The Strength Of Memory

Compared with multitudinous studies of Toni Morrison's works abroad, our interpretation about her works has just started out. Therefore, the interpretation space is wide in China.Mainly from the perspective of "collective memory" from French sociologist Halbwachs, the paper examines the issue of "memory" thoroughly in her works, making it clear that it is the loss of collective memory that plunged them into deep misery and probing into the possibility of reconstructing their cultural memory.There are five parts altogether.Introduction: After reviewing the Africa-American tradition of literature, this part addresses a brief introduction about Toni Morrison, her works and the comments upon her as well as her novels.Part One: Beginning with special features of a character in her novel, this part tries to explore the cause of this phenomenon and reach the conclusion that it is the white's religions and cultural invasion that deprived the Negro of their history memory.Part Two: With the approach of "collective memory and collective unconsciousness" theory, three kinds of memory can be found in the novels, that is, individual memory, history memory and collective unconsciousness memory, all of which were rewritten or deprived of contributing to their endless suffer for hundreds of years.Part Three: Though trapped in the awkward predicament, the Negro never stop exploring the road to reconstruct their own cultural memory. The main concern of this part is the possibility of reconstruction in traditional culture, religion and community.Conclusion: With striking skills, Toni Morrison described the Negroid lives from all walks of life in different times, managing the power of memory permeating in every word of her works.