Peace verse Wright

All throughout the novel gender roles are evident. The biggest one is the difference in how Nel and Sula are treated and how their families are viewed by the  community. Early on the reader learns that Nel and  Sula are not even supposed to be  interacting because Nel's mother,Helene, says that Sula's family is not someone she wants her daughter to be around because "Sula's mother was sooty"(Morrison pg. 29). Already Helene has passed judgement on Hannah before she knows her because of her reputation in town because people come and go in and out of her house and Helene disapproves of it.The two families are run completely different. The Peace household is described as "a woolly house, where a pot of something is always cooking on the stove; where the mother, Hannah, never scolded or gave directions;where all sorts of people dropped in; where newspapers were stacked in the hallway, and dirty dishes left for hours at a time in the sink, and where a one legged  grandmother named Eva handed you goobers from deep inside her pockets or read you a dream"(Morrison pg. 29). The house is does not have a set order throughout the day but flows without structure and organization. There nothing expected of Sula to act or be a certain way. She has free range and her independence and freedom are encouraged. However, there is no peace there with no order or structure and everyone fending for themselves. Meanwhile, Helene is all about representation and all that she does is so that she can be looked  at in a positive light. She is respected and seen as upright in the community. Others look up to her as a role model. Helene constantly trying to do everything right and be the perfect person and not to fall in her mother's footsteps and be "wrong" or a "bad" person. The two families are searching for different things. The Peace family ironically long for peace; while the Wright family desire to live a righteous life.