An Interpretation Of The Characteristics Of Toni Morrison's Novels

As an excellent spokeswoman for African Americans, Morrison has artfully adopted the African-American traditions in her literary creation to elaborate on the living conditions and complex psychology of African Americans, which vividly display their struggle under the white dominant culture. Since she is a female black writer who has been marginalized in the American literary world, Morrison has worked hard to help African-American literature gain the position it deserves.It is not hard to find that through all Morrison's literary works, using the African-American cultural discourse to narrate and reconstruct the historical and cultural traditions of African Americans has become her eternal theme and one of the characteristics of her novels. Morrison reveals the oppressed black voices by using the real and lively black vernacular to describe the oppressed living and mental conditions of the African Americans.Studies on Morrison's concern about the oppressed black voices are not rare; they even form one of the foci on the research of Morrison. Yet this thesis is different from the former studies which focused on one particular theme in one particular novel by Morrison; it is also different from general studies on Morrison's cultural position. This thesis is intended to study the oppressed voices in Morrison's three typical novels by applying three main theories: postcolonialism, new historicism and feminism for analysis, because these three theories have similar concerns with Morrison over the oppressed voices. Thus this thesis is trying to put Morrison's novels into a comparably broader theoretical background to analyze the characteristics of her novels, and to provide a fairly concentrated exposition of Toni Morrison as well as to offer corresponding theoretical background for reading Morrison's novels.My objective in what follows is twofold: one is Morrison's concern over the voices of the oppressed African Americans, and the other is the method Morrison has applied to express these voices. The former one is the major part of this thesis; it is mainly an analysis of Morrison's novels with the use of postcolonialism, new historicism and feminism. Morrison expresses her pity for the oppressed and perverted aesthetic value of the African Americans in The Bluest Eye, which reflects the conflict between the imperial culture and the colonized culture studied by postcolonialism. In Song of Solomon, Morrison intends to reconstruct the African-American history by rereading the black folklore and historical event from the perspective of the oppressed black people, which is in accordance with what new historicism advocates: making literature a historical and cultural expression. And in Beloved, Morrison depicts a bold and independent female slave with impressive feminist power that mirrors the feminist idea of concerning and celebrating the unique female qualities. As to the second part, the method of expression, two ways of expression are selected here in this thesis: one is the application of magic realistic elements, and the other is the adoption of fragmented writing. Since African Americans have been rejected and oppressed in reality, they often turn to some supernatural forces to relieve their grief; therefore, in their cultural traditions, there are lots of magic realistic elements. What's more, since they have been oppressed for a long time and have suffered a lot, the stories of their experiences must be broken and fragmented. Hence the use of fragmented writing would well express their unspeakable agony.We can at last reach the conclusion that using the African-American cultural discourse to narrate and reconstruct the historical and cultural traditions of African Americans is Morrison's eternal theme, and it is one of the characteristics of her novels to express this theme by concerning the voices of the oppressed. Since her concerns are in accordance with certain principles of postcolonialism, new historicism and feminism, to apply these three theories to explore Morrison's novels would help to further understand the characteristics of Toni Morrison's novels.