| Toni Morrison, the first Afro-American woman having been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, establishes her fame on a global scale. On the whole, most Morrison studies focus on racial politics, black culture, black roots, and black identity. They place Morrison's works into the whole American historical background, examining the cultural conflicts between the black and the white, or Afro-Americans' unique culture in comparison with the white culture. Few researches pay attention to the gender and cultural issues within the black community.The present thesis attempts to study gender, dynamics within the black community presented in Morrison's works in the context of racial and gender discrimination. Although gender dynamics permeates all of Morrison's works, it is most precisely examined by Morrison in Paradise and Sula.Through analysis of these two novels, the thesis reveals that unlike heroes of the white culture who are usually described as intelligent and strong-minded, male characters in Sula and Paradise are usually untrustworthy, superficial, immature, and anonymous. Through male characters such as Shadrack in Sula, Morrison demonstrates that the impotence of black males results from their lack of an integral self, manhood, independence, and economic power as results of white discrimination. Overwhelmed by heavy economic and social burdens, many of them have no control over either their destiny or women, thus fail to perform the traditional male roles as providers and protectors within families and cross-gender relationships. On the contrary, many Afro-American men choose to seek protection from stronger women. Both Ajax in Sula and Ruby's men in Paradise rely heavily on women around them economically and emotionally. Worse still, some even transform the oppression imposed on them by white culture into the violence on the black women. In Paradise, the hostility and massacre toward the Convent by the men of Ruby, clearly reveals this point. The women at the Convent become scapegoats because their acceptance of different new ideas and economic autonomy challeng the necessity of Ruby's rigid system of community. So they choose to destroy them. This is definitely a sign of weakness rather than potency.Having nothing to rely on, black women show great autonomy and play more and more important roles in the Afro-American community. Many of Morrison's female characters display features of masculinity—showing great confidence and willfulness in actualizing themselves despite social discriminations. Sula is one of these typical characters who chooses to seek her individual identity and learns to define herself positively instead of just reacting against others' stereotypes. Because Afro-American women can hardly win any support from the emasculated males, they rely much on sisterhood in fighting against sexual and racial discriminations. Sula and Nel in Sula make a perfect example. Though different in personality, the two complement each other and help each other become complete persons.Besides, Morrison also redefined Afro-American motherhood. Eva in Sula is a typical image of mother in the Morrison's works who takes on omnipotent power to lead the family and the black community. The way Eva is treated by her husband forces her to become aggressive and strong. As a result, she stands at the top of the family rank. For Morrison, elevated from female autonomy as a result of male emasculation, motherhood has become the chief prop for Afro-American sons, husbands, and even the black community.From the above analysis, the thesis concludes that, in the two novels, Morrison reveals wide-spread emasculation of Afro-American males because of white racial discrimination. This leads to two major consequences. On the one hand, Afro-American women turn out to be more independent and strong-minded than males and become supporters for many males; on the other hand, female-centered relationships—sisterhood and motherhood—have become the mainstream in the Afro-American life instead of cross-gender relationships.
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