempt by others. Helene tells herself that she will ne...