An Epic Of Black Women

Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel Prize winner for literature, speaks out for the black women in the literary world with her passion, talent and eloquent works. As a black woman author, Morrison's fiction usually involves the experience of black women who must confront the tensions of both racism and sexism. And Morrison always frames the souls of these black women into new words and songs in her fiction with her daring honesty and uncompromising outspokenness.For a very long time, in literature and life, heroism has been a male phenomenon. In traditional quest tales, the male hero frequently fulfills his desire for adventure and achieves adulthood through physical combat. Nonetheless, the best literature often challenges the traditional assumptions. Toni Morrison's Sula presents a heroic tale of two female heroes in the face of limitation and powerlessness, of self-knowledge wrested from loss and suffering, of social amelioration eked out of hatred and fear. In this novel, whereas the questing heroes are courageous, independent and adventurous like the male counterparts, the ability to survive in the face of a hostile world, to confront life-denying forces and to accept one's fate hi full self-knowledge constitutes the real nobility of the two heroes. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the lives of two questing female heroes, Sula and Nel, on their way to self-fulfillment and self-actualization, to trace the heroism of the two. Meanwhile, the thesis points out that the truest heroism lies not hi external battle,as in the wars which destroy the novel's men, but in confrontation with the self. In fact, Morrison herself is a typical representative of the success of blacks' quest for self and identities. The protagonists' experience and Morrison's achievements prove undoubtedly a fact that heroism should encompass the lives of black women.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One, "Introduction", briefly presents Morrison's important position in American literature today, takes a critic view of Sula, and points out some deficiency in its study. On the basis, the aim of this thesis is stated.Chapter Two, "The Call to the Quest", highlights the awakening of self-consciousness of the female heroes, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, who are caught up by actual conflict among nations; legal, economic, and social war against black people by the society in which they live; and hostility toward black women. Thus, in early childhood they discover that "they [are] neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph [is] forbidden to them, they [have] set about creating something else to be." Although the two girls share dreams of adventure and unfolding selfhood, their approaches to the task of maturation are diametrically opposite. Nel merges with community; Sula becomes its center. However, both sing a bittersweet song of self-identity, respectively.Chapter Three, "The Journey", makes an analysis of two opposite approaches to the epic tasks of self-discovery and integration into society. On the one hand, with confidence and determination, Nel leaves her parental captors, to begin defining and discovering herself and the world on her own. However, because of the power of authority and orthodoxy influencing her during her younger years, she proceeds docilely from daughterhood to wife-and-motherhood before realizing that she is entrapped, confined again, and in need of fresher air in which to grow. Nel becomes a victim of patriarchal society, who would do well merely to endure. Jude's desertion involves Nel into the uncertainty and danger of life itself. Nel is courageous, independent enough to confront life-denying forces. Her treasure is unlimited possibility and the change from innocence into experience, from ignorance to knowledge. On the other hand, on Nel's wedding day, Sula leaves town, returning ten years later. She becomes a rebel, a mocker, and a wanton sexual seductress. In fact, Sula's real "crime" is her complete disregard of her womanly responsibilities, as defined by her community. Con...