On Response-inviting Features In Toni Morrison’s A Mercy

Toni Morrison has been hailed as the first black woman writer who wins the Nobel Prize for literature in the world literature canon. She makes great contribution to bring the African-American literature from the margins to the central stage. All her novels are truthful depiction of the miserable sufferings and unspeakable past of the black, especial the black women. Her ninth novel A Mercy published in2008attracts great attention of the public. Brief as the novel is, it contains profound thought and in-depth themes that are unprecedented by Morrison’s other novels.Lots of literary critics have made achievements on every aspect of A Mercy, including the poetic language, complex characters, unique narrative strategies as well as profound themes. Among the various criticisms, some critics pay attention to the response-inviting features in A Mercy, but few critics have made an overall research on it. However, there is no critic, at least in China, who has conducted a comprehensive research on response-inviting features in A Mercy in the light of Iser’s response-inviting structure theory. Thus, this thesis attempts to study response-inviting features in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy according to Wolfgang Iser’s response-inviting structure theory.After a brief introduction to Toni Morrion, A Mercy and some important definitions related to Wolfgang Iser’s theory of response-inviting structure, this thesis focuses on the response-inviting features in A Mercy from the following three perspectives:Black English Vernacular, the artistic symbols and the narrative structure. In the first part, the response-inviting features of Black English Vernacular classified in lexical and figurative level, grammatical and syntactic level as well as graphological level are focused. In the second part, the response-inviting features of artistic symbols are interpreted, including the character symbols (Lina, blacksmith and Sorrow) and biblical symbols of nature (water, stag and serpent) as well as place symbol (farm). The Third part detailedly digs the response-inviting features of narrative structure from different perspectives of the non chronological time narration, the multiple points of view and the multiple themes (orphanhood, harmony and love).The conclusion part points out that A Mercy becomes a special literary work for its response-inviting features in that the response-inviting features generate plenty of blanks and negation that call for readers’participation with the purpose of constructing the meaning. These features not only enrich the characters and deepen the themes, but also reveal Morrison’s profound insights toward Slavery system, history, society as well as the will of the people.