ed Nel which one of them was the good one. She said “maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe it was me”(146). Although it doesn’t seem like she was the good one on the surface, there is some truth to the statement since her actions actually bettered many of the people around her. Nel disregarded the statement and did not see her friend again. Nel did not realize how much her friend meant to her until later when she went to visit Eva in the hospital. Eva brought up the time when the two girls watched the neighborhood boy drown. Nel, thinking that Sula was always the bad one, said that it was all Sula’s fault and that she didn’t have anything to do with it. Eva said to her, “Just alike. Both of you. Never was no difference between you”(169). Not until then did Nel realize how much alike they really were, and that everything that she prided herself in, the calmness and control, were just another way of expressing the same emotions that Sula expressed more openly. What really drove Nel and Sula apart was the pain that Nel felt after her husband left her. What she thought she was feeling for her husband, missing him, she was really feeling for Sula. The two completed each other, but their upbringings and choices in life caused them to never really realize this. Nel was taught to conform to social conventions, thereby believing what everyone else thought was good or evil. Sula was taught to do what she pleased, not ever really seeing a difference between good and evil. They did not go by what was in their hearts, just in their minds, and that is why the value of their friendship was not realized until it was too late. ...
