Transcript Unit 16 Toni Morrison——Winner of 1993 Nobel Prize in

Unit 16 Toni Morrison (1931—)
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
Key Points to Teach:
Morrison’s life and artistic
achievements
Morrison’s thematic concern
Morrison’s artistic features employed
A brief introduction of her major novels
A discussion of her short story: Recitatif
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 AfricanAmerican literature.
made her debut as a novelist in 1970, A member
since 1981 of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters.
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
 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 AfricanAmericans.
 Known For her epic power, unerring ear for dialogue,
and her poetically-charged and richly-expressive
depictions of Black America.
Her Major Novels
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. ……
Sula (1973)
Sula, Morrison’s 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….
Song of Solomon (1977)
• The story of a character
named Milkman Dead, who in
his search for his family’s lost
fortune discovers instead his
family history….
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…..
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 Sethe’s new home is
haunted by the ghost of her
baby, who died nameless
and whose tombstone is
engraved with a single word:
Beloved…
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…
Recitatif (1983)
1. Plot: A story of the conflicted friendship
between two girls—one black and one
white—from 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.
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 Twyla’s recitatif
Recitatif— A Story of doubles
One black and one white, but the reader
can’t say for sure which is which
Both are misfits in the orphanage: they
don’t have “beautiful dead parents in the
sky”; their mothers are alive
Bad students:
1. Twyla “couldn’t remember” things
2. Roberta can’t read
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 Johnson’s on thruway near
Kingston, N.Y.)
1) Twyla’s 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, don’t say goodbye”
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)
Jimi Hendrix (1942—1970)
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
The Significance of Maggie:
Shifting memories/shifting meanings:
Maggie fell
Maggie didn’t fall, was knocked down
Twyla and Roberta both kicked Maggie, who
was black
Twyla didn’t kick Maggie, but wanted to
associated Maggie with her mother
Roberta didn’t kick Maggie, but wanted to
associated Maggie with her own mother
Consumer Culture: name-brand products,
corporations, TV show, pop icons:
Klondike ice cream bars
Tab
Yoo-Hoo
Chiclets
Elmer’s glue
IBM
A&P
The Wizard of Oz
The Price is Right
The Brady Bunch
Jimi Hendrix
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
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 another’s racial
and class “other”
They collaborate to reconstruct their shared
past and bridge their differences of class and
race