Cultural Conflicts And Space Reconstruction: An Interpretation Of The Space In Jazz

The Afro-American female writer Toni Morrison has drawn a great attention in the realm of American literature since she obtained the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.She is greatly concerned about the actual situation of Afro-Americans in white-dominated American society and creates numerous valuable works to reveal such unbalanced social reality.Jazz which was published in 1992 is Morrison's sixth meaningful composition and also the second work of her trilogy.It indeed depicts the social condition at that time.By portraying a love triangle among the three protagonists——Joe,Violet and Dorcas,the novel vividly unfolds the dilemma and sufferings experienced by Afro-Americans during the process of their migration from south to north.Furthermore it profoundly discloses the damaging impact of the dominant white value to Afro-Americans when they reconstruct their own living and spiritual space in such a new environment.In contemporary literary studies,the theory of space proves to be a new perspective to interpret a literary text,particularly in the academic field of diasporic literature.From this viewpoint,this thesis is going to explore Afro-Americans' disintegrating spiritual condition in Jazz and seek methods to help black people achieve their spatial reconstruction.It is meaningful to study the collapse and reconstruction of the black community and explore the dialectical relationship between social space shift and the Afro-American identity construction in both the literary value and practical reality.Generally speaking,we can conclude that in the intricate and fickle urban life,black Americans are able to achieve their self survival and self development by reconstructing a new spiritual space.This thesis is divided into six parts,including Introduction,literature Review,Theoretical Framework,The Space Conflicts in Jazz,The Space Reconstruction of Spirit in Jazz and Conclusion.