Abstract

Viewing from the angle of the theory related to modern politics, the most important aspect of gender is known as “gender politics,” which has a close relationship with the body. Whether gender oppression or gender resistance is concerned, the body is the battlefield for gender politics and thus the body is deemed as a medium for the presentation of a variety of power relations. Gender politics is the field where the interactivity and the fluidity of the power are involved, while the body is the best medium of presentation for power struggle and negotiation, and it is also regarded as a well-chosen field for the interpretation of African American history and the pursuit of individual ethnic identity. The characters displayed in Toni Morrison’s novels are often wounded, scarred, or mutilated in some ways, and those scarred bodies usually function as a kind of tangible insignia which is employed to symbolize a violent history of oppression, with regard to gender, race, ethnicity, class, or sexuality. In every novel written by Morrison, the body has the function of fleshly reminding the paradoxical nature of an American citizenry which is established based on the difference existing in ideology. the body serves as a crucial topic whenever Morrison takes gender and race into consideration, thus the body turns out to be an important and unavoidable research topic for the researchers on Morrison.

Although researchers on Morrison did touch upon the topics related to these two perspectives, namely gender politics and the body, they failed to provide full and systematical exploration. The articles related to gender politics reflected in Morrison’s novels often attach importance to one of her novels. For instance, some critics hold the view that Morrison reveals the forces of tyranny and expresses the voices of the victimized in the novel Love. In terms of the research, it has been carried out on the body in Morrison’s novels mainly from the perspective of aesthetics. Therefore, this book aims to conduct a systematic study on the body narrative and gender politics for the purpose of proving that Morrison reconstructs the black subjectivity, reconnects the bonds between different characters, and makes up for the relationship between black male and female through the consciousness of body politics, and finally devotes to the construction of black identity and cultural identity.

This work focuses on eight novels by Morrison, namely The Bluest Eye (1970), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), A Mercy (2008), and the newly published God Help the Child (2015), and it aims to carry out relevant analysis on the strategies applied by Toni Morrison. In this book, body metaphor is employed as a means to encompass body, history and gender politics for the aim of presenting thoughtful description over African Americans in slavery and after emancipation. As for Morrison, it is known that the consciousness of the body politics plays a decisive role in the construction of the subjectivity for African Americans in a specific historical period in American history. As far as African Americans are concerned, the body is an expression of their world, a visible form of their intentions, and a powerful instrument adopted by them to fight against oppression.

This work contains six chapters: Chapter one concentrates on summarizing overseas and domestic study of Toni Morrison, discussing the definition and employment of the key words in this study, and further exploring the general bodily history of African Americans. Chapter two is concerned about the gender politics and the loss of subjectivity in The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child. Chapter Three probes into the discussion on the attempts made by Morrison for the purpose of reconstructing the black subjectivity and reconnect the bonds between female through the consciousness of body politics, which actually is referred to as the state of awareness of the individual who consciously reconstructs his subjectivity via the body which is being controlled, disciplined, violated, used and misused. Chapter four mainly examines the attempts of Morrison to reconnect the bonds between black male and female, and then reconstruct the subjectivity of black male in the intimate relationship between them. Chapter five focuses on the black body as the site of history. As far as African Americans are concerned, self-creation and the reformation of a fragmented historical past are infinitely entwined with each other. Chapter six further discusses the findings of the research.

Through the analysis conducted on Morrison’s eight novels mentioned above, this book tentatively proves that the body existing in the novels of Morrison plays a decisive role for African Americans’ pursuit of individual and ethnic identity, as well as to record and present their history. The body in Morrison’s novels serves as the site on which gender politics is inflicted, the collective memories are carved, and the black histories are located. The body inscribes the history of African Americans, thus turning into another way to record and present history. Most significantly, Morrison does not consistently depict the racial and sexual oppressions suffered by African Americans but focuses on various power struggles of negotiation, communication, and competition between black and white, as well as male and female. Therefore, the body in Morrison’s novels bears the characteristics of fluidity and interactivity, and implies both rich cultural and political thought in the meanwhile. As a matter of fact, the body functions as the holder of trauma, whether initiated by physical abuse, discrimination, exclusion, dehumanization, or abandonment. At the same time, the body offers a potential for recognition, resistance, and healing. In conclusion, this book tentatively proves the fact that the consciousness of body politics plays a decisive role for Morrison in the reconstruction of the black subjectivity and cultural identity.