Seeking Home In The "Unhomely"

As the first African-American woman writer winning the Nobel Prize for Literature with her fifth novel(1987),Toni Morrison(1931--)is the "beloved" of literary critics at the same time.Up to now,Morrison has published eleven novels.This thesis chooses three representative works of Morrison's early,middle and later writing career as the research objects,namely,The Bluest Eye(1970),Paradise(1998)and Home(2012).Taking "home" as the theme,the thesis is going to probe into the survival situations of the Afro-Americans in Morrison's works,from the positive changes of her different writing stages to interpret Morrison's "home".Above all,Morrison sincerely wishes that the Afro-Americans can integrate into the American society and build their ideal home.This thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter One is Introduction,including a brief introduction to Toni Morrison and her literary works,the literature review about her and the three works,the theoretical framework,as well as the research purpose and significance of this thesis.Chapter Two analyzes the dysfunctional home in The Bluest Eye.Morrison shows the disillusion of the marginalized black girl Pecola's ideal home,which is caused by her love-absent family,indifferent black community,and the self-hatred of the black people that is bred by the white cultural hegemony.Chapter Three concentrates on the pursuit of home and the attempts of constructing home by Ruby and the Convent women in Paradise.Two contrasting communities are established by the traumatized eight-rocks and the five homeless women respectively.Although Paradise begins with the violent conflict between Ruby and the Convent,the ending shows the hope of constructing America as a real paradise without gender and racial restrictions.Chapter Four explores the process of Frank and Cee's successful home-making in Home.After the long journey to the South,Frank and Cee Money eventually come back to the embrace of Lotus.They overcome their personal and collective trauma and build their spiritual home after being healed by their black community.Actually,the safe home with the sense of belonging is also the ideal home that Morrison wants to construct for all Afro-Americans.Chapter Five is Conclusion."Home" has always been one of the important themes of Morrison's works.And "home" is a concept with expanding meanings:on the one hand,it can refer to various physical or geographical home forms,including the individual's body and family,as well as a community or a country as home;on the other hand,it can also refer to the spiritual home,which possesses some emotional characteristics such as the sense of belonging and security for its dwellers.Meanwhile,home is a dynamic objective that can be achieved over time and via the activities of home-making.Through the study and analysis of Morrison's three novels,we can draw a conclusion that though her characters' home-making is fraught with hardships,home is no longer an unreachable goal for the Afro-Americans.In order to reach the goal,the Afro-Americans should strengthen their home consciousness and construct the wholesome black community,furthermore,the American society has to create an open and welcoming milieu to the Afro-Americans.