Current Search: Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation. (x)
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- 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.
Show less - 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)
- 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
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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.
Show less - 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)
- 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
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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.
Show less - 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)
- 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
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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.
Show less - 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)