Toni Morrison's Paradise: A Text Of Querying Pure Blackness

Toni Morrison is the first black female writer winning the Nobel Prize for literature. The rich edifying black culture Morrison has achieved in her childhood and the American education in her later life have exerted profound influence on her literary creation. Therefore, by creating all kinds of black images living under the attack of the mainstream culture, she continuously explores the fate and the outlet of the black under the racial oppression.Paradise is Morrison's first novel after her receiving the Nobel Prize. In this novel, by clearly demonstrating the unremitting efforts made by Afro-Americans in escaping from discrimination and oppression of white racism and establishing their pure black paradise, Morrison aims at elaborating that it is harmful to establish a pure black utopia by the way of isolation, separation and rejection. Integration among all the races is the inevitable trend of historical development. The thesis tries to interpret the theme of Paradise from the perspective of diasporic theory.This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter one mainly probes into the Janus-faced characteristics of the Black Nationalism in Ruby. On the one hand, pure blackness in Ruby is one form of Black Nationalism. It is the product of the black people's struggle against white racism; on the other hand, it inevitably brings about many unexpected and negative impacts on the people of Ruby. The Janus-faced characteristics indicate Morrison's skepticism on pure blackness. Chapter Two focuses on elaborating in details the queries about and challenges to the pure blackness that the Ruby people seek. This falls into the following three aspects: first, the original meaning of the oven which symbolizes the pure blood rule is questioned; secondly, pure blackness in Ruby faces challenges of intermarriage; and thirdly, there appears disunity within the power of pure blackness in Ruby. All these indicate Morrison's challenge to the legitimacy of pure blackness in Ruby. Chapter Three discusses the problems in Ruby and explores the alternative outlet for the pure black town by making a comparison between the Convert and Ruby. Through the above analysis, the author of the thesis draws the conclusion that any form of racism will do harm to human beings. Only by eliminating misunderstanding, opposing purity and sameness, and overcoming the barrier among races, classes and genders, can a cooperative and harmonious paradise be built. Thus, Morrison's Paradise is a text of querying pure blackness.