Toni Morrison, b. 1931 (photo from theguardianuk.com)
Chloe Anthony Wofford (now Toni Morrison) was born in February of 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Hers was a large family headed by devoted and hard-working parents who had moved the family from the South to Ohio to escape the pervasive racism and discrimination there. With them, they brought "the traditions of song and storytelling"--thereby introducing their daughter to a rich cultural heritage that would become the basis of much of Morrison's fiction (Gates 2211).
Intellectually precocious, Morrison began reading at an early age, and her tastes ranged across national and generic boundaries: She was drawn to the work of Jane Austen, Gustav Flaubert, Tolstoy and Dostoyevski (1). She would become the first member of her family to attend college. As Gates relates, the students there could not pronounce her name, so she elected to go by "Toni."
The first African American novelist to receive the Nobel Prize for literature, Morrison's work has spanned across specific genres; however, it is the novel where she finds her niche. There she draws from the rich history of African American folkways to examine her characters' lives and reactions to a history of struggle. Many of Morrison's protagonists suffer through a trial of disconnection and fragmentation; it is the community that rescues the protagonist finally from self-destruction. Gates observes Morrison's fiction is "[r]ooted in the history and culture of African Americans, her novels evoke a past that is scarred by the violence both of slavery and its long aftermath and redeemed by the power of love and the grace of laughter" (2210). Community and a binding heritage serve to restore Morrison's fictive characters.
Perhaps equal to her literary contribution to American arts and letters is Morrison's philosophy concerning her work, and the role of the Artist.
Gates observes Morrison's commentary on her goal as a writer of the novel, her chosen format:
"[Morrison does not] regard Black literature as simply books by black people, or simply as literature written about Black people or simply as literature that uses a certain mode of language in which you sort of drop g's. There is something very identifiable about it and it is my struggle to find that elusive but identifiable style in the books" (qtd. in Gates 2210).
And as Morrison outlines her struggle to capture that elusive style of representation, in her essay "Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation," the author examines the purpose of the African American artist and her relationship to community. This generative essay encapsulates much of the theory and purpose of the African American female contemporary writer who, as she writes, moves forward into the future undauntedly; however, she does so with an eye firmly trained on the past and those who have written before her. Morrison's essay is among the first to address an inclusive theory concerning the aesthetic and chief characteristics of African American literature, as well as the mission of the individual artist. She raises some significant points for our consideration, especially as one recalls the circumstances of the black writer as both representative of himself--or herself; and of the community. What difficulties or challenges do you imagine an author might face when attempting to voice both herself, and others within her community?
"There must have been a time when an artist could have a tribal or racial sensibility and an individual expression of it (2287)"
"It should be beautiful, and powerful, but it should also work. It should have something in it that opens the door and points the way. Something in it that suggests what the conflicts are, what the problems are. But it need not solve those problems because it is not a case study, it is not a recipe (2287)"
"I don't like to find my books condemned as bad or praised as good, when that condemnation or praise is based on criteria from other paradigms. I would much prefer that they were dismissed or embraced based on the success of their accomplishment within the culture out of which I write" (2288).
Morrison' new novel, God Help the Child extends the author's dialogue concerning race and beauty in America. The Guardian has this article featuring the 84-year-old novelist discussing her newest publication.
