1Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Science, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Email id: kunumahapatra1995@gmail.com
2Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Science, ITER, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Email id: sthitaprajna@soa.ac.in2
Online published on 19 October, 2022.
This paperanalyses Toni Morrison's attempts in three of her novels, The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), and Song of Solomon (1975), to define the activities of the black community (1977). Toni Morrison's works have often portrayed black people from the perspective of a powerful white community and its values. The Bluest Eye incidents occur in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison's birthplace. In this book, the black town of Lorain is kept far away from the upper-class white community of Lake Shore Park, which is likewise regarded as a place where black people are not allowed. Sula takes place in a small Ohio town called Bottom, named for its location at the base of a hill. The captivating black community of Song of Solomon is its own creature, apart from but never far distant from the white society. The novel's opening chapters explain "Not Doctor Street" and "No Mercy Hospital." Both Mains Avenue and Mercy Hospital are commonly utilized by African Americans but are not officially acknowledged by the white city authorities. In a sense, Song of Solomon takes place in a made-up city somewhere in the United States, possibly in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. The study shows that white neighbourhoods are constantly situated next to black ones, serving as a benchmark and a tool for oppressing and exploiting the black population.Since Morrison is a black writer, this comparison is essentially a search for self—that occurs repeatedly in her works.
Black Community, White Community, Novels, Toni Morrison