There is a concept of an unspoken Africanist presence, in the American literary imagination, which haunts the American descriptive language. Toni Morrison’s supporting this notion positions herself to be questioned about the invisible presence of a dark otherness. Should the case be otherwise, it would have to be claimed that the truly invisible other has been so thoroughly erased in historical consciousness, and printed text, as to be of minuscule importance. Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination discuss this presence, and raises serious questions about the “inadequacy and the force of the imaginative act,” particularly when that phrase is juxtaposed with the amazing utterance “How compelling is the study of those writers who take responsibility for all of the values they bring to their art”. The most efficient arguments Morrison’s book …show more content…
If one isolated and for notice in reading Playing in the Dark, its use seem excessive. What meaning does such a highlighting of the possibility of joining at the syntactic level suggest? Morrison’s procedure use could be there to stress the importance of reflection, and critique of the enabling and disabling functions of American English: the assumed ability to signify categories, hierarchies, sameness, difference, unification, definition, to represent truths, to confirm, and disconfirm beliefs with lies. In calling attention to selectivity, and avoidance (with the aid of sips of ignorance), Morrison does not seek to persuade by neither rational argument, nor cold logic. Instead, a bedazzle with conjoined rhetorical moves is used. While on the other hand, the conjunctions to some extent ensure our interest in a project which always remains a centimeter beyond grasp. Metaphoric force is dominant in what seems at first glance to be critical prose. Morrison’s persuasion is
Mat Johnsons novel, Pym challenges readers not only to view his work with a new set of eyes but also the work of all American literature with the understanding that the idea of Whiteness still has a very strong power over literature today. It is unfortunate that in today’s society, the pathology of Whiteness still holds a very strong presence in literary world. Literature from American authors versus literature from African American authors still continues to be segregated and handled with two different sets of criteria. Johnson’s novel engages in different aspects of the argument presented in Toni Morrison’s work entitled Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. One of the main ideals that Pym engages in is the thought that “…a figuration of impenetrable whiteness … surfaces in American literature whenever Africanist presence is engaged” (29). Through the character Chris Jaynes, Johnson’s novel focuses much attention on the Whiteness seen in the literary world and how it still affects literature today. Mat Johnson’s Pym addresses Morrison’s argument by challenging the reader to identify the pathology of whiteness as well as encourages readers not to only identify the problem but try to find new ways to combat it.
It is no secret that there is a complicated history with race in America. The issue has been discussed by scholars such as Sterling Brown or W.E.B Dubois. Brown’s article, “Negro Characters as Seen by White Authors” outlines a variety of common stereotypes for black characters in American literature from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century. DuBois went a step further in his essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, in which he outlined his theory of “double-consciousness”, a theory that has shown itself time and time again, especially in hip hop. Kanye’s West’s fifth studio album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, takes listeners on a lyrical journey through common stereotypes and double-consciousness. For example,
Butler-Evans,Elliott. Race,Gender,and Desire:Narrative Strategies in the Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara,Toni Morrison,and Alice Walker. Philadelphia:Temple UP,1989.
In the 223 years our country has been instituted, the way black people are perceived in society has always been less than acceptable. Great leaders and motivators like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have come and gone, their voices and action have attempted to change the role of black people in society. However, even in today times, equality is still far off, and there is no voice comparable to what blacks relied on in those days. Instead of marches in Alabama, or speeches in Washington, the plight of the blacks are heard through literature. Small voices in literature that makes a big impact on society. Toni Morrison and bell hooks use words to motivate people of all color. Morrison and hooks open eyes to this so-called free country we live in with the purpose of showing society's condemnation of black life, interracial relationships and black woman in a traditionally men's roles. In the two stories by Toni Morrison titled, "On the Backs of Blacks" and "Friday on the Potomac," she strives to prove the effects of racism in America, the oppression of African Americans in society, and the racial and sexist aspects of the Anita Hall and Clarence Thomas Hearings. In "Sorrowful Black Death Is Not a Hot Ticket" and "Seduction And Betrayal" bell hooks criticizes the way black life is depicted the movies: Crooklyn, The Bodyguard, and The Crying Game.
This paper will explore “the loophole of retreat” in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and “the Veil” in W.E.B. Dubois’ Souls of Black Folk examines how the respective authors used these metaphors to code hidden meaning for the various types of readers. This paper will also explore how the use of metaphor changed and remained the same from 1861 when Incidents was written to 1903 when Souls debuted. Literary scholars have explored interpretations of “the Veil” and “the loophole of retreat” for years. “The Veil” comes from W.E.B. DuBois’ figurative metaphor that represents the divide between black and white people and black and white people’s ability to understand one another. One of DuBois’ main reasons for writing Souls was because he, “sought.to sketch, in vague, uncertain outline, the spiritual world in which ten thousand thousand [black]Americans live and strive” (DuBois 3).
The Cask of Amontillado is an 1846 short story by Edgar Allan Poe, which gives an account of Montresor, a man who executes a plan of vengeance against his friend, whom he claims insulted him. As the narrator in the story, Montresor provides a vivid image of his plan to lure Fortunato to his death, which ends in the eventual live burial of Fortunato. The theme of revenge is the most prominent element of this story, which enables the reader follow the narrator’s character, thus gaining a comprehensive understanding of the story. Similarly, the development of William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, is founded on the theme of revenge. From the onset of the play, the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears to him and asks that he carries out revenge on Claudius, who killed him and took the throne from him. However, unlike The Cask of Amontillado, the theme of revenge in Hamlet is mainly manifested through the protagonist’s inability to execute vengeance till the very end of the play. The theme of revenge is an integral aspect of the two literary works, to enhance the development of characters and their role in bringing the specific stories to life.
Detrimental stereotypes of minorities affect everyone today as they did during the antebellum period. Walker’s subject matter reminds people of this, as does her symbolic use of stark black and white. Her work shocks. It disgusts. The important part is: her work elicits a reaction from the viewer; it reminds them of a dark time in history and represents that time in the most fantastically nightmarish way possible. In her own words, Walker has said, “I didn’t want a completely passive viewer, I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful”. Certainly, her usage of controversial cultural signifiers serve not only to remind the viewer of the way blacks were viewed, but that they were cast in that image by people like the viewer. Thus, the viewer is implicated in the injustices within her work. In a way, the scenes she creates are a subversive display of the slim power of slave over owner, of woman over man, of viewed over
A paradigm as defined in the dictionary is an example serving as a model. In his book, 7 habits of highly effective teens , Sean Covey compares paradigms to glasses and says that if the paradigm, or perception, is incomplete it is like wearing the wrong prescription. One example Covey gave is:
What art succeeds in doing is transmute the sexual expression into an acceptable form - by turning it into a thing of beauty and approximating it into a haze of sublimity. In the post- modern climate of media, eros as sexuality reels dangerously on the brink of pornography. Yet what is also important is to realize that it is an important lens to view our social, political and cultural identities. At the beginning of the twentieth century, sexuality rode on the tide of social progressivism and became a vehicle for artistic expression in the novel. Also, when eros as sexuality serves as a principal theme in serious or popular literature, it is often used as a means of remarking upon the dynamics in a society. This is the point that is scrutinised and analysed in this paper where the sexuality of women is seen as an important definition and perspective in Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973).The novel explores the lives and friendship of Sula Peace and Nel Wright in the black neighbourhood dubiously named ‘The Bottom’ in the city of Medallion . The novel also investigates lives of its various female characters in this community who add to our understanding of the life of African American women. Morrison is one of the most remarkable African-American authors of the twentieth century and her novels remind readers that the position of African-Americans in the white-dominant society of the United States of
Throughout the United States’ history, race and racism has been a prominent part of society and unfortunately may never go away. It is important to address these issues and make them heard and to educate people. In short fiction stories, it is a common theme, especially those authored by African American writers who have had experience in society. In one particular piece of short fiction, “Recitatif”, the author Toni Morrison explores the effect, usually the theme of her stories, of race and racism using the youth during the 1960s and all the way up to the 1980s, mainly by confronting the common act of making assumptions about characters using character traits and historical events. In “Recitatif” the readers are intended to make an assumption
As a Noble Prize Winner in Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison delivered her speech with great expertise and exemplified her writing style by sending out a powerful message through her sharp rhetoric. In her speech, Morrison tells a story about an old, blind woman with a rumored “clairvoyance” and her interaction with a few young men. Within the exchange between the old woman and the men, Morrison integrates various racial, cultural and linguistic themes. Through a heavy usage of rhetorical questions, the story told by Morrison illustrates the powers and dangers of language while at the same time associates the language with culture. In Morrison’s view, one of the most important aspects of language is its ability to keep cultures and races bounded.
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 1992.
Toni Morrison In the mid twentieth century, the Civil Rights Movement influenced African-American writers to express their opinions. Most African-American writers of the time discussed racism in America and social injustice. Some authors sought to teach how the institution of slavery affected those who lived through it and African-Americans who were living at the time. One of these writers was the Toni Morrison, the novelist, who intended to teach people about all aspects of African-American life present and past.
Again and again, Sethe’s character seeks to bury her memories of enslavement, loss and anguish. However, no matter how hard she tries, they resurface. Just as those past events are inescapable pieces of her that cannot be extinguished or erased, so too is the collective memory that records the unfortunate existence and despicable actualities of American captivity. As a result, Toni Morrison’s creative conception of the process of rememory, not only articulates the severe psychological effects of trauma and suffering, but also a profound hope to heal the aftermaths of slavery, establish a communal consciousness, and challenge the official historical narratives in order to revitalize black identity.
The study of African American history has grown phenomenally over the last few decades and the debate over the relationship between slavery and racial prejudice has generated tremendous amounts of scholarship. There’s a renewed sense of interest in the academia with a new emphasis on studies and discussions pertaining to complicated relationships slavery as an institution has with racism. It is more so when the potential for recovering additional knowledge seems to be limitless. Even in the fields of cultural and literary studies, there is a huge emphasis upon uncovering aspects of the past that would lead one towards a better understanding of the genesis of certain institutionalized systems. A careful discussion of the history of slavery and racism in the new world in the early 17th Century would lead us towards a sensitive understanding of the kind of ‘playful’ relationship African Americans have with notions pertaining to location, dislocation and relocation. By taking up Toni Morrison’s ninth novel entitled A Mercy (2008), this paper firstly proposes to analyze this work as an African American’s artistic representation of primeval America in the 1680s before slavery was institutionalized. The next segment of the study intends to highlight a non-racial side of slavery by emphasizing upon Morrison’s take on the relationship between slavery and racism in the early heterogeneous society of colonial America. The concluding section tries to justify “how’ slavery gradually came to be cemented with degraded racial ideologies and exclusivist social constructs which ultimately, led to the equation of the term ‘blackness’ almost with ‘slaves’.