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"Thick love" vs. "thin love": The maternal role in the African American attainment of individuation in Morrison's "Jazz" and "Beloved"
Title
"Thick love" vs. "thin love": The maternal role in the African American attainment of individuation in Morrison's "Jazz" and "Beloved".
Creator
Waite, Simone Lora., Florida Atlantic University, Furman, Andrew
Abstract/Description
In Jazz and Beloved Morrison explores the difficulties of the acquisition of selfhood for African Americans. In the novels, Morrison examines these difficulties focussing especially on the maternal role. Offering no facile solutions, these narratives do share characteristics common to individuals attaining individuation. A person's relationship with the mother and ability to confront his history, no matter how painful, are integral elements to any presence of self-worth. Although far from...
Show moreIn Jazz and Beloved Morrison explores the difficulties of the acquisition of selfhood for African Americans. In the novels, Morrison examines these difficulties focussing especially on the maternal role. Offering no facile solutions, these narratives do share characteristics common to individuals attaining individuation. A person's relationship with the mother and ability to confront his history, no matter how painful, are integral elements to any presence of self-worth. Although far from didactic, one truth examined in the novels is the need for Africans in America to create their own definitions of their history. African American figures, maternal and otherwise have been traditionally defined by the oppressive society, using stereotypes inherited from slavery. Jazz and Beloved are reclamations of these definitions. Reclamations Morrison has asserted are necessary for the posterity of her people. How do African Americans attain selfhood when they do not even own themselves? The solutions to this problem are multifaceted. Morrison's novels urge the African American to confront the history and redefine myths that have often undermined the process.
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Date Issued
1999
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15662
Subject Headings
Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni--Beloved, Morrison, Toni--Jazz, African American women in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Authenticity in the Fictional Voices of Toni Morrison’s Love and Home: Tracing Conversations Among Author, Readers, and Narrators as a Rewrite of U.S. History
Title
Authenticity in the Fictional Voices of Toni Morrison’s Love and Home: Tracing Conversations Among Author, Readers, and Narrators as a Rewrite of U.S. History.
Creator
Bulacio-Watier, Marisol, Hagood, Taylor, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
Toni Morrison’s later novels Love and Home bring forth an issue of identity anxiety for those involved in the narrative: author, narrators, and readers. Featuring both first-person and third-person narrators, these works offer conflicting narratives in which the writer, Morrison, allows her characters to question her own authorial voice. Greater agency is given to the first-person narrators through which they deconstruct the traditional objectivity of third-person narratives. As such, this...
Show moreToni Morrison’s later novels Love and Home bring forth an issue of identity anxiety for those involved in the narrative: author, narrators, and readers. Featuring both first-person and third-person narrators, these works offer conflicting narratives in which the writer, Morrison, allows her characters to question her own authorial voice. Greater agency is given to the first-person narrators through which they deconstruct the traditional objectivity of third-person narratives. As such, this thesis argues, the structures of Love and Home extend their inside conversations to the real world of readers who must reconsider where their narrative trust has been. Moreover, Morrison’s challenge to her authorial voice becomes the means through which she questions the hegemony of U.S. historical narratives. In the end, it is the subjective voices of the first-person narrators which offer a more reliable, counter narrative of not only Morrison’s fictional stories, but that of the nation’s historical past.
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Date Issued
2017
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004995
Subject Headings
Dissertations, Academic -- Florida Atlantic University, Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation.
Format
Document (PDF)
Cultural suicides, island retreats, and diasporic revelations: A socio-historical approach to Paule Marshall's "Praisesong for the Widow" and Toni Morrison's "Tar Baby"
Title
Cultural suicides, island retreats, and diasporic revelations: A socio-historical approach to Paule Marshall's "Praisesong for the Widow" and Toni Morrison's "Tar Baby".
Creator
Minto, Deonne Nicole., Florida Atlantic University, King, Natalie
Abstract/Description
As reflected in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow and Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, many black characters in literature with a Caribbean setting inhabit a realm of stasis. They negotiate two worlds---a white world with hierarchies of power and success and selective acceptance, and a black world, usually with restricted power. Caught between these two worlds, the exiled slowly begin to lose their sense of roots and to embrace cultural suicide. Some flee to the Caribbean, where they may...
Show moreAs reflected in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow and Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, many black characters in literature with a Caribbean setting inhabit a realm of stasis. They negotiate two worlds---a white world with hierarchies of power and success and selective acceptance, and a black world, usually with restricted power. Caught between these two worlds, the exiled slowly begin to lose their sense of roots and to embrace cultural suicide. Some flee to the Caribbean, where they may regain what is lost. This paradise, with all its historical markers of the African diaspora, ultimately forces these characters either to confront their rootlessness and to reconnect with the community or to destroy any connections they once had. In dramatizing the journeys and choices of their protagonists, Marshall and Morrison reinvent the Caribbean not just as a retreat, but as a site for reclamation of black identity.
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Date Issued
1999
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15752
Subject Headings
Marshall, Paule, 1929- Praisesong for the widow, Morrison, Toni. Tar baby., Blacks--Race identity, American fiction--20th century
Format
Document (PDF)
Earth, water, and black bodies
Title
Earth, water, and black bodies: elements at work in Toni Morrison's literary landscape.
Creator
Anderson, Pauline P., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
This project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved...
Show moreThis project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved connotes bondage because of its historical link to the Triangular Trade. However, considering Morrison's frequent mention of water and the fugitives' constant need to drink, I argue that ingesting water symbolizes a need for psychological freedom. All of the novels that I have analyzed emphasize the complex connections between African Americans and nature.
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Date Issued
2012
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3356892
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, African Americans in literature, African American philosophy, Human ecology in literature, Nature in literature, Ecocriticism
Format
Document (PDF)
Establishing the Bondmother: Examining the Categorization of Maternal Figures in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Paradise
Title
Establishing the Bondmother: Examining the Categorization of Maternal Figures in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Paradise.
Creator
Tisdale, Ashely, Hagood, Taylor, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
Literary scholars have been examining and recreating the experiences of “bonded” female characters within Toni Morrison’s novels for decades. However, the distinct experiences of these enslaved women, that are also mothers have not been astutely examined by scholars and deserves more attention. My thesis fleshes out the characterization of several of Morrison’s bonded-mothers and identifies them as a part of a developing controlling image and theory, called the bondmother. Situating these...
Show moreLiterary scholars have been examining and recreating the experiences of “bonded” female characters within Toni Morrison’s novels for decades. However, the distinct experiences of these enslaved women, that are also mothers have not been astutely examined by scholars and deserves more attention. My thesis fleshes out the characterization of several of Morrison’s bonded-mothers and identifies them as a part of a developing controlling image and theory, called the bondmother. Situating these characters within this category allows readers to trace their journeys towards freedom and personal redemption. This character tracing will occur by examining the following Toni Morrison novels: Beloved (1987) and Paradise (1997). In order to fully examine the experiences of these characters it will be necessary for me to expand the definition of bondage and mother.
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Date Issued
2016
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004696, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004696
Subject Headings
African American families in literature, African American women in literature, Morrison, Toni -- Beloved -- Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni -- Characters -- Mothers, Morrison, Toni -- Paradise -- Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni -- Political and social views, Motherhood in literature, Slavery in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
George Eliot, Toni Morrison and the question of difference
Title
George Eliot, Toni Morrison and the question of difference.
Creator
Klass, Traci Michele., Florida Atlantic University, McGuirk, Carol
Abstract/Description
Toni Morrison suggests that there is "an enormous difference in the writing of black and white women." Despite her blanket assertion, however, Morrison's second novel Sula (1973) employs structures, themes, characters, and plot developments similar to George Eliot's in The Mill on the Floss (1860). Though significant differences mark the societies and cultures from which Eliot and Morrison write, numerous similarities between Maggie Tulliver and Sula Peace suggest that the "differences"...
Show moreToni Morrison suggests that there is "an enormous difference in the writing of black and white women." Despite her blanket assertion, however, Morrison's second novel Sula (1973) employs structures, themes, characters, and plot developments similar to George Eliot's in The Mill on the Floss (1860). Though significant differences mark the societies and cultures from which Eliot and Morrison write, numerous similarities between Maggie Tulliver and Sula Peace suggest that the "differences" between black and white female writers do not preclude some shared and corresponding traits.
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Date Issued
2000
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12686
Subject Headings
Eliot, George,--1819-1880--Mill on the Floss, Morrison, Toni--Sula, Feminist criticism
Format
Document (PDF)
Moving Ever Forward: Reading the Significance of Motion and Space as a Representation of Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad
Title
Moving Ever Forward: Reading the Significance of Motion and Space as a Representation of Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.
Creator
Richmond, Samantha, Furman, Andrew, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
This thesis argues that three models of trauma theory, which include traditional trauma theory, postcolonial trauma theory, and cultural trauma theory, must be joined to fully understand the trauma experienced by African Americans within the novels Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. By implementing these three theories, we can see how each novel’s main character is exploring and learning about African American trauma and better understand how an...
Show moreThis thesis argues that three models of trauma theory, which include traditional trauma theory, postcolonial trauma theory, and cultural trauma theory, must be joined to fully understand the trauma experienced by African Americans within the novels Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. By implementing these three theories, we can see how each novel’s main character is exploring and learning about African American trauma and better understand how an adjustment of space and time creates the possibility for the implementation of trauma theory. Each novel presents a journey, and it is through this movement through space that each character can serve as a witness to African American trauma. This is done in Morrison’s text by condensing the geographical space of the American north and south into one town, which serves to pluralize African American culture. In Whitehead’s text, American history is removed from its chronological place, which creates a duality that instills Freud’s theory of the uncanny within both the character and the reader.
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Date Issued
2017
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004839, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004839
Subject Headings
Psychic trauma., Psychic trauma--African Americans., American literature--African American authors--History and criticism--Theory, etc., Underground Railroad--Fiction., African American families--Fiction., Morrison, Toni.--Song of Solomon--Criticism and interpretation., Whitehead, Colson--1969---Underground railroad--Criticism and interpretation.
Format
Document (PDF)
mythic quest for selfhood in Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," "Song of Solomon," and "Beloved"
Title
The mythic quest for selfhood in Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," "Song of Solomon," and "Beloved".
Creator
Golden, Diane M., Florida Atlantic University, Coyle, William
Abstract/Description
Toni Morrison's purpose in her novels is to encourage her readers to imitate her heroes' journey in their own lives. Through her protagonists' successes and failures on their monomythic quests (to use the term of Joseph Campbell), Morrison educates her readers. Campbell states that a successful hero must complete three phases: separation, initiation, and return. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove's poor choices cause failure; she stays in the separation phase. Milkman Dead from Song of...
Show moreToni Morrison's purpose in her novels is to encourage her readers to imitate her heroes' journey in their own lives. Through her protagonists' successes and failures on their monomythic quests (to use the term of Joseph Campbell), Morrison educates her readers. Campbell states that a successful hero must complete three phases: separation, initiation, and return. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove's poor choices cause failure; she stays in the separation phase. Milkman Dead from Song of Solomon reaches the initiation stage but fails to return with his boon. Denver of Beloved is the only successful heroine; she returns to the world with a treasure, providing Morrison's readers with a fully heroic model.
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Date Issued
1994
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15053
Subject Headings
Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation., African Americans in literature., Morrison, Toni.--Bluest eye., Morrison, Toni.--Song of Solomon., Morrison, Toni.--Beloved.
Format
Document (PDF)
On Blackness and Being: Cameron Awkward-Rich’s Sympathetic Little Monster(s)
Title
On Blackness and Being: Cameron Awkward-Rich’s Sympathetic Little Monster(s).
Creator
Goodman, Quan D., Dagbovie-Mullins, Sika, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Abstract/Description
This thesis project examines the intertextuality between Cameron Awkward-Rich’s poetry collection Sympathetic Little Monster (2016) and earlier African American texts: Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents of a Slave Girl (1860) and Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973). Focusing on intertextuality and the trope of the train, this project analyzes Awkward-Rich’s collection which details how black bodies are still subjected to oppression and anti-black/anti-trans violence. His poems explore how black trans subjects...
Show moreThis thesis project examines the intertextuality between Cameron Awkward-Rich’s poetry collection Sympathetic Little Monster (2016) and earlier African American texts: Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents of a Slave Girl (1860) and Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973). Focusing on intertextuality and the trope of the train, this project analyzes Awkward-Rich’s collection which details how black bodies are still subjected to oppression and anti-black/anti-trans violence. His poems explore how black trans subjects are inhibited from reaching “arrival,” wholeness, and freedom in one’s representation and expression of their identity. White supremacy and constructs of race and gender attempt to dictate the speakers’ movements, possibilities, and mobility. Paying close attention to references to the past and the trope of the train, I examine how Awkward-Rich’s poetry interrogates black trans legibility, subjectivity, and subjugation.
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Date Issued
2020
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013570
Subject Headings
Awkward-Rich, Cameron, Jacobs, Harriet A (Harriet Ann), 1813-1897 Incidents in the life of a slave girl, Morrison, Toni Sula, Intertextuality
Format
Document (PDF)
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND DREAMS IN TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED: EXPLORING CONTINUITIES AND RUPTURES OF TRAUMA CYCLES
Title
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND DREAMS IN TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED: EXPLORING CONTINUITIES AND RUPTURES OF TRAUMA CYCLES.
Creator
Peter, Rebecca M., Dagbovie-Mullins, Sika, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Abstract/Description
“Psychoanalysis and Dreams in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Exploring Continuities and Ruptures of Trauma Cycles,” explores the function of dreams as they relate to trauma and memory. This thesis argues that a character’s engagement with their dreams leads to a healing discontinuity of traumatic cycles, while dreams left untouched likely result in historical and transgenerational cycles and the continuation of personal trauma and its symptoms. This thesis compares the dreams of the characters...
Show more“Psychoanalysis and Dreams in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Exploring Continuities and Ruptures of Trauma Cycles,” explores the function of dreams as they relate to trauma and memory. This thesis argues that a character’s engagement with their dreams leads to a healing discontinuity of traumatic cycles, while dreams left untouched likely result in historical and transgenerational cycles and the continuation of personal trauma and its symptoms. This thesis compares the dreams of the characters Beloved and Denver. In part because Morrison notes her influence from both African and Western traditions, this paper argues that a sufficient understanding of dreams in her work requires a multiplicity of approaches. This thesis draws on a plurality of ideas from African and Western perspectives of dreams, the intersections of race and psychoanalysis, and trauma theory. The focus on dreams extends the arguments of critics who analyze trauma in Beloved more generally.
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Date Issued
2022
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013909
Subject Headings
Morrison, Toni. Beloved, American literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Rastafari presence in Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, Beloved, and Song of Solomon
Title
The Rastafari presence in Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, Beloved, and Song of Solomon.
Creator
Carr, Nicole Racquel., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
Literary scholars frequently analyze the allusions to Western Christianity apparent in Toni Morrison's novels, but these studies overlook the ways in which some of her novels are informed by a Caribbean presence. This study argues that Rastafari themes, symbols, and ideologies are recurrent in Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, Beloved, and Song of Solomon. Rastafari is a social movement primarily concerned with restoring the image of Africa to a holy place. A Rastafari analysis of these texts...
Show moreLiterary scholars frequently analyze the allusions to Western Christianity apparent in Toni Morrison's novels, but these studies overlook the ways in which some of her novels are informed by a Caribbean presence. This study argues that Rastafari themes, symbols, and ideologies are recurrent in Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, Beloved, and Song of Solomon. Rastafari is a social movement primarily concerned with restoring the image of Africa to a holy place. A Rastafari analysis of these texts broadens the literary spectrum to suggest that these novels highlight Morrison's attempt to write about the multifaceted element of the black community, which remains deeply connected to its American, African, and Caribbean roots.
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Date Issued
2010
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2683134
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Rastafari movement, Masculinity in literature, Afro-Caribbean cults
Format
Document (PDF)
Reading, Writing, and Language: The Neo-Slave Novel and the Changing Definition of Literacy
Title
Reading, Writing, and Language: The Neo-Slave Novel and the Changing Definition of Literacy.
Creator
Segal, Pamela H., Dagbovie-Mullins, Sika A., Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description
After examining the neo-slave genre it becomes evident that the definition of the genre provided by AshrafRushdy is incomplete, because it does not include an important component of the narrative, literacy. By adding to Rushdy's definition, the narrative's dimensions change and the discussion of the genre is given a new perspective. Many neo-slave narratives' discussions of literacy correspond to the time of publication, not the time period or setting of the novels. Therefore, by interpreting...
Show moreAfter examining the neo-slave genre it becomes evident that the definition of the genre provided by AshrafRushdy is incomplete, because it does not include an important component of the narrative, literacy. By adding to Rushdy's definition, the narrative's dimensions change and the discussion of the genre is given a new perspective. Many neo-slave narratives' discussions of literacy correspond to the time of publication, not the time period or setting of the novels. Therefore, by interpreting the development of literacy alongside the neo-slave narrative, one is able to consider the significance of this connection. By examining three novels within the neo-slave genre, Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada (1976), Shirley Ann Williams's Dessa Rose (1986) and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987), I contend that Ashraf Rushdy' s definition of the narrative appears too limited. The cultural perspective and use of literacy within the neo-slave novel allows for further examination of this important component.
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Date Issued
2008
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000961
Subject Headings
Slavery in literature, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc), American prose literature--African American authors--Criticism and interpretation, Reed, Ishmael,--1938---Flight to Canada--Criticism and interpretation, Williams, Shirley Ann--Dessa Rose--Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni--Beloved--Criticism and interpretation
Format
Document (PDF)
Toni Morrison's "Beloved": From the middle realm to apocalyptic visions
Title
Toni Morrison's "Beloved": From the middle realm to apocalyptic visions.
Creator
King, Natalie, Florida Atlantic University, Paton, Priscilla
Abstract/Description
Toni Morrison's black characters in her novel Beloved dwell in a middle realm between slavery and a life full of responsibility. This middle realm or "safe" haven enables them to "disremember" past injustices. However, it also renders them disabled when trying to resolve moral issues, and allows them to exist blindly within the confines of an isolated illusion of almost pubescent security. In this state, characters have the certainty of the horrors of slavery behind them, but they have the...
Show moreToni Morrison's black characters in her novel Beloved dwell in a middle realm between slavery and a life full of responsibility. This middle realm or "safe" haven enables them to "disremember" past injustices. However, it also renders them disabled when trying to resolve moral issues, and allows them to exist blindly within the confines of an isolated illusion of almost pubescent security. In this state, characters have the certainty of the horrors of slavery behind them, but they have the uncertainty of the future ahead. Morrison's characters require the motivation of an apocalyptic upheaval (revelation or unveiling) as a catalyst to move them from that area of stasis and emotional impasse to the next level of their development and finally toward a sense of community. This movement from the middle realm to the apocalypse is conveyed by Morrison through myths drawn from several cultures. Her ability to manipulate and meld these myths provides the link to humanity's quest for control in an illusory world, and growth initiated by apocalyptic awakenings.
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Date Issued
1994
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15036
Subject Headings
Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni--Beloved, African Americans in literature
Format
Document (PDF)