What is a Confidante? Anonymous 12th Grade

The confidante typically is known for being present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in, but that is not the case in Sula. Instead, Nel is there to show how the main character differs from the rest of the women in society. Through their conversations, it is clear that basing our self-worth off of societal expectations leads to living a hollow life that doesn’t satisfy us individually. Yet when we don’t compare ourselves to others and instead live by our standards, we live a full life. In Sula by Toni Morrison, Morrison uses Nel as a confidante to Sula to show how different Sula’s life and view of the world is then the woman that she used to inseparable from as a child.

Sula lived the way that she wanted to travel around and sleeping with men in unconventional ways, while Nel married and had kids, the more societally accepted way to live. Nel blames Sula for her husband leaving her by saying “‘ And you didn’t love me enough to leave him alone. To let him love me. You had to take him away.’” (145) Nel does not once use the word I, but she does the word me many times. The word me especially in“didn’t love me enough” and “let him love me” are object pronouns. She is not the one doing anything,...