Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', Alice Walker's 'The Temple of My Familiar', and postmodern feminism

This study investigates the intersection of postmodernism and contemporary American feminism in two novels--Toni Morrison's Beloved and Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar. It argues that Morrison and Walker reexamine the African-American and the Euro-American literary conventions by abandoning the cohesive linear plot and decentering narrative voice. The study analyzes the various literary meanings ascribed to the term "postmodernism" and their applications to the novels under investigation. It presents relevant points of contact between postmodernist and contemporary feminist critical theories in order to delineate a framework for the discussion. The postmodern feminist framework outlined is then used to examine the early novels of Morrison and Walker and culminates in an analysis of Morrison's Beloved and Walker's The Temple of My Familiar. The study concludes with a discussion of ways in which Morrison and Walker's experimentation with postmodern feminist assumptions about formal methods and cultural diversity has led to the revision and expansion of both Euro-American and African-American literary traditions and canon formation in the last two decades.