A Study Of African American Survival Strategies In Song Of Solomon And Home From The Perspective Of Folklore

Toni Morrison is a renowned contemporary African American writer and Nobel Prize winner in literature.Song of Solomon and Home are two of Morrison’s rare novels that go beyond the female perspective to find a “home” for African Americans.The two novels are written 35 years apart,and their juxtaposition facilitates the study of Morrison’s exploration of African American survival strategies and the changes in her thoughts.In other words,at different times Morrison chooses two different survival strategies for African Americans,which are escape and integration.The reason for this is that the relationship between African folklore and Western folklore has undergone a transformation of collision and integration.In order to clarify the process of folklore collision and integration,the thesis applies the three steps of Alan Dundes’ Folklore: Collection,Identification,and Interpretation.First,the thesis collects Western folklore and traditional African folklore used in the two novels,pointing out the specific contexts in which they are used and the different folkloric meanings in different contexts;then,by identifying the sources of folkloric matters,the thesis finds that African Americans are deeply influenced by diverse folklore;finally,the thesis interprets the folkloric matters involved in detail through a close reading of the texts.The process of folklore interpretation shows how African folklore and Western folklore have moved from collision to integration.The thesis uses Dubois’ theory of Double Consciousness to analyze the serious consequences of the invasion and alienation of African folklore by powerful Western folklore in the discussion of the collision of diverse folklore.The inability of African Americans to integrate into mainstream Western society and to escape their alienation from their own ethnicity has led to a serious spiritual and social crisis.In Morrison’s view,African folklore is a place for African Americans to rest their souls,so “flying” back to Africa is a natural choice.But the open ending of Song of Solomon in which Milkman leaps off a cliff may have already revealed that “flying”back to Africa is just a beautiful utopia.Morrison gradually accepted that the survival strategy of fleeing the United States was not realistically feasible.In her late novel Home,Morrison reinvented the concept of “home” in the American South with a positive and optimistic tone that had never been seen before.She has actively contributed to the integration of folklore by rewriting the traditional African myth of Flying African to make it more contemporary,by innovating the Call and Response of traditional African oral literature and combining it with postmodern narrative metafiction,thus giving a contemporary dimension to traditional African literary forms,and by trying to create different types of communities for African Americans and find appropriate survival strategies within the community.The thesis concludes that co-constructing a community in the United States that is based on traditional African folklore but is open,inclusive,and a blend of diverse folklore is a suitable survival strategy for African Americans nowadays.Literature and folklore are both studies of “human beings”.Combining the two can open up the horizons of literary criticism on the one hand,and deepen the understanding of folklore matters in different contexts on the other.The thesis examines the survival strategies of African Americans,in which the idea of creating a community of diverse folklore integration based on one’s own folklore can also serve as a reference for other ethnic minorities in their search for survival strategies.