A Study Of Toni Morrison’s Late "Feminist Consciousness" Literature

Toni Morrison is the first African American female author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Despite possessing a strong African American identity, her primary concern was for the welfare of women in general, and many of her literary works convey a strong "feminist consciousness". This paper attempts to explore Morrison’s female consciousness as illustrated in her latter three works. It analyzes the multi-faceted and complex relationship between the sexes and women themselves.The second section focuses on gender issues, concluding that Morrison deliberately reflect on those problems of women themselves, and pointed out that building a harmonious relations between the sexes, women are bound to reconstruct themselves and break the Shackles of thought.The third part concerns the relationship between women, through the analysis of different forms of female war,pointing out that the differences of race, class and individual make women unable to reach an agreement, as a result, "sisterhood"will not come true.The penultimate section concerns the relationship between women and themselves, illustrating the importance of female rhetoric in the construction of a unique feminist identity by analyzing the Florence’s writing-speech and Sad’s monologue-speech.The final chapter attempts to summarize the evolution of Morrison’s post-feminist consciousness, concluding that throughout the author’s works her early cry for a feminist revolt gradually weakened, being replaced by a higher level of self-reflection and inner-strength.