Chapter Twenty-five Black Female Writers

Toni Morrison (1931- ) Winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature I ’ m interested in survival --- who survives and who does not, and why --- and I would like to chart a course that suggests where the dangers are and where the safety might be. ----Toni Morrison

Life, Education and Career SShe was born in Northern Ohio, his grandfather was a slave during the Civil War and never trusted the white people; his father worked on three jobs at the same time to support his family. Morrison grew up with a strong sense of her racial identity and carries strong sense her black heritage. SShe was educated at Howard university and Cornell university. In 1953, received B.A. at Howard University; In 1955, received M.A. at Cornell University.

SShe began writing in the early 1960s and published her first novel, The Bluest Eye in Morrison is an Award-winning writer. TThe many literary awards include the national book award, the national book critics circle award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in SShe is an international celebrity.

Her Works TThe Bluest Eye 1970 SSula 1970 SSong of Solomon 1977 TTar Baby 1981 BBeloved 1987 JJazz 1992 PParadise 1998 《最蓝的眼睛》 《秀拉》 《所罗门之歌》 《柏油娃娃》 《爵士乐》 《乐园》 《宠儿》

Themes in Morrison's Novels  Sense of Loss  Roots, Community, and Identity  Ancestors  Extreme Situations

The Features of Toni Morrison’s works  She wrote about the black people, for the black people and to the black readership (talking to the tribe).  Her works aims to empower the black people to act for themselves, to recognize their own world, their own history, and their own identity.  Morrison wants her prose to recreate black speech, "to restore the language that black people spoke to its original power";

The Features of Toni Morrison’s works AAs for her style, she is not restricted to the social realism, she applies black myths and legends in her stories, and uses symbolism to reveal the racial problems in American society. SSo her works carry a sense of magic and supernatural power.

Analysis of Song of Solomon  Published in 1977  The third novel which show her mature in style and established her place in contemporary American literature.

Character list The Deads: Macon Dead Macon Dead II & Ruth Pilate Macon Dead III (Milkman) Reba Hagar

  Song of Solomon Please read the plot of Song of Solomon at page 542, and then form a general picture of this novel.

Themes in this Novel TTheme of Flight TTheme of maturing

Alice Walker

Alice Walker (1944- )   A feminist black writer   The black woman struggling towards self-realization in a hostile environment is a theme in much of her work.

Alice Walker (1944- ) Brief introduction: Her works have attracted the attention of readers and critic alike. She was born into a sharecropper’s family in Eaton, Georgia. She began writing in college and published her first works-poems as well as stories—in 1965.

Alice Walker (1944- ) Later she received fellowships in support of her writing career. She has, by virtue of the great amount of fiction, poetry, and essays she has written over the years, made herself a central figure in contemporary American literature.

The Color Purple (1982) 《紫颜色》 The American Book Award; The Pulitzer Prize An epistolary Novel A great book both in thematic and formal terms

Character list Celie the female protagonist Nettie Celie’s Sister Fonso Celie’s stepfather Albert (Mr.) Celie’s Husband Shug Avery Albert’s lover and Celie’s spirit guider Adam and Olivia Celie’s son and daughter

Alice Walker (1944- ) Masterpiece: The Color Purple is an epistolary novel. It consists of 90 letters, of which over two thirds （ 61 in number), Celie wrote to god, 14 to her sister Nettie, and 15 Nettie wrote to Celie. The story centers on Celie’s life, with Nettie’s African adventure as complementary. It is a great book both in thematic and formal terms.

Thematically: P African American women ’ s growth against the backdrop of social and familial oppression 2. Black men ’ s change and growth as well

In formal terms: p549 1.The narrative scheme and the suspense 2.The language 3.The symbolism: the color purple

Symbolic meaning of the color purple The title is pregnant with meaning. The color purple indicates dignity, love, human fellowship and surviving whole as well as suffering and pain (if we think of the color as that of an eggplant, a combination of blue and red). It represents God’s creation, common humanity, significant and not to be ignored. Altogether The Color Purple is a very important work in American literary history.

Comment on The Color Purple Alice Walker's The Color Purple is an example of a "woman's novel." This means not just that it was written by a woman, but that it carries on an identified tradition of women's writing, in terms of narrative strategies, themes addressed, and voice.

Quotations from The Color Purple “You better not never tell nobody but god. It’d kill your mammy”—(page 1) “But I Don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive." (page 18)

Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head, I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing god make… Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain’t. Whenever you trying to pray, and plop himself on the other end of it, tell him git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock. But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don’t want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it. Amen.(page 204)

I curse you, I say. What that mean? He say. I say, Until you do me right by me, everything you touch will crumble. He laugh. Who you think you is? He say. You can’t curse nobody. Look at you. You black. You pore, you ugly, you a woman. God dam, he say, you nothing at all… I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say too everything listening. But I’m here. Amen, say Shug. Amen, amen. (pages )

Eventually, Celie stops thinking of God as she stops thinking of the other men in her life—she “git man off her eyeball” and tells God off, writing, “You must be sleep.” But after Celie has chased her patriarchal God away and come up with a new concept of God, she writes in her last letter, “Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear people. Dear Everything. Dear God.” (page 293) This reimagining of God on her own terms symbolizes Celie’s move from an object of someone else’s care to an independent woman.