A Study Of Community In Toni Morrison’s Fiction

Community is an important theme in Toni Morrison’s works.Morrison’s community writing expresses realistic concern for marginalized communities such as blacks,but also carries a sense of home and universal values,continuing the tradition of African American literature.This dissertation draws on multiple historical,social,cultural,and political perspectives to synthesize Morrison’s all-encompassing representation of community in her five novels,A Mercy,Beloved,Jazz,God Help the Child and Love,and to reveal her critique and reflection on race in America.There are three chapters in the main part of the dissertation,which systematize and analyze the community and its writing in Morrison’s works from three aspects,namely,community syndrome,community construction,and community idea.A Mercy and Beloved expose the community syndrome in America.A Mercy shows the lack of subjectivity of marginalized communities before slavery took shape.The social and cultural environment of colonial America was not conducive to the construction of subjectivity,which triggered the inherent loss of subjectivity of marginalized communities,resulting in self-enslaving and disassociation.Beloved exposes the autoimmunity of different levels of community in America under the shadow of slavery.The conflicting interests of slavery made the national community more destructive than constructive,eliminating the possibility of the United States becoming a community of “E pluribus unum”.The black community,the nuclear family,and individuals betrayed,isolated,and devoured each other out of common resistance and self-protection against slavery.Jazz and God Help the Child represent the construction of black community at different times.In Jazz,which is set in Harlem during the height of racism,Morrison uses the form and theme of jazz to create a sense of black community and to enrich its spiritual content.In her view,black people who migrated to the city need to both inherit tradition and embrace change,coalescing a communal spirit of integration between the North and the South.God Help the Child shows the communal ethical restoration of contemporary black people.Morrison uses“body degradation” as a passage for the characters to return to the community,conveying the ethical idea of “returning to the state of baby”,reminding people to trace the roots of the racial problems in America,to dig the truth of color politics,to find the lost self in the return,and to rebuild the connection with others and the world.Love focuses on “love” as the bond of community,concentrating on Morrison’s idea of community construction.Black people have to face the remnants of slavery and racial hostility,as well as inter-generational conflicts,sexism and class differences within the community,which make it difficult to maintain the community.In this context,the “love” that black youth inherit from community is a way to bridge the generation gap and revitalize the community.Black women’s transcendental love is a spiritual home for women to counteract sexism.Ancestral figures symbolize the “love” of unity to form a force that transcends race and class.Morrison’s bond of love echoes Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beloved Community” from more than half a century ago,emphasizing the idea of harmonious integration of different races.This dissertation systematically compares and analyzes Toni Morrison’s writings on the symptoms of community,the construction of community,and the idea of community.Morrison accurately grasps the pulse of the times,points the finger at the root of slavery for the plight of black people’s survival,critiques the racial division of American society and reflects deeply on the internal problems of the black community,and presents her imagination and construction of black community in terms of both creative practice and ideological thrust.Morrison’s interpretation and transmission of the idea of community has advanced the tradition of community writing in African American literature and contributed to the deepening of the concept of African American culture.