The concept of tough love is prevalent in many African American fictional texts. Toni Morrison's Sula is one such example of the way tough love manifests itself through African-American parent-child relationships. It can often be mistaken for contempt, selfishness, carelessness, or all three. The determining factor for tough love, however, is the impulse, expressed or unexpressed, for the child's well-being. In Plum's case and also in Hannah's case, Eva repeatedly demonstrates this paradoxical act of selflessness. Ultimately, the relationships between Eve and her children, particularly Hannah, provide key examples of the concept of tough love, in all its misunderstood glory, as an element that results from the experience of "struggle." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay A key element to understanding the concept of tough love is the background from which it emerges; furthermore, emerging from the African-American struggle as Eve depicts. When Hannah approaches Eva and asks her the childish question, "Mommy, have you ever loved us?", the reader is surprised by the answer. This reaction is what gives tough love its edge. The shock value that Hannah, as well as the reader, has towards Eva's response is overwhelming. Morrison builds the tension well in this scene, starting with Eva telling the Deweys to "Scat!", a command at which they "stumble and fall" out of the room. Eva then responds, but only after making sure she understood the question correctly as many Black mothers will: "No, I don't think I did. Not in the way you think." (67). The fact that Eva begins her explanation in this way demonstrates her surprise and apparent contempt for Hannah asking her such a question. The way Eva continues her response implies that she feels this question is "a slap in the face" and her putrid words and brief nature when responding are symbolic of her intention to "slap Hannah right now." After giving Hannah a hard time about how evil and ill-intentioned that question was, Eva gives her a history lesson about how difficult and unforgiving life was in 1895 by saying, "...1895 was a killer, girl. Things were bad. Niggas we were dying like flies, walking with our heads held high, weren't we?" (68). This last question posed by Eva is meant to let Hannah know how out of place she is for even bringing up the issue of love. Eva then continues, offering the rhetorical statement “…Pearl was shitting worms and I was supposed to play rosie?…There was no time. day done here, one night, with all of you coughing and me watching so that tuberculosis doesn't take you away..." (69). This long-winded response shows how empathetic Eva is and has been to her children even when they were apathetic towards her, thus implying that her children have no real idea of ​​what it means to struggle. After hearing her mother's obvious disgust, Hannah decides to specify her question to include Plum's death at her mother's hands, asking, "But what about Plum? What did you kill Plum for, Mom?" (70). The suspense of this scene builds in the clever way Morrison narrates and takes the focus away from Eva and Hannah to what is happening around them, signifying Eva's thought process that she no longer wants to participate in this conversation. After a long time, Eva replies: "He gave me a moment like that. A moment like that. It seems like he didn't even want to be born. But it turned out. Boys are hard to bear..." (71 ). He then goes on to tell how, after Plum became a drug addict, he returned to the.