Political Salvation Of Love

Toni Morrison (1931-) is one of the most prominent African American writers inAmerica. Morrison won the Nobel Prize in1993, which makes her the first African-Americanwriter to gain such a high reputation. As an outstanding woman novelist with the doubleidentities of both American and black, Morrison’s latest work Love displays the complicatedlove story of a successful black man and his women in an insightful way with incisive words.Researchers conduct widely research about Morrison and her works both at home andabroad. The researches are mainly from the perspective of feminism, cultural criticism,narrative and ethical criticism study and so on, which aim to find solutions for the blacks. Butthe blacks are still under the control of the whites. The reasons behind this phenomenondeserve our deep thinking, thus it’s worthwhile to do such a kind of research. Therefore, inorder to expose the invisible politics hidden inside the space, the author of this paper intendsto analyze this novel from the perspective of spatial politics theory.This thesis consists of three parts, which are an introduction, four chapters and aconclusion.The opening part mainly gives a brief introduction to Toni Morrison, her working careerand achievements. Following this, the plot of her latest novel Love and the research situationsare introduced. Besides the significance of studying this novel from the perspective of HenryLefebvre’s spatial politics is also mentioned.Chapter One is the theory foundation of this thesis. In the20thcentury,“space” becomesthe dominant way of people’s thinking by taking the place of “time”. Thus, in this “spatialturn” age, the connotation of “space” is far more than physical. Space is shaped by variouselements including historic and natural elements and thus it possesses the color of politics. That is to say, space is political. So the whites’ never-stopped deprival of the blacks ispolitical. In this chapter, the three main conceptions of spatial politics theory: representationsof space, representational space and spatial practices are introduced and at the same time theirrelationships are also explained. The three moments are inter-related and at the same timecounter-act to each other. Representations of space are the conceived spaces, which are in thehand of the ruling class, meanwhile they represent power and discourse. Representationalspaces are the lived space, embodying complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not,linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life, as also to art. Spatial practice isthe perceived, lived material space, which includes their various social practices andbehaviors as well as the results of them. Representations of space determines spatial practicesand representational space and at the same time spatial practices are conducted under thedirection of representational space, yet the spatial practices are not always follow the direction,sometimes the spatial practices pose a challenge to the representational space.Chapter Two focuses on the fight for living spaces between races. The whites and blacksare in a white-black binary relationship for a quite long time. In such a kind of relationship,the whites are the subjects of the representations of space and they try to discipline the blacks’spatial practices to realize their representational space. For most of the time, the blacks arepushed to the margin of physical space but also their psychological space. They are obedientmost of the time but not always. The representative of the blacks is Bill Cosey who tries tochallenge the whites’ representations of space through their spatial practices.Chapter Three extends the focus to the inner part of the blacks to show the male’spower-control over the female. Facing with the whites, the blacks as a whole are theoppressed but within the race the male blacks turn to the oppressor. To some extent, the maleblacks become the subject of the representations of space. Soaked in the atmosphere that maleis superior to female, the female is more severely deprived of their social power space. For them, there are few challenge chances to change their status.Chapter Four explores the women’s psychological space and points out the reason oftheir tragedy. The female are unable to revolt against the male’s rule and control, besides thetraditional patriarchal idea confined them. But the resistance of physical space must find oneor another way to let off. At first, they fought to cater for the male’s preference with each onedeeply hurt. Finally they realized that they should untie rather than fight with each other togain their own space and dependence.The conclusion shows Morrison’s writing purpose and her expectation to her race andgender. Morrison points out that the blacks’ struggle for physical, power and psychologicalspace are just the derivations of whites’ political control. If the blacks want to get rid of thewhites’ representations of space, only fighting for physical space is far from enough. Andeven they succeed in gaining a room of their own, they still cannot change their racial statusradically. Only through the indiscriminate political involvement of society affairs can theblacks be entitled the bestowed physical living space in the white-dominating society. For thefemale, they should at first realize that they are an independent entity instead of the vassal ofmales. Therefore, for them the aim is not to deprive their siblings’ political safety but to findout and conquer those who make them unsafe. Only through discarding meaningless struggleamong the females can they realize their dependence in the true meaning. And thecombination of these two aspects heralds Morrison’s thinking of her race’s way out to a brightfuture.