Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977) is a juxtaposition of classical myth and folklore that is deeply rooted in African American history and folk culture. Unfortunately, much of the criticism of Song of Solomon has tended to focus more on classical myth in a strict literary sense and less on the profound folk cultural context on which her writing is based1. Susan L. Blake says in her article “Folklore and Community in Song of Solomon” that the title of Morrison’s third novel is derived from a…

The novels “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “Brown Girl, Brownstones” by Paule Marshall and “Citizen An American Lyric” by Claudia all are different books that tell different stories and written by different people, but one thing all 3 of these book share in common is a very old but important social issue which is Race and Racism. The way these authors use their topics as a subdivision of the theme or a social issue so that their main point becomes more clear and understandable is very…

In the novel Song of Solomon, written by Toni Morrison, the concept of flight is used as a literal and metaphorical symbol of escape. Flight has several meanings and interpretations such as, soaring through the sky, running away from something, suicide, a continuous series of stairs from one landing or floor to another, etc. What most people don’t realize is that by choosing to fly away as a means to escape, a person is also deliberately choosing to abandon their life while leaving their family…

they are as beautiful as the women on TV and magazines. The media is mentally brainwashing American females that they are not thin enough, or have blonde hair and blue eyes. This causes women to have hatred against the perfect ideal females. In Toni Morrison 's novel The Bluest Eye two of her fundamental characters, Claudia and Pecola show hate toward others, and themselves since they are not as beautiful as the superior females. “It had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the…

In Sula, Toni Morrison uses emotive language and humor to relate the struggles that most African Americans suffered in the 1920s. It was common for African Americans to be poorly treated in those days, however, women additionally endured mistreatment from their husbands and society in general. The main characters are Nel and Sula. There are striking contrasts between the two families and their relationships. On the one hand, Nel’s family life is structured to a fault. Her mother Helene, is…

While written over forty years apart, The Bluest Eye and Between the World and Me share a similar storyline of the black body being destroyed by the “white” gaze. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison chooses to use a single character, Pecola Breedlove, to adeptly depict how one 's body can become a subject of discrimination. After being impregnated by her own father, the entire town ridicules Pecola. She must now face the harsh gaze of an entire town that is convinced that Pecola is the ugliest girl…

In the novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison, the author details the tragic story of a young African American girl named Pecola Breedlove, who is exposed to bias social constructs that results in her internalizing high levels of racist ideologies. The novel illustrates the controversy of the perpetration of Eurocentric beauty standards and how it affects the black community, specifically the children within it. Pecola is surrounded around the notion that white standards are favored…

The Power of Hatred One of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given, and that I give to people, I learned from my grandfather. And that is “...you better start loving yourself kid, because life will be pretty damn miserable if you don 't.” I have surprisingly told a lot of people this, and they seem to reject it at first, but understand it as they think about it. It is a simple concept, if an individual thinks of themselves as someone who is ugly, stupid, undesirable, weak, all of…

Toni Morrison writes a book set in 1873 in which it describes the hardships a mother, by the name of Sethe, faces after having previously killed her own infant child in an attempt to protect it from the miseries of slavery. In Morrison’s book, Beloved, she uses flashbacks to create multiple themes, such as isolation and family, to elaborate on the torment Sethe and her family have undergone and continue to experience. Hurt from their past as slaves, Paul D and Sethe, continuously attempt to…

Toni Morrison´s first novel successfully portrayed the life of young girls from Afro-American families, who are facing racism, violence while-, they are searching for an identity in the primarily white world. Morrison touched many points concerning racial and social problems that were on the stake during the period after the Great Depression and maybe could even have some meaning nowadays. It is possible for young girls to be able of self-love and confidence-, even when they are exposed every…