Beginning of Essay
Many works of contemporary American fiction involve one individual's search for identity in a stifling and unsympathetic world. In "," Toni Morrison gives us two such individuals. In Nel and , Morrison creates two individual female characters that at first are sep ....

Middle of Essay
.... the two women's separate journeys and individual searches for their own selves leads to nothing but despair and '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 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 o ....