Omniscient Narration In Toni Morrison's Sula

In Sula, Morrison's intimate use of omniscient narration allows the reader to understand the depth of each character, a facet of her writing that proves itself to be almost hunger-inducing. Morrison is able to describe each major character, including Sula, Nel, Shadrack, and even minor characters like Eva, Hannah, and Helene, with a level of intricacy that any other form of narration could not rise to. Considering the simplicity of the plot, the omniscient narration leaves a wide birth of creative possibility that Morrison can fill with character descriptions, detailed metaphors, and drawn-out explanations for things like the actions of certain characters. For example, toward the beginning of the story, Shadrack is introduced and his background …show more content…
The story's plot line is quite mild; in black-and-white terms, it's the story of two young women who part in adolescence, only to meet years later after living in entirely different circumstances and coming to terms with their unavoidable contrast. If this story were told with a second-person narrative, it would simply not work. The story would not function with that narrative type. If it were told with a first-person narrative from the perspective of many differing characters, some amount of intimacy could be achieved, and, certainly, the reader would be supplied with many different points of view, but not in the same depth as the omniscience allows. If it were told with a first-person narrative from the perspective of just one character, conscious depth of that character and on-the-surface descriptions of other characters could be shared with the reader, but not nearly to the same extent that Morrison provides with her narrative choice. With the omniscient narrative, Morrison creates an almost supernatural, subconscious telling of each important character in the story, giving monumental color to the plot line and keeping the reader