Various characters in Sula create order through spacing practices that allow them to control loss. The first personal perspective Morrison narrates, however, is not the perspective of any character but instead an outsider's view of the Bottom. Not really even personal, this perspective belongs to a seemingly generic "valley man."

If a valley man happened to have business up in those
hills—collecting rent or insurance payments—he
might see a dark woman in a flowered dress doing a
bit of cakewalk, a bit of black bottom, a bit of "messing
around" to the lively notes of a mouth organ. . . .
The black people watching her would laugh and rub
their knees, and it would be easy for the valley man
to hear the laughter and not notice the adult pain that
rested somewhere under the eyelids, somewhere under
their head rags and soft felt hats, somewhere in...