On The Black Community In Song Of Solomon Under The Perspective Of Spatial Criticism

Toni Morrison(1931-)is the first African American female writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature,who pushes African American study to a new level.Her third novel Song of Solomon represents the final emancipation of the blacks and their reconnections with the African heritage in the black community,which implies Morrison's expectation of the mutual identification between the black people and their communities.Based on the theory of spatial criticism,this thesis seeks to display Morrison's concept of black community through the characters' spatial journey in different black communities.This whole thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One introduces the author Toni Morrison and Song of Solomon,summarizes the research of this novel both at home and abroad,illustrates the spatial criticism and states the thesis statement.Chapter Two,Three and Four are the body parts and each part deals with the interrelations between spatial subjects and the black communities within a specific space.Chapter Two intends to analyze the isolated black community resulted from alienated blacks within the separated physical space.Chapter Three studies the united black community within a communal social space.Unlike the internal isolated black community,Morrison presents a united and harmonious one within this space.However,local people still cannot forget the sufferings caused by the past racial conflicts,which leaves indelible traumas on their minds.Chapter Four explores the utopian black community within an ideal cultural space.This community is not only the origin that offers African cultural traditions and local history,but also the one that helps the protagonist to rebuild his connections with African culture,history and so forth.Chapter Five is concerned with the conclusion and significance of this thesis.Morrison endeavors to explore a black community with no racial prejudice where people share the same status and identify with each other's thoughts.In modern society,community is not only the basis where individuals build the shared culture,memory and history,but also the source for the mankind to survive and keep their cultures alive.