Morrison Wildcard

Toni Morrison is a famous American Author and one of the most notable of the 20th century. Her creative writing style translates into imaginative stories with unique characters. She has written eight major novels, including Jazz, which we have just read. Her other highly praised works include: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Paradise, and Love. Morrison is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her 1988 book Beloved and went on to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

In examining Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and Jazz there can be seen a call and response. Jazz seems to be a response to Morrison’s ideas in Playing in the Dark. In Playing in the Dark we see Morrison’s criticism concerning American literature. She finds a lack of black characters, and the ones she does find are supplementary to the main characters and the events. She has invented her own study of American Africanism, which is very evident throughout her novels. In her book Jazz it is evident that many of her ideas on black characters in literature come to fruition. In Jazz we are given a very complex story of the lives of Urban African Americans. Morrison’s goal through her writing is to give substance to her characters to go against past literary work, where black characters were pushed aside.

In an interview with Pam Houston of Oprah Magazine, Morrison said, “Nobody was going to judge me, because they didn’t know what I knew. No African-American writer had ever done what I did--- none of the writers I knew, even the ones I admired—which was to write without the White Gaze. My writing wasn’t about them.” When Morrison said she wasn’t writing about them, she really wasn’t. Sure, her stories mentioned them (In Jazz, on the train, the white people were given extra food to make up for the non-segregated dining car), her stories characterized them (In Sula, Nel Wright Greene’s mother is humiliated by a racist white conductor who wouldn’t let her use the train restroom), but they never featured them.

Besides the obvious white-black barrier present in Morrison’s novels, there is also the issue involving motherhood. Recalling class discussions of motherhood, it seems a common trend in most slave narratives that mothers would usually not be there. In a review of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart, the writer says: “Maternal acts in Toni Morrison’s eight novels are not exactly the stuff of sentimentality: mothers commit infanticide (Sula, Beloved, and Paradise), severe neglect (The Bluest Eye), child abuse (Tar Baby), and outright abandonment (The Bluest Eye, Jazz, Paradise, and Love).” A very strange theme to have come about from Morrison’s decidedly more positive (Although poor and laborious, given the 1930s timeframe), with Toni being the second of four children born to Ramah and George Wofford, who lived with Ramah’s parents in Lorain, Ohio. (I know, right? Isn’t it neat that Toni Morrison was born in our state?) There was no abandonment, no parental divorce, no surrogate motherhood, many themes found in Morrison’s work. Although the phrase “Write what you know” is coming to mind, I suppose “Violet’s childhood was happy and full of love, so she felt no need to stab Dorcas’s carcass” isn’t a very good selling point for a novel.

In this video Toni Morrison explains how and why she became a writer.

Throughout Morrison’s novels she follows similar themes that are evident after examining her writing. One main theme she discusses is identity. She has the whole idea of “double consciousness” that is a continuous struggle in the character’s lives that live in her books. Double consciousness is the idea that a person can neither fully identify as a black person nor an American. Morrison also believes that what it means to be American is what it means to be white, so identifying as an American and a black person can’t be merged into one identity. There is also the idea of triple consciousness when it comes to black women. Not only are they struggling to identify themselves as Americans, but as a minority as well, an African American and a woman, three identities constantly battling with one another.

Another theme in Morrison’s writing is freedom and responsibility. Having freedom isn’t always a liberating experience; in fact it can be quite scary. As we see through Joe and Violet while they are on the train in Jazz they have the freedom to get up and move about, but they don’t take that opportunity. Having freedom isn’t easy, “to be free the individual must take risks” (Toni Morrison). Even having the opportunity of choice can be a difficult task. As Joe discovers through his “choice” of Dorcas, in the end, the one decision he had the freedom to make turned out to be disastrous. Freedom also ties in with responsibility. In the matter of making choices, “freedom is choosing your responsibility. It’s not having no responsibilities; it’s choosing the ones you want” (Toni Morrison).

There is also another common theme that can be found through Morrison’s novels, the theme of “good and evil.” As we can see through Joe in Jazz, “Morrison shows understanding of and, often, compassion, for characters who commit horrific deeds, like incest-rape or infanticide” (Toni Morrison). While reading Jazz, the reader sympathizes with Joe and sides with him, even though he had an affair with a young girl that resulted in him murdering her. We still feel bad for Joe and want him to find happiness.

Toni Morrison has been one of the most influential African American females in the literary world. She has dared to step out of the comfortable normality of American writing and she takes on a subject that is often thought of as taboo. The subject of race makes people uncomfortable but that is what she wanted. She wanted to bring up a subject that was very personal to her and force her audience to really look at it. Ignoring something that you dislike or avoiding confrontation doesn’t resolve anything, and Morrison’s novels reveal that. Even though her work is controversial, she has had an amazing response from her readers and from the critics. It was noted that at one of her book signings, “most of them women- (held) the volume close to their chest like a treasured object.” Walter Clemons said when describing Beloved, “I think we have a masterpiece on our hands.” With this kind of powerful response, it is not a surprise that she has won many awards. In 1993, Morrison won a Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1988, she won the Pulitzer Prize and in 1978, she won the National Critics' Circle Award. These awards acknowledge the huge impact of Toni Morrison's work and the importance of her writing. Her words will continue to inspire and teach for many years to come.

Works Cited
Cynthia Dobbs, Reviewer of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart. http://www.literarymama.com/reviews/archives/000699.html
Heinze, Denise. The Dilemma of "Double-Consciousness" Toni Morrison's Novels. London: The University of Georgia Press,1993.
Notable Biographies, Biography on Toni Morrison: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Morrison-Toni.html
Pam Houston, Interviewing Toni Morrison for Oprah Magazine: http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/omag_200311_toni
Peach, Linden. Toni Morrison. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Spark Notes, Notes on Sula by Toni Morrison: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Sula.id-44.html
"Toni Morrison: An Introduction." Toni Morrison "The Bluest Eye" 04 Mar. 2009 .


Posted By: Rachel Kohler, Dione Hardin, Allison Price and Michael Beiting