A Study Of Female Growth In Toni Morrison’s Works

As a recurrent subject in fiction, Bildungsroman depicts adolescent growth and the hardships they might go through to gain their cultural identity and cultural recognition. Thus, such type of novels focuses on the protagonist’s moral and mental development. Toni Morrison’s novels mainly describe black females’growing experiences and explore their fates against the deep cultural context. By presenting these women’s life journey, the novels vividly show their struggle to search and establish their identities under the main-stream culture. Therefore, it is believed to be inspiring to study the various growing experiences of different female characters in light of Bildungsroman and the theories of feminism as well.By selecting three of Morrison’s representative works, namely The Bluest Eye, Sula, A Mercy, this thesis discusses the awakening and growth of the female characters, demonstrating their advancement in the spiritual world, and changes and pursuits in self-values under the contradiction between the outside force and individual improvement. As her maiden work, The Bluest Eye describes Pecola’s miserable fate, and criticizes black female’s discriminated situation. Being Morrison’s most successful and classical work, Sula introduces a completely distinctive woman who admires freedom and lives a bold life. A Mercy not only demonstrates a female who achieves her successful growth, but also reflects Morrison’s later opinions on feminism.After analyzing and comparing the different growing processes and results of the three female characters, it is safe to conclude that if a black female desires to gain her self-awareness in the twisted social reality, she could not make it unless accepting the guidance from her family, obtaining the care and instruction from her community and having her own resolution and action to strive for herself. The thesis also explores the mutual help and sisterhood between females from interracial backgrounds, and analyzes black females’discourses and their power of writing in the struggle against the. harsh surroundings, which could be seen as the further development of feminism.