From Barrenness To Fertility

As an African-American woman writer, Toni Morrison always writes to and forthe blacks. She keeps her eyes on the situation of black people: their sufferings, theirhelplessness, and their bewilderment. In her works, Morrison depicts blacks as thevictims of slavery and mainstream assimilation. With an active participation in and anastute observation of the lives of the African-Americans, Morrison depicts theirpsychological and spiritual trauma inflicted by slavery and is always concerned withthe survival of her people.Morrison's representative, Song of Solomon, which receives both the NationalBook Critic Circle Award and the Friends of American Writers Award, is claimed tobe the best novel by African-American writers after Wright's Native Son (1940) andEllison's Invisible Man (1952), and establishes her as a major American writer. In thenovel Song of Solomon, Morrison analyzes the black people's inner life, that is, thespiritual ecology and explores the African-Americans' inner plight actively.The thesis analyzes the blacks' state of living which is destroyed in Americansociety and deals with how the blacks balance their spiritual ecology in order tosurvive. The main body consists of three chapters.Chapter One deals with the spiritual ecological crisis that the African-Americansare encountered with. There are different kinds of blacks in the American society.Represented by Macon Dead and his son, Milkman, some middle class blacks that aresaturated with mainstream culture throw black heritage away in their upward mobility.Consequently, they are uprooted from their black soil and haunted by anoverwhelming sense of insecurity and alienation. In the black community, there is aspecial group, that is, the black women. Because of the historical reasons, the blackwomen's situation is very complex and special. They not only shoulder the externalpressure of racial discrimination but also bear the internal humiliation of class andsexual oppression. All these are depriving them of their spiritual freedom and aredevastating their complete selves.Chapter Two focuses on the practitioners of black culture. They insist onreturning to the traditional black life thoroughly and fight against the white culture intheir own ways. During Milkman's quest for roots, Pilate, Milkman's aunt, plays therole of an initiator and guide. She is depicted as the archetype of Africanism. Pilate'sunconscious Africanism is demonstrated through her identity with nature, the aura ofmagic, and a sense of deep wisdom. She is deeply rooted in black tradition and is anatural embodiment of black tradition and incarnation of ancient wisdom. Pilate'stragedy is that although she truly cares about people but not materials, she isprevented from knowing people because she is isolated from the black community.Pilate does not hold the entire truth that one cannot fulfill one's self through the past.Some blacks, such as Guitar and the Seven Days, cling too tightly to the past toextricate themselves from hatred to the whites and to face the future. Addicted toself-pity and morbid lust for revenge, these blacks fall into a vicious cycle. Theyisolate themselves from the white society and the mainstream culture and fight againstthem by resorting to violence. This leads to the oppression of the white society. Andthen the blacks will fight more extremely. Other than sticking to tradition as they havehoped, they are sailing further and further away from it. They begin to follow whites'extreme nationalism.Chapter Three deals with Morrison's approaches to restore the balance ofspiritual ecology. African-American people should recover their own traditionalculture. Only by strengthening the black nationalism and developing the nationalculture, can they survive in the American society. In this course, however, violenceand extreme nationalism should be avoided. And also the past itself need to berediscovered and reintegrated into the present. The blacks in the urban North whowant to create true identities must come to term with their own or their ancestors'rural Southern pasts by somehow fusing past and present. During the journey to theSouth, Milkman gains his racial and cultural identity, which leads ultimately to hisawakening humanity. This section also analyzes the black women's development. Theblack women have been the "quietest community" in these centuries. In order to havean equal and complete self in this world, the black women must go out of the hugeshadow cast by the history and break all kinds of yokes. They should realize theirfemale identities, make their character independent and realize their own values. Bydoing these, they can be independent and maintain their dignity as black females.The originality of this thesis lies in a bold attempt to research and resolve theproblem of African-Americans' inner life dilemma, that is the spiritual ecologicalcrisis, from the perspective of spiritual ecology. Through the analysis within the threechapters, we can safely conclude that in order to survive in the American society, theAfrican-Americans should recover the traditional black culture, search for black pastand adapt it to the development of times, avoid the extreme nationalism and sexualdiscrimination. Then they can balance their spiritual ecology and develop the blackrace.