Return To The African Tradition

In the works of Toni Morrison that helped to establish her international fame, there is a noticeable tendency of her resorting to the typical African culture, mainly African myths, rituals, and legends. Toni Morrison values the African culture with particular clarity in her literary creation in an effort to bear active witness to the black's common heritage and collective unconsciousness in order to feed the hearts of black people. We could see that Morrison as an American contemporary writer distinguishes herself by keeping the African tradition where the African blacks could easily find their origins and roots. Therefore, the study of Morrison could not be complete without the research on her particular sense of the African tradition which is mainly reflected in her strong tendencies of using African myths and African traditional tales.This thesis focuses on African traditional myths, religious myths, rituals and traditional tales. It explores how Morrison makes use of the African culture in her works to ensure the blacks'return to the African tradition. The thesis is divided into seven parts. The first part is the introduction and the last one is the conclusion. The second part interprets African myths, the Spiritual World of the Blacks and the close relationship of myth and tradition, the theory of Archetypal Criticism and Morrison's African mythical background. The third part analyzes the myth of Spirit Child in Sula; the fourth part studies the flying myth and African traditional initiation in Song of Solomon; the fifth part interprets the archetype of Tree in Beloved while the sixth part studies Sula from the aspect of"River Priest/Priestess".This research on Morrison's mythical consciousness provides us with a new approach to understand the works of Toni Morrison. It helps us to enter into the heart of Morrison, to understand her dedicated return to the African tradition. In the world in which the whites still have the dominant control over the blacks, Morrison's deliberate return to the African tradition serves as a quest not only to decenter the white logos, but finally to rebuild the center and to discover the powers which lie hidden in the black logos.