Unit 16 Toni Morrison (1931

1
Unit 16 Toni Morrison (1931)
2
Aims of Teaching

• 1.   Introduce the writer to students
• 2. Familiarize students with ideas of the work
  and the language the writer used
• 3. Give them some knowledge of American black
  literature

3
Key Points to Teach

• Morrisons life and artistic achievements
• Morrisons thematic concern
• Morrisons artistic features employed
• A brief introduction of her major novels
• A discussion of her short story Recitatif

4
Her Life

• Winner of 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, first
  African American to receive this prize
• Born in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, basis for some of
  her fictional settings
• B.A. Howard Univ M.A. Cornell, thesis on woolf
  and Faulkner, taught at Howard Univ
• since 1989, editor for Random House and given
  numerous public lectures, specializing in
  African-American literature.
• made her debut as a novelist in 1970, A member
  since 1981 of the American Academy of Arts and
  Letters.

5
Her Achievements

• I'm just trying to look at something without
  blinking, to see what it is like, or it could
  have been like, and how that had something to do
  with the way we live now. Novels are always
  inquiries for me.
• Toni Morrison in Salon Magazine

6

• American author, who has been awarded a number
  of literary distinctions, among them the Pulitzer
  Prize in 1988. And Nobel Prize in Literature in
  1993.
• In her work Toni Morrison has explored the
  experience and roles of black women in a racist
  and male dominated society.
• In the center of her complex and multilayered
  narratives is the unique cultural inheritance of
  African-Americans.
• Known For her epic power, unerring ear for
  dialogue, and her poetically-charged and
  richly-expressive depictions of Black America.

7
Her Major Novels
8
The Bluest Eyes (1970)

• In 1940s America, a little black girl,
  unlovely and unloved, prays for blue eyes like
  those of her white schoolfellows She becomes the
  focus of the mingled love and hatred engendered
  by her family's frailty and the world's cruelty.
  

9
Sula (1973)

• Sula, Morrisons second novel, focuses on a young
  black girl named Sula, who matures into a strong
  and determined woman in the face of adversity and
  the distrust, even hatred, of her by the black
  community in which she lives.

10
Song of Solomon (1977)

• The story of a character named Milkman Dead, who
  in his search for his familys lost fortune
  discovers instead his family history.

11
Tar Baby (1981)
In a Caribbean mansion the millionaire, Valerian,
and his younger wife, Margaret, live as if in a
troubled sleep. Their comforts are supplied by a
black servant couple. The fifth member of the
household is a beautiful black protegee of
Valerian..
12
Beloved (1987)

• Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio,
  but eighteen years later she is still not free.
  She has too many memories of the past. And
  Sethes new home is haunted by the ghost of her
  baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is
  engraved with a single word Beloved

13
Jazz (1992)

• Jazz is spellbinding for the haunting passion
  of its profound love story, and for the
  bittersweet lyricism and refined sensuality of
  its powerful and elegant style

14
Recitatif (1983)

• 1. Plot A story of the conflicted friendship
  between two girlsone black and one whitefrom
  the time they meet and bond at age eight while
  staying at an orphanage through their
  re-acquaintance as mothers on different sides of
  economic, political, and racial divides in a
  recently gentrified town in upstate New York.

15
Recitatif(1983)

• 2. Recitatif or recitative is a vocal style
  in which a text is declaimed in the rhythm of
  natural speech with slight melodic variation
  (American Heritage College Dictionary, 3rd ed.
  1997) The story is Twylas recitatif

16
Recitatif A Story of doubles

• One black and one white, but the reader cant say
  for sure which is which
• Both are misfits in the orphanage they dont
  have beautiful dead parents in the sky their
  mothers are alive
• Bad students
• Twyla couldnt remember things
• Roberta cant read

17
Historical Structure (age 8 is definite, later
ages are estimates)

• Twyla and Roberta meet at different ages, in
  different settings
• At 8 (orphanage, 4 months)
• At roughly 18-20 (Howard Johnsons on thruway
  near Kingston, N.Y.)
• 1) Twylas a nightshift waitress
• 2)Roberta passing through with two men, going
  to see Jim Hendrix, whom Twyla calls she
• 3) Roberta and men laugh at Twyla, dont say
  goodbye

18
Historical Structure

• At roughly 30-32 (Food Emporium, Newburgh, NY,
  late June)
• At roughly 30-32 (Picket-lines, Fall)
• Later 30s (coffee shop, Christmas Eve)
• Joseph in college (about 18)

19
Jimi Hendrix (19421970)
20
Historical Structure

• This story of doubles is suspended through recent
  American history
• Race relations
• Bussing(to integrate schools)
• Computer industry
• Changes in town of Newburgh, NY,once upstate
  paradise, then half on welfare, with new
  wealthy tech class working for IBM

21
The Significance of Maggie

• Shifting memories/shifting meanings
• Maggie fell
• Maggie didnt fall, was knocked down
• Twyla and Roberta both kicked Maggie, who was
  black
• Twyla didnt kick Maggie, but wanted to
  associated Maggie with her mother
• Roberta didnt kick Maggie, but wanted to
  associated Maggie with her own mother

22
Consumer Culture name-brand products,
corporations, TV show, pop icons

• Klondike ice cream bars The Wizard of Oz
• Tab The Price is
  Right
• Yoo-Hoo The Brady Bunch
• Chiclets Jimi Hendrix
• Elmers glue
• IBM
• AP

23
Setting

• Recitatif takes place in impermanent, transient
  settings. What effect or significance might this
  feature of setting have?
• Orphanage
• Howard Johnsons
• New shopping mall/parking lot
• Picket lines
• Coffee house

24
Conclusion

• As double, Twyla and Roberta share an
  uncomfortable past
• Roberta challenges Twyla to remember parts of her
  past Twyla prefers to forget
• Reality and repressed desire get mixed up
• In the present ,they are one anothers racial and
  class other
• They collaborate to reconstruct their shared past
  and bridge their differences of class and race