On Song Of Solomon's Postmodernist Style

Postmodernism is widely discussed and written about in both Chinese and Western literary circle. Many postmodernist writers attempt to add postmodernist elements into their style in order to advocate their literary notions. The Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison is one of them. Her third novel Song of Solomon demonstrates a remarkable postmodernist style which has never been comprehensively studied until now. This thesis is intended to interpret and explore her postmodernist style in terms of genres, narrative and intertextuality.This thesis consists of five parts. Chapter One presents an overview of Toni Morrison's life and literary achievements. Meanwhile, it gives a brief account of the story of Song of Solomon, and the theoretical framework and the layouts of the whole thesis, pointing out that this thesis focuses on three aspects: instability of genres, narrative ambiguity and intertextuality. Chapter Two deals with the instable genres of Song of Solomon, concluding that the instability of genres makes Song of Solomon belong to postmodernist texts. Chapter Three focuses on the narrative postmodernity by exploring narrative ambiguity of Song of Solomon from two aspects: narrator's ambiguity and the shifts of reader's role. In postmodernist texts, the omniscient narrator is no longer reliable and this unreliable narrator directly leads to the deconstruction of traditional readers'role. Chapter Four discusses the expression of intertextuality in this novel in terms of archetype, quotation and parody, from which the textual postmodernity is comprehensively studied. The conclusion is a summary of the thesis restating the main arguments and concluding that though Toni Morrison denies her identity as a postmodernist writer, her novel Song of Solomon embodies a distinct postmodernist style. To conclude, Song of Solomon is a typical postmodernist novel perfectly combining the postmodernist style and African-American literary traditions.