Black Community Creation

This dissertation aims to study the relationship between Toni Morrison's community creation and contemporary American discourses on her race. And the impetus of doing so derives from my knowledge on the connection between her early literary choice and the then dominant ideas on black Americans, and my dissatisfaction with the present research on her racial group creation.Toni Morrison, famous contemporary African American woman writer, is known for writing about her ethnic group, a concern on intraracidl rather than interracial relationship which did not appear until the 1960s when a group of Afro-American women writers emerged. Then why does she choose to begin her literary concern with intraracial relationship studies, a by no means mainstream matter? Tracing Morrison's writing trajectory, we find that her choice was a deliberate one and closely related to some contemporary views on her ethnicity in American society.In the 1960s, the era during which Morrison began her literary career, the Black Power movement vehemently demanded the independence of American blacks. Its political propositions and aesthetic prescriptions greatly affected every African American writer, Morrison included. In fact, it can be said that it is out of her dissatisfaction with these propositions and prescriptions that Morrison steps onto the path of depicting her racial group. In addition, social discourses lying behind the literary representation of her race has a great influence on her. She can be said to feel obliged to portray the life of her racial group in front of the insufficient depiction of African Americans in American literature, both white and black, and malicious views beneath it. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, language is always half someone else's; and the novel always parodies reified literary and social discourses, and appropriates the popular folk materials. As a writer who decides to write about her group under the influence of her contemporary discourses, Morrison is most likely to parody these discourses in her writing. Then how does she appropriate them in her creation? What is her purpose of doing so? Surveying present criticism on Morrison's community creation, we find that the questions we raise are not answered. First, among contemporary American discourses on black community, only Black Aesthetic discourse has been discussed in juxtaposition with Morrison's writings. Second, the Black Aesthetic stipulations discussed are not the prescriptions that we think affect Morrison's literary choice. While the present research studies the three central oppositions that structure Black Nationalist discourse, we are concerned with Black Aesthetic stipulations on the community and black women. Therefore we think that the connection between Morrison's community creation and contemporary American discourses on African Americans still beckons our exploration. On one hand, it can help us understand the close ties between Morrison's racial group creation and its historical background. On the other hand, it can help us recognize her thinking and struggle beneath her portrayal of her racial group and the political import it bears. Moreover, the case study of Morrison's community creation is also useful to our comprehension of the drastic change occurring to African American literature in the 1960s and to our study of other black American women writers. The dissertation is composed of three parts:The first part is the introductory part, which discusses the origin of the dissertation, present study on Morrison's community creation and outline of the dissertation. To facilitate our study, we divide the discourses which influence Morrison's literary choice into four categories based on the research we make on the originality of Morrison's writing in this part:white views on the properties of the black community, black discourses on the properties of their community, Black Aesthetic prescriptions on how to achieve the thematic and formal unity of community in artistic creation. Our intention is to study the relationship between Morrison's community creation and contemporary American discourses on African Americans from these four aspects.The second part is the main body of the dissertation, encompassing four chapters. Chapter One studies the relationship between Morrison's community creation and white views on the properties of the African American group. From the study on how Morrison began her literary career in the introductory part, we can see that white society holds that the African American group is white-related, homogeneous and culturally-barren. Comparing these ideas with Morrison's novels, we find that Morrison appropriates them in her writing. While she agrees that the African American group is white-related, she opposes that it is heterogeneous and culturally-distinct.Chapter Two discusses Morrison's racial group creation as related to black discourses on the properties of their race. From the study on what initially drove Morrison to step onto the path of literary creation in the introduction, we can see that black nationalists maintain that their community is nurturing, but women of their race are aggressive; and black writers think that ancestors are the guarantee of individual happiness and success. Studying Morrison's community in relation to these opinions, we discover that she manipulates them in her books. While she seconds the ideas on the nurturance of black community and the importance of ancestors, she objects to the view on black women. Women of her racial group are often celebrated as hard-working community builders rather than aggressive matriarchs in her writing.Chapter Three explores the relationship between Morrison's community creation and Black Aesthetic prescription on how to achieve the unity of community thematically in black artistic creation. The research on how Morrison started writing in the introduction indicates that Black Aesthetics demand that African American literature address and affirm a unified community, arguing the harmony between the individual and his group should be given more representation. Comparing this requirement with Morrison's novels, we find that the writer appropriates it in her writing. She is more interested in conflicts than harmony between the individual and his group though she shows reverence for the communal emphasis of Black Aesthetics. Conflicts between the individual and his community are highly visible in her novels, which can be roughly divided into four categories:community victimizing individual, individual despising community, individual contradicting with community and individual jeopardizing community.Chapter Four studies the relationship between the reader's role in Morrison's community creation and Black Aesthetic stipulation on how to achieve the community unity formally in black artistic creation. From the study on how Morrison began her literary career in the introduction, we can see that Black Aesthetics also require black art to represent the unity of community formally. African American artists are expected to encourage the audience participation so that they can eulogize their race together. Comparing this prescription with Morrison's novels, we find that she manipulates it in her creation. Though her works appear to abide by this requirement by involving the reader into the construction of her text with her community's comment on the character's action as it goes on, they actually subvert it for the reader often finds himself critiquing rather than celebrating the African American community. Community comments on the character's action usually force the reader to contemplate on the deficiencies and problems of black community rather than its virtues.The third part is the concluding part. Encapsulating the points of the preceding four chapters, it asserts that black community creation is not only one aspect of Morrison's creation in which she expresses her opinions on African American culture, history and life, but also a power space in which she shows her confrontation with unfair and false discourses on African Americans in her time. By revising these ideas, Morrison shows the determination of an African American woman writer to depict her race as it is. Thirty-year's criticism and reception of her novels make clear that her efforts are not wasted. Her understanding and depiction of the African American group rather than that of the white and black male are widely accepted. African American group is no longer regarded to be homogeneous, pathetic and culturally barren. Rather it is thought to be diversified and culturally-exuberant as other ethnicities in the world. African American people, though still suffering from various oppressions, are intelligent and resourceful enough to solve their problems and win their freedom. Insisting on delineating her race in her thirty-year's literary career, Morrison not only wins the world-wide recognition and respect for her people, but also asserts her own power discourse. She claims that literature should be political and beautiful at the same time. And she did it.