Oppression And Opposition

Song of Solomon is Toni Morrison’s third novel that marked the maturity of herwriting. Based on a clue of the black man’s flying which is an ancient legend, this noveltells us a story that Milkman, a black boy from a rich family, goes to the south to seekthe source of the black’s culture. Many scholars have recently studied this novel ontopics such as blues, myth, and so on. But as the author knows there is very little studydone from a stylistic perspective, particularly from a feminist stylistic perspective. Andthis thesis is to analyze this novel from a feminist stylistic perspective.Sara Mills opens up the study of style to feminism in her Feminist Stylistics. In thisbook, she has developed many ways to expose sexism in literature works,advertisements and so on at different levels. After a close reading of Song of Solomon,the author finds that Morrison shows her feminist ideas from two aspects. First,Morrison discloses male’s oppression of the black women through the depiction of atypical male chauvinist and several traditional black women’s poor lives to question thepatriarchy. Second, Morrison praises women’s independence and opposition throughcreating a strong, independent and able black woman. This thesis studies how Morrisonshows her feminist ideas in this novel at the following levels: at the level of vocabulary,at the level of sentence; and at the level of discourse.At the level of vocabulary, this thesis first analyzes the stylistic effects of namingin this novel. This thesis finds that names of the characters in this novel signify theircharacteristics or destiny. For instance, Macon suggests masculine power over women,and Milkman symbolizes men’s exploitation of women. Names like Ruth and Hagarindicate their unfortunate lives which are due to men’s oppression of them. A namePilate signifies a woman’s independence and challenge to the patriarchal society andindicates as well women’s opposition to men’s power. After analysis, the thesis findsthat these names indeed suggest the conflicts between the male and female, and alsowomen’s fighting against the male chauvinism. Then this thesis studies someendearment terms such as honey, darlin, and sugar which are used by a woman Pilate to refer to a man. Pilate’s using of these endearment terms to call a man shows herresistance and anger to men’s oppression of women.At the level of sentence, this thesis mainly analyses TRANSITIVITY choices of anextract which describes Macon and his wife’s love affair. The result shows that materialprocess is dominate and mostly done by the male, Macon, who is always initiative andcontrols everything, while the female, Ruth, is always passive and submissive. Throughthese TRANSITIVITY choices, Morrison discloses Macon’s male domination andRuth’s humble status.At the level of discourse, this thesis analyzes the turn-taking in conversationbetween Macon and Ruth and comes to a conclusion that the male Macon controls theirconversation, he interrupts the female, makes harsh words, and produces much longerturns and much more words than what the female produces, while the female speakscautiously and is always passive and subservient. After analysis of the characters/rolesin this novel, this thesis concludes that Morrison describes quite differently about twokinds of women; one is weak and small, oppressed by men, living a humble life, and theother one is strong, independent and have the strength to challenge men’s authority.After a feminist stylistic analysis, this thesis draws a conclusion that Morrisondiscloses men’s oppression of women in a patriarchal society and also supportswomen’s opposition and independence in Song of Solomon. When we enjoy this novel,we should care more about the living conditions of the black women hidden in the textand try to figure it out how to improve their lives.