Oppression, Subversion And Construction:an Analysis Of Spatial Politics In A Mercy

As the first African-American female writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison have attracted extensive attention in commentary circle. In November,2008, though she was a writer who has achieved great success and worldwide fame, Morrison is still active in writing and has published her new novel A Mercy during the period of American presidential election.Since its publication, A Mercy has caught the eyes of critics who have analyzed the novel from perspectives of narratology, ecofeminism, post-colonialism, new historicism and archetypal criticism and so on, which has tremendously heightened readers’ understanding of the novel. Virtually, in addition to perspectives mentioned above, space in Morrison’s novel should also be emphasized. From sweet home in Beloved’to Jacob’s farm in A Mercy, from slave ships to plantation in the days of slavery, characters in Morrison’s novels are always placed in certain space. Space has become the arena where various powers are intertwined. Specific to A Mercy, what power relations have been presented through space and what spatial idea has been conveyed in the novel?Regarding Lefebvre’s Spatial Triad as theoretical foundation, focusing on major characters and their living space and covering three levels of race, class and gender, the thesis intends to explore how the dominant group oppresses the vulnerable group by establishing representation of space fraught with white/non-white, upper/lower and male/female binary opposition and how the latter revolts against oppressions by virtue of space and through rebellious spatial practices to obtain representational space of self.Through meticulous analysis, the thesis has revealed the following idea in terms of spatial politics:space is not only the oppressive tool of dominators but also the media by which the dominated can make resistance to oppression. The dominators restrain the representational space and constrain spatial practices of the dominated ones by dint of representation of space while the dominated can also subvert the representation of space of the dominators and establish self representational space through rebellious spatial practices.