Toni Morrison 托尼莫里森

Non-fictions
• Remember : The Journey to School Integration • The Black Book • Birth of a Nation'hood • What Moves at the Margin • Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power :Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality • Play in the Dark : Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
1964-a turning point of Morrison
• got married in 1958 • got divorced in 1964 and moved to New York, working as an editor. • began her writing career.
Part III. Writing features by 唐光丽
1. Powerful fictional style 2. Provocative themes 3. Sophisticated narrative techniques 4. Poetic style
Writing features
1955--1957
• became an English instructor at Texas Southern University after graduation in 1955. • returned to Howard to teach English in 1957. • became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
Tar Baby
—— A novel about contentions and conflicts based on learned biases and prejudices. These biases exist on a race level, gender level, and a class level.
Lorain, Ohio
1949--1955
• attended Howard University in 1949 • received a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) In English from Howard in 1953 • earned a Master of Arts degree from Cornell University in 1955
• 1977 American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award • 1987-88 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award • 1988 American Book Award for Beloved
• 1988 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations for Beloved
Writing features
2. Provocative themes
A. Strong feeling of feminist consciousness and nationalism. eg, the bluest eye Sula Beloved B. Describe mainly the impression of black women who are oppressed by race and gender. eg, the protagonist of beloved Sethe
Writing Career
• The Bluest Eye (1970) •Sula (1974) • Song of Solomon (1977) • Tar Baby (1981) • Beloved (1987) • Jazz (1992) • Paradise (1999) • Love (2003) • A Mercy (2008)
Later Life
• In 1984, she was appointed to an Albert Schweitzer chair. • From 1989—2006, she held the Rober F.Goheen Chair at Princeton University. • In June 2005, she was awarded as an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
1993
• In 1993, Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. ——“Toni Morrison, who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic inport, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”
Part I. Biography Part II. Major Works and Awards Part III. Writing Features
Part IV. A Brief Analysis of Beloved
Part I. Biograph of Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison (1931— )
The Bluest Eye
——A novel based on
elements of Morrison‟s own experience, contrasts two black families: the dysfunctional(不正常的) breedloves and the healthy, loving McTeers.
1.Powerful fictional style
In beloved, Paul D, fellow slave from Kentucky comes to live with them. She eventually takes over the household, feeding on Sethe's memories and explanations to gain strength. Beloved nearly destroyed her mother until the community of former slave women who have ostracized Sethe and Denver since the murder join together to exorcise Beloved at last.
Awards
•1994 Rhegium Julii Prize for Literature
•1996 Jefferson Lecture
•1996 National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters •2000 National Humanities Medal UUA:Frederic G. Melcher Book Award
Beloved
Morrison„s best novel and won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction（ 普利策小 说奖）.
Awards
• 1977 National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon
Part II. Major Works and Awards
Novels
• • • • • • • • • 1970 1973 1977 1981 1988 1992 1999 1993 2008 The Bluest Eye 《最蓝的眼睛》 Sula 《秀拉》 Song of Solomon 《所罗门之歌》 Tar Baby 《柏油孩子》、《黑宝贝》 Beloved《 宠儿》 Jazz 《爵士乐》 Paradise《天堂》、《乐园》 Love 《爱》 A Mercy《恩惠》
Other works
Children's literature
•The Book of Mean People (2002) •The Big Box (1999) •Dreaming of Emmett (1986)
Plays
Libretto(歌剧脚本)
•Margaret Garner (first performed May 2005)
Sula
Sula portrays two black women who choose 源自文库ifferent paths in life.
Song of Solomon
• Flight as a Means of Escape • Abandoned Women • The Alienating Effects of Racism
1955--1957
• became an English instructor at Texas Southern University after graduation in 1955. • returned to Howard to teach English in 1957. • became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
Writing features
In her novel the bluest eye and Sula, Morrison expesses his strong feeling of feminist consciousness and nationalism; meanwhile, its also reveal the distort character of black people, for example, Pecola in the bluest eye surmised that the reason she was abused at home and ridiculed at school was her black skin, which was equated with ugliness. She imagined that everything would be all right if she had blue eyes and blond hair.
Awards
• 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Beloved •1989 MLA Commonwealth Award in Literature
•1993 Nobel Prize for Literature
•1993 Commander of the Arts and Letters, Paris •1994 Condorcet Medal, Paris •1994 Pearl Buck Award
Toni Morrison’s Time Table
1931 1953 1957 1964 1973 1987 1996
1949
1955
1958
1970
1977
1993
Toni Morrison
• born February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio • grandfather was born a slave • her family lost their land and were forced to work in the mines and mills of the industrialized North
1996
• The National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture.
• “Time, it seems, has no future.”
• be honored with the 1996 National Book Foundation‟s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.