On Frank’s Self-Construction In Toni Morrison’s Home

Toni Morrison(1931-), known as one of the most widely read writers in our time, is a distinguished female African-American novelist in the late 20 th century and the first African-American Nobel Laureate for literature. Her works, mostly focusing on the experience of black Americans, particularly black women’s experience in an unjust society and their search for cultural identity, are not only bestsellers, but also on the reading lists of most college English courses.Morrison uses fantasy and mythic elements along with realistic depiction of racial, gender and class conflicts, and “in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality” and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. To Morrison, it is her deep rootedness in black culture and her ability to present what is vital to her people that contribute to her success as a writer. Therefore, the aims of Morrison’s writing are not merely to demonstrate historical facts, the physical and spiritual sufferring of her people, but also to provide some guidance and inspiration for young blacks to live their life beyond their ancestors with fewer sufferings and less confusion but more fulfilment and eudaemonia.Home is Morrison’s tenth novel. With third-person omniscient point view and first-person point of view being adopted alternatively every other chapter, it tells a story about the experience of a brother and sister’s escaping from home and returning to home, and especially the brother Frank’s experience sets a typical example of a black young man’s self-searching process. Since its publication on May, 2012, Home receives warm discussion and criticism both at home and abroad. Criticism mainly focuses on black people’s living space, the relation between history and texts, and some other perspectives. Few has interpreted the text from the perspective of Lacan’s Mirror Stage theory, and made a detailed study on the protagonist Frank’s self-construction.The thesis tries to make a research on the whole process and typical pattern of the protagonist Frank’s self-construction in light of Lacan’s Mirror Stage theory. To be more specific, the thesis will apply a system of core concepts of the Mirror Stage theory thus to provide a rather new perspective to appreciate the novel. Through a detailed research on the process of Frank’s self-construction by analyzing the different phases he goes through and the changes his inner heart undergoes, the thesis is to dig the values of the novel, as well as to draw some more refreshing attention to Morrison’s ceaseless love and care for her people, especially young people’s spiritual well-being.To achieve the above goals, except Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis is composed of three chapters. Chapter One traces Frank’s childhood. Due to the two main external factors, which are the discrimination from society and the absence of parents in the family in the childhood phase of his growth, Frank does not go through the pre-mirror and mirror stage as children normally do, therefore, though his physiological age grows, his self remains fragmented for quite a long time.Following his life course, Chapter Two looks into the journey of Frank’s self-searching. It begins with his escaping from home, which is driven by the desire and anticipation to be a whole self. However, the war turns out to be a disillusion just like the whole image of self anticipated being a misrecognition. Then after the war Frank suffers a period of alienation which in a Lacanian view, functions as a period of introspection, preparing for further identifying with the other. With the decision to rescue his sister as the turning point, Frank begins to interact with people. With kindness from strangers on the way, who serve as the “mirror” through which he gradually achieves his selfhood, Frank finally reunites with his sister Cee.Chapter Three investigates the construction of self. After returning to the original home with Cee, Frank confronts with the past with courage and hope, with the addition of benefiting from and identifying with the long and rich black culture and the virtues that black people carry from generation to generation, Frank successfully achieves his integrated self.