Break The Racial "Past" And Go "Outside" Bravely

In 1993, Toni Morrison was awarded Nobel Prize for literature and has become the first African American to be so honored, which marks not only a personal triumph but also the recognition of the artistry of African American fiction in American mainstream. By her unique angle of view, vigorous imagination and poetic language, Morrison creates a series of black characters in her novels and gives vivid descriptions of them. Her works display the true life of blacks from different perspectives and how the blacks survive the conflicts between the black and the white. To seek for self and to grasp a hopeful future are the major motifs of her novels.Paradise, published in 1999 in New York, is her seventh novel and is regarded to be the last one of her trilogy: Beloved, Jazz and Paradise. To read the novel is to be pulled into a passionate, contentious and sometimes violent world and to confront questions as old as human civilization itself. In China, the studies and research are mainly focused on Beloved; while Paradise is to some extent not given so much attention. Since the backgrounds of these three novels are set in every twenty years: Beloved is in the 1920s, Jazz is in the 1940s to 1950s and Paradise is in the 1970s, it is very necessary to study Paradise to see how the black people try to find their own real paradise in a new situation, which is the theme of the novel. At present, after carefully analyzing the studies on Morrison's novels in China, we can get two points: first, the studies are usually focused on the themes of her creation and her writing techniques; second, the studies on the novels are unbalanced, because most of the studies are on Beloved and there are fewer studies on other novels, especially the later three ones.The story happens in the 1970s and in two communities—the Ruby and the Convent. After the Civil War, some freed blacks try to establish their own paradise to live a free and happy life, so the Ruby appears, in which only black people are living. At the same time, the other space, the Covent community appears, in which only women are living. The contradictions and conflicts between the two communities are the major parts of this novel. Finally, the contradictions and conflicts intensify to lead to the scapegoating of the women in the Convent by the men in the Ruby. Therefore, it is very necessary to discuss how the tragic scapegoating is caused. Although some studies from the perspective of archetypal criticisms have mentioned the archetype—scapegoat, they just discuss it lightly without analyzing Paradise as the text deeply. In addition, many of these studies partially divide to analyze the novel in terms of the perspective of the black men and the perspective of the black women separately. Most studies are from the perspective of women because Morrison often uses women as her focus. In fact, she doing this has her own reason. As she says, "I write without gender focus... It happens that what provokes my imagination as a writer has to do with the culture of black people. I regard the whole world as my canvas and I write out of that sensibility of what I find provocative and the sensibility of being a woman... I am valuable as a writer because I am a woman; because women, it seems to me, have some special knowledge about certain things. It comes from the ways in which they view the world, and from women's imagination. Once it is untruly and let loose, it can bring things to the surface that men—trained to be men in a certain way—have difficulty getting access to, although I can think immediately of several exceptions to that." (McKay, 54) Therefore, this dissertation just intends to analyze the outstanding novel by combining the systematic analysis of the archetype—scapegoat with analyzing both the black men and women in terms of two dimensions—time and space to underscore the theme of Paradise. The time refers to the miserable racial "past" of the black people and its effects on their life at present and in the future. The space refers to the two communities in which men and women are the separate centers. This thesis is arranged to analyze the theme of this novel by showing the process how the women in the Convent are scapegoated and how the positive future is resulted. Due to intertwining with the racial "past", the black people in Ruby restrain themselves into the scope of the Ruby without contacting "outside", which results in the internal contradictions; because of the self-restraint, the women in the Convent are sacrificed as scapegoats because they form the external threat to the uniformity and rigidity of the Ruby; but fortunately after the violent attack, the black people finally begin to reflect on themselves and dare to break the racial bound and try to go "outside". "Outside", in this thesis, not only refers to the pure outer world, but also the changing situation, violent movements, liberation, etc. and all of these are dispelled out of the Ruby. This thesis consists of five parts, including three chapters between the introduction and the conclusion.Chapter one expatiates the influence of time on the black people's life, especially the intertwining with their miserable racial "past". In the two different communities, people have different interpretations of the "past"; even in Ruby, men and the women together with the young generation share different opinions, which constitute the internal contradictions, but old-generation men, who are represented by the Morgan twins are still the dominant leaders in the Ruby. This point can be illustrated by two symbolic activities: the Christmas Play and the Oven. The old generation tries to preserve the "past" without any difference; while the young generation and women think that everything is changing, so it is necessary to change their life. It is because of the old-generation men defending tenaciously their "past" that Ruby has always been confining itself into its little space without daring to contact the "outside" and is becoming more and more conservative and bigotry and the contradictions within Ruby become sharper and sharper as the age passes with changing situations. Different from Ruby, the four women, led by Connie in the Convent choose to face the miserable "past" bravely so as to keep moving towards the future, which constitutes the external threat to the Ruby. The Ruby is fossilized and the Convent is changing.Chapter two focuses on the two spaces—the Ruby community and the Convent community. The community is employed as a writing strategy to resist against the American modern city life characterized by its extreme individualism and lack of love and care among people. In the community, black people find the sense of belonging and safety. In this novel this two communities are depicted to be two spaces with distinct religious meanings: "Heaven" and "Eden", which display different value concepts and ideals. Then, this thesis emphatically analyzes the different value concepts and ideals of these two communities. There is a danger which can not be ignored in the community that the community coerces its members into conformity and normative modes of behavior, thereby subsuming any chance of individuality. In the Ruby, led by the Morgan brothers and the so-called "8-rocks", two value concepts are prevalent: the patriarchal ideas and the starting black racism based on the skin color. All of these are in sharp contrast with the generosity and caring among the community members advocated by their dreamed black "paradise". On the contrary, the Convent shows the real meaning of a community; they show the sisterhood between females without the patriarchy; they show the openness without caring the skin color which is most needed by Ruby. They create their "Eden" in which they live a harmonious life with their liberating spirit. Therefore, their "Eden" just becomes the threat to the "Heaven" and the men in the "Heaven" become worried and afraid, which causes them to attack the Convent.Chapter three explores the violent attack on the Convent and the positive outcome because black people begin to dare to go "outside". In the former two chapters, the different value concepts and ideals of the "past" and the community held by the Ruby and the Convent contribute to the internal and external contradictions between them, which further leads to scapegoating the women in the Convent by the men in the Ruby. The conservativeness of the Ruby causes the men to have the narrow consciousness, which contends against the adaptability of the Convent. The violent attack stands for the internalized racism and gender discrimination among black people. However, at the end of this novel, a hope is nurtured. Deacon Morgan's reflection and little Mary's death, the Convent women's integration with their families and the outer world etc. anticipate a new future for the black people. Black men's acceptance of black women and the changing world, which is in sharp contrast with the former isolation and exclusion, is the way for the black people to establish their real paradise in the world.Although the original motive to establish a paradise is good, the black people actually have already been imprinted by racism and self-imagined sense of superiority which is based on the external features of skin color and so on is the embodiment of weakness, because the skin color is only a biological characteristic which has nothing to do with the perfection of internal value: when the paradise which they advocate is not in accordance with external world because of the fossilization of their life, what they seek for is to recover their peace by scarifying the scapegoats and they are convinced that the scapegoats are the women living in the Convent outside their community because they stand for the "outside" they hate and fear. This thesis focuses to discuss the conflicts and contradictions caused by the two forces represented and given by the men in the Ruby and the women in the Convent. Through these conflicts and contradictions, this novel shows its reflections on the traditional, narrow, conservative thoughts of the black people and its exploration of the present situations and future development of the black people. Through the analysis within the three chapters, we can conclude that the author tries to break the binding of racism by displaying an open concept and shows potential crises of using the value standard passed from the "past" to judge everything without concerning present situations and of the threats to the black people themselves by the rising black racism which reflects the internalized racism within the black group. The way for the black to take is not separating, isolating or excluding others, especially the women; on the contrary, their moving direction is to integrate with each other within their community and to go "outside" bravely in order to integrate with it.