Bystanders' Search For Self And Salvation

Toni Morrison is one of the most famous contemporary writers in America. Toni Morrison's first novel The Bluest Eyes laid a fixed tone for Toni Morrison's subsequent works and made her occupy an important position in American black literature tradition as a keen-edged thinker and the mouthpiece of blacks. In all of Toni Morrison's works, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise form a combo which summarizes and sorts out American history as a result of their common ground that they all touch upon violent love and their continuity -- Toni Morrison develops her lyric and epic art in these three works, by which they are regarded as"Trilogy of History"or"Trilogy of Negroes"by the domestic and alien critics."Trilogy of Negroes"is not only the sublimation of Toni Morrison's creating works but also the sublimation of Toni Morrison's thoughts and art.The descriptions of the black women's fates in Toni Morrison's"Trilogy of Negroes"seem to be rather gloomy in that the three novels are filled with misery, violence and Exclusionism. However, the ultimate end of all the three works in"Trilogy of Negroes"is the theme of encouraging those black women to pursue self and salvation without exception. This thesis attempts to make use of Sartre's Freedom Ethics as an approach to analyze the black women characters in"Trilogy of Negroes"while surrounding the theme. The writer of this thesis firstly defines those black women as"bystanders"who have suffered from all kinds of misery passively, and then on the basis of their special identity, reveals that it is because of their special identity as"bystanders"that their Being-for-Itself makes different free choices with the changes of situation during the process of becoming bystanders, the instant result of which is that their free choice changes situation, and then new situation leads to new free choices of Being-for-Itself. Step by Step Being-for-Itself of those bystanders is influenced by situation and finally makes positive and rational free choice—to save themselves and others.In Toni Morrison's descriptions, the weak minority in"Trilogy of Negroes"is none other than those who saved themselves and others. Taking this point as a foundation, the writer of this thesis points out further that the ultimate free choice of those bystanders has achieved the unity of freedom and responsibility, since they not only realize their own merits but also take high responsibility for society. In the end the writer of this thesis concludes that Toni Morrison's"Trilogy of Negroes"does not only find a way for black women's changing fate, but also for human being's—To be a man with merit, you have to be brave not only to change your own fate, but also to take responsibility for others and society.