Cultural Return And Identification

The United States has always been a place of racial diversity, and the well-known "melting-pot" metaphor is an evidence of such diversity and assimilation. However, the process of assimilation is not an equitable one. It is more a process of minorities forsaking their traditions and their identity than a process of the dominant American culture absorbing the elements of minor cultures. As to the Afro-Americans, due to their particular history and experiences, such inequality is the most evident one. However, despite the sufferings from slavery and the oppression of the dominant culture, some of the African cultural traditions did survive in Afro-American society. The role of Black men and women in shaping and being shaped by the American experience has long been reflected in American literature. On account of the social status of Black people, most Black writers were victimized by the racism of American society and silenced by unreceptive publishers and the lack of a reading public. Therefore, for centuries, only the white man's interpretation of Black people's experience received critical and popular attention. Yet in the 1960s and 1970s, the Civil Right Movement and the resurgence of the feminist movement gave the Blacks, especially Black women, a possibility of reflecting their American experiences in the words of themselves. These writers, both male and female, shared a common concern about the connection between Afro-Americans and their African origin and the cultural heritage inherited from it. It is a most essential element in shaping their identities in the New World. Toni Morrison and Alice Walker are the two most outstanding representatives.This thesis intends to explore the cultural bonds between the African and the Afro-American as illustrated in Toni Monison's Song of Solomon and Alice Walker's The Color Purple. In this thesis, besides the examination of the influence of African customs and values on modern Afro-American culture, the writer also lays emphasis upon how these African cultural traditions have affected the contemporary Afro-American writers like Morrison and Walker as exemplified in their works.The thesis consists of five parts: following the introduction come three chapters and the conclusion.The first chapter of this thesis focuses itself on the question whether the cultural tie between African and Afro-American really exists. In order to figure out the question, this part starts from the analysis of the dilemma of Afro-Americans to point out the importance of developing their own group consciousness so as to realize a true integration into the American society. Also in this part, the most notable scholar, editor, and African American activist, Du Bois and his notion about Black culture and Black consciousness is explored to shed some positive light on the question. This part concludes with the assertion that in spite of the so-called primitiveness and backwardness of African people, they do have rich cultural traditions and also in spite of the hardship and suffering of the Afro-Americans, there do survive some of the African cultural elements in Afro-American society. Some of the prominent heritage from African cultural traditions are listed and introduced in the following parts of this chapter. The African cultural traditions discussed in this chapter are not only the most representative ones, but also the ones that would be discussed in the following chapters when the two works are under examination to exemplify the cultural ties. These traditions include: the African oral tradition, woman's role in the process of cultural transmission, the African Blues tradition, and African legends and supernatural power.Chapter two concentrates on the African cultural elements that Morrison makes use of in Song of Solomon. Through Milkman's search for recovering his roots and history under the instruction of his aunt Pilate, Morrison adopts African values and heritage as a response to the identity-forsaking assimilation and the violent racial segregation. Furthermore, through her use of storytelling as the major mode of communication in the novel, she asserts the role of Black women as those who have maintained the traditions in spite of the imposition of the dominant culture. Besides, two distinct African oral traditions are analyzed in detail in this chapter: call-response and signifying. Finally, by putting some images of supernatural power into this novel, Morrison further indicates her indebtedness to African traditions.Chapter three concentrates on Alice Walker's employment of African traditions in The Color Purple. The novel depicts the life experiences of the Black woman Celie, from her childhood to the middle age. The chapter also describes how she realizes the rebirth emotionally and spiritually, and how the novel successfully makes use of the epistolary form and symbolism on colors to make the description more vivid and powerful. One of the important themes is the rebuilding of an extended family and the reconstruction of African family organization disrupted by the horrors of slavery---this theme is obviously a heritage of African culture about the importance of extended family. This chapter puts stress on the analyses of the oral way of expression in Celie's letters and of the use of call-response and signifying so as to affirm Walker's commitment of her stance of approving cultural return and identification.Through the analysis, we can safely conclude that Afro-American people inherited the essential elements of African culture and reformed them into their new identity in the New World. Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, as representatives of the contemporary Afro-American writers, give recognition to the great influence of such cultural heritage. Through their writings, they present a new outlook on the key to the Afro-American dilemma, and the key is to realize a cultural return and identification to achieve a real integration into American society.