A Study Of Song Of Solomon By Toni Morrison From An Archetypal Perspective

Song of Solomon is the third novel of Morrison and it is the turning point of herliterary career. It brought the National Book Critics Circle Award to Toni Morrisonand established her important place in contemporary American Literature. As a blackwoman, Morrison writes out of and for the black. Song of Solomon centers on thequest of a young black man, Milkman Dead, who seeks to understand his racial andcultural heritage, and reshape his racial and cultural identity. As mythical andarchetypal elements in the novel have attracted much critical attention, it would shedmore light on the novel while much critical attention has been paid to this novel fromthe aspects of the analysis of signifying, the identity of black people, and the narrativeangels etc. If the archetypal elements are further analyzed, the popularity of thisfamous author and her works must be enlarged.Inspired by archetypal criticism, this thesis focuses on probing into themythological archetypes in it, including its characters and rituals.Structurally, this paper consists of four chapters. Chapter one introduces somebasic information, including the life and works of Morrison as well as the origin anddevelopment of archetypal criticism. Chapter two deals with the exploration ofcharacter archetypes, including female characters and male characters. Chapter threepresents the archetypal exploration of rituals, which is mainly made up of thelife-to-death rituals and death-to-rebirth rituals. Chapter four summarizes the mainpoints of the previous discussions and dwells on the significance of the use of archetypes. The exploration of ritual archetype helps to reflect the need for thecontemporary African-American to embrace black culture and heritage.