Loss And Reconstruction Of African Americans’identity A Postcolonial Reading Of Macon Family In Song Of Solomon

Toni Morrison (1931-) is the representative writer of post-modernism as well asthe first African American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Unlikethe traditional structure of novels about black men, her works reflect the past that bothblack people and white people are reluctant to recall and penetrate into black men sidentity and psychological issue from a more profound and extensive perspective.Song of Solomon, as her third novel, is more mature in content and writing stylescompared with the first two novels. Criticisms about this novel are mainly concernedabout culture, race and feminism while analysis from a wholly post-colonialistperspective still remains rare in the academic field. In this thesis, Fanon spsychological analysis is used to analyze the psychological changes of Macon familyto reveal that efforts in ethnicity, self-identity and cultural identity are indispensablefor the African American people to get rid of “self-colonization” and become freespiritually.This thesis is divided into three parts. In “Introduction”, Toni Morrison s life andwriting career are illustrated as well as the influence of her personal experience on herliterary beliefs. A synopsis of Song of Solomon and the relevant comments on itstheme from home and abroad are also introduced here.The first five chapters are the main body of this thesis. The first chapter dealswith the post-colonialism system with a focus on Fanon s “self-colonization” complex.The black s social situation and their sufferings in Song of Solomon are illustrated toshow its links to Post-colonialism as well as the necessity of “decolonization”. Thesecond chapter mainly analyzes the black s “self-colonization” complex with theexample of the first three generations of Macon family. In the post-colonial period,the colonized still live under and are constrained by the shadow of colonialism in spiteof the psychical emancipation. The last three chapters focus on the efforts black people s decolonization entails in the field of ethnicity, self-identity and culturalidentity. The last two generations of Macon family serve as the proof of thisargument.Through the comparison of different fates of Macon family, the conclusion can bedrawn that the reason of these different fates lies in the fact that the last twogenerations begin to be aware of their ethnic and community roles as well as the oldAfrican cultural traditions. Thus, the black people can reconstruct their identities andget rid of “self-colonization” to attain true “decolonization”.