The female struggle for identity in SulaThe novel Sula by Toni Morrison exemplifies the new feminist literature described by Helene Cixous in "The Laughter of the Medusa" because of the representation finale of the two main characters Nel and Sula. However, it is clear throughout the novel that both Cixous and Gilbert and Gubar's descriptions of the female characters are evident within this novel. The traditional figure of the submissive woman paradoxically contrasts with the new woman throughout the novel. It is unclear whether the reader should love or despise Sula for her independence until the last scene. Although both the perspectives of Cixous and Gilbert/Gubar are evident in the text, in the end it is the friendship between the two women that prevails and is considered the most important. This prevailing celebration of femininity in all its dualistic and mysterious aspects is exactly what Cixous pushes women writers to attempt. First of all there is the presence of the character of the stereotypical old woman, a woman torn between the conventional and non-traditional roles of women. Initially, no differences are evident between Morrison's Sula and any other women's literature of the past. Women are depicted as docile servants of men, like Nel, or as ball-busting feminist monsters like Sula. The hidden aspect of the novel lies beneath these surface stereotyped roles, in the incomprehensible and almost inappropriate bond of the two women. In Sula's final scene, Nel realizes that the emptiness inside her is due to the loss of Sula, not Jude (Morrison 174). His friendship with Sula is all that matters. The development of a feminist reading from the point of view of Gilbert and Gubar... in the center of the paper... but instead brings together the spirits of the two women. “We were girls together,” Nel says, and the importance of this revelation to her becomes clear. She mourns “circles and circles of grief” over the lost relationship between her and Sula (Morrison 174). Maybe she also cries for an entire history of lost women separated from social functioning and a world built by my men. Works Cited Cixous, Helene. "The laughter of the Medusa." The critical condition: classic texts and contemporary trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. 1453-66. Gilbert, Sarah M. and Gubar, Susan. "From the infection in the sentence: the writer and the anxiety of being an author". The critical condition: classic texts and contemporary trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. 1361-74.Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Plume Press, 1982.