I argue that literary texts after 1980 use the fluid relationship between the physical world and the world of writing in order to present alternate versions of the body’s relationship to the mind. Examining works by Toni Morrison, William Gibson, Kathy Acker, Sarah Kane, and Shelley Jackson, I demonstrate the ways in which these texts reinterpret the relationship between mind and body by offering bodily metaphors for their character’s interior emotional lives; they compare this inner life to a pregnant mother, a sexual couple, and more. I emphasize the political implications of the kinds of bodies employed in these metaphors, setting this against the background of late twentieth century feminism. I read my primary texts alongside the work of Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigary, and others, in order to chart the parallel projects of literature and theory in articulating the relationship between the body—especially, the female body—and our understandings of subjectivity and representation. Starting with the 1980s, when the second wave feminist movement suffered conservative backlash, and continuing through the development of the third wave, I examine literary theorizations of feminist concerns during a period of transition in the feminist movement itself.

從一九六○年代開始到七○年代初期，黑人性別變成種族論述的焦點。當時的黑人民權運動和後來黑權運動的男性領袖們聲稱黑人男性唯一真正受種族壓迫的受害者，不僅為白人也為那些堅強，獨立，自力更生的黑人女性所閹割，於是黑人問題等同於黑人男性的問題。他們主張黑人男性必須先獲得救贖，黑人種族才能得到救贖，因此，重新建構真正的黑人男性成為解決黑人問題的首要之道。黑人男性領袖們因而提倡重建父權社會，回歸傳統的性別特色，如此黑人男性才能重獲失去的男性尊嚴及權力，黑人族群也才能夠從種族壓迫的桎梏中解放。然而，此充滿男性沙文主義的論調受到莫莉森等黑人女作家及黑人女性主義者的質疑和批評。本文以莫莉森的三部小說（蘇拉，所羅門之歌，摯愛）為研究主體，藉由分析莫莉森的黑人男性角色來探討黑人男性在內化和追求白人男性定義的過程中，不僅造成其本身悲劇也破壞了與黑人女性的關係。莫莉森呼應黑人女性主義者主張黑人男性想突破困境唯有揚棄西方的性別角色重新建構具非洲意識的黑人男性特質，兼容兩性優點，拒絕西方父權思想並平等對待女性。如此，黑人男女才可能建立良好，永續以及和諧的互惠關係，為彼此也為黑人民族帶來救贖的希望。 / From the 1960s to the early 70s, black gender became the specific site for the discussion of race. At that time, black male leaders of Civil Rights Movement and Black Movement named the black man as the sole victim of white racism, because he was seen to be emasculated both by the white and the strong, independent, and self-sufficient black women. Hence, black people's problem was seen in terms of black masculinity. Therefore, black male leaders claimed that black men had to redeem their manhood so that black race could be redeemed. As a result, the reconstruction of a true black man was regarded as the only solution to the problem of black people. They advocated recuperation of partriarchy and a return to traditional gender roles. They asserted that only by doing so would black men reclaim their manhood and black people would be able to liberate from the bondage of racial oppression Nevertheless, the chauvinist philosophy permeating in the movement was questioned and criticized by Toni Morrison, other black women writers and black feminists. This thesis will focus on the examination of Morrison's black male characters in three of her novels-Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. Through an analysis of her black male characters, it attempts to show that black male's internalization of white gender ideology and his efforts to attain white masulinity not only lead to his own tragedy but ruin his relationship with black female. Therefore, Morrison echoes black feminists, asserting that the only way out for the black male is to reject white gender roles and patriachal attitude and to reconstruct his manhood in a nonpatriarchal fashion which stresses the black woman as his equal partners. Until then will black men and women be able to form nurturing, enduring and harmonious relationships which may empower black people to redeem their whole race from white racism.

<p>Using the novels, <em>The Bluest Eye, Sula </em>and <em>Song of Solomon</em>, the purpose of this essay is to examine Toni Morrison’s characters in the setting of the black community with emphasis on gender, participation in society and the class differences which exist within the black collective. All of the characters in the narratives exist in communities which are defined by the racial barriers formed by the surrounding white societies. Due to her concern with the inter-relatedness of race, gender and class as they are lived by the individuals, Morrison gives her characters physical and psychological qualities which enhance their chances for survival and fulfillment, thus leading to the survival of the black community. Through her characters in <em>The Bluest Eye, Sula </em>and<em> Song of Solomon</em>, Toni Morrison portrays the black community with reference to blackness and the inner struggles of the individual as well as the class differences and social structures within the collective. It can be concluded that the black community is an important part of today’s society as the contemporary individual must embrace his/her culture and heritage, which is found in the unity of the collective.</p>

Using the novels, The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon, the purpose of this essay is to examine Toni Morrison’s characters in the setting of the black community with emphasis on gender, participation in society and the class differences which exist within the black collective. All of the characters in the narratives exist in communities which are defined by the racial barriers formed by the surrounding white societies. Due to her concern with the inter-relatedness of race, gender and class as they are lived by the individuals, Morrison gives her characters physical and psychological qualities which enhance their chances for survival and fulfillment, thus leading to the survival of the black community. Through her characters in The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison portrays the black community with reference to blackness and the inner struggles of the individual as well as the class differences and social structures within the collective. It can be concluded that the black community is an important part of today’s society as the contemporary individual must embrace his/her culture and heritage, which is found in the unity of the collective.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-251). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-216). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2002. / Advisor: Dr. Maxine L. Montgomery, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 2, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

‘She Shall Not Be Moved’: Black Women’s Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home argues that from The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s debut novel, to her 2012 novel, Home, Morrison brings her female characters to voice, autonomy, and personal divinity through unconventional spiritual work. The project addresses the history of Black women’s activist and spiritual work, Toni Morrison’s engagement with unconventional spiritual practice, and closes with a personal interrogation of the author’s connection to Black women’s spiritual practice.

The decades following two world wars, the European Holocaust and the threat of nuclear annihilation presented American authors with an occupational dilemma: catastrophic histories call out for recognition, but any representation of them risks adding violence to violence by falsifying the account or conflating historical acts of violence with their artificial doubles. This project reimagines the political aesthetics of postmodern American fiction through two major interventions. First, I identify an aesthetic structure of apposition--a parallel relationship between abstract works of art and the everyday world that I take from William Carlos Williams--that allows me to productively resolve a tension in the aesthetics of Hannah Arendt: because representation takes mimesis as a particular end, Arendt disqualifies representational art from politics, which she defines as open-ended action between human beings and not as end-centered state-craft. At the same time, Arendt claims that art is a product of thought, the cognitive activity she associates with political action over and against fabrication. My heterodox reading of Arendt shows that appositional narratives, like political actors, perform their own self-disclosure, beginning the open-ended chain of actions and reactions that Arendt identifies as the substantial form of politics and ethics. Second, I use my revision of Arendt to demonstrate that appositional narratives act politically through the very same metafictional tropes that critics often label as escapist or solipsistic. Rather than copy historical experience, appositional narratives reject illusionary representation and present themselves as actors, inciting their readers to respond with pluralistic, provisional judgment. Taking Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison--three central but rarely-juxtaposed postmodern novelists--as case studies, I show that we cannot properly assess the political implications of postmodern fiction without understanding the specific mechanisms of narrative apposition. Appositional works stand temporarily and self-consciously in the place of the world, displacing it in the experience of their readers. This narrative strategy provides a political alternative for novelists facing the ethical crises of postmodernity. Appositional narratives displace their readers' settled beliefs and press them to exercise their human capacity for judgment. They embrace their responsibility for the world by refusing to represent it. / text

This essay focuses on the way in which three narrative devices expand upon three types of love depicted in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. The three narrative devices examined in this essay are narrator, paratext and the irony of the Breedlove family name. These devices all serve the purpose of conveying different types of love in Morrison’s novel and how these types of love affect the characters of the novel, especially the protagonist Pecola Breedlove. Narrator plays an important role because the narrative voice changes throughout the novel, shifting between Claudia MacTeer and a third-person omniscient narrator. This shifting perspective shows the reader how the types of love affect Pecola both through a child’s perspective and as well as through third-person narration. The Dick and Jane paratext contrasts the Breedlove family to white American ideals of familial love and happiness. Finally, the lack of familial love within the Breedlove family truly shows the irony of the Breedlove family name. The lack of love forces Pecola to internalize her self-hatred while the destructive, distant and judgmental relationship between Mrs. Breedlove and Pecola causes both characters to become delusional and dissatisfied with their sense of self. Friendship is the only place where Pecola finds love, shown to her by Claudia and Frieda; however, Pecola has already descended too far into madness for their love to help her. Although Pecola should find solace in the three types of love that are presented through the novel’s narrative devices, they all contribute to her disillusionment and, ultimately, her descent into madness.