In contrast to the other people living in the Bottom, Sula is oblivious to the omens and superstitions that accompany her return. Traditionally, robins are thought of as birds of harmony, bringing peace and the rush of new life and fresh air. Ironically, however, when they are associated with Sula's return, they symbolize her perceived threat to the black community's psychological identity even as their droppings encrust everyone's shoes and the streets of the Bottom. What was once good — robins — has become evil — and all because of Sula. Like the defecating robins, Sula threatens the community's well-being. The girl who left town ten years ago has returned, and her peculiar ways are no longer adolescent whims. They seem like sinister oddities.
In her vicious confrontation with Eva, Sula pulls no punches; her body language positions her on the offensive, and she turns her buttocks to the aging Eva, spitting fire and water at her grandmother's call for pregnancy and blissful "settling." Sula lashes out that she doesn't want to make "somebody else": She wants to make herself. By refusing to settle for the traditional black woman's stereotypical lot in life — wife, mother, and caretaker — Sula inspires Eva's wrath and the community's rancor. Unaffected by the community's condemnation, however, Sula does the unthinkable: She commits Eva to a nursing home, an unacceptable option in the black community.
Why has Sula returned to the Bottom? She has returned out of boredom with the many big cities she traveled through, and because she craves Nel — "the other half of her equation" — and yearns for their girlhood's soulful friendship. Neither Nel nor Sula, however, are girls any longer. Nel is a solid, dependable wife and does what is expected of her. Sula is fluid, spontaneous, and instinctual. On the surface, they seemingly compliment each other and support one another, but Nel senses the atmospheric changes that swept in with Sula even though their friendship seems to bond them as one.
