Toni Morrison Post Colonial Feminism

Toni Morrison Post Colonial FeminismThe write is of the view that third wave feminism which includes shocking feminism is a speaking back to the pureness westernerns. The African American authors by writing back to the ideologies set by the colonizers did well in their kit and boodle of fiction.Toni Morrison, an African American reinvigoratedist in her novels did a wonderful job of writing back. The present author defined jump of all the judgments of culture and imperialism discussing the c angiotensin converting enzyme timeopt of Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha and many a(prenominal) separate intellectuals who strove with child(p) to produce marvelous works of criticism in which they pointed out the ideologies structured by the West. Gayatri Spiviks Subalterns study is too discussed. and applied to Morrisons selected works of literature.The author pointed a few rouge point of postcolonial feminism and tried to show them in Toni Morrisons novels in range to prove his agen da that Morrison is a really a atomic number 82 figure whose works show Feminist Postcolonial Approach.Fore Word -A Writing back by an Afrcian childI want to begin my paper with a poem which was written by an African child, and was nominated for the Best Poem of 2008. The title of the poem is Color which is a speak back attitude to the albumenWhen I born, I bootlegWhen I grow up, I cuttingWhen I go in sun, I blackWhen I sc atomic number 18d, I blackWhen I sick, I blackAnd when I die, I blackAnd you etiolate fellowsWhen you born, you pink,When you grow up, you unclouded,When you go in sun, you red,When you cold, you sacrilegiousWhen you sc ard, you yellowWhen you sick, you greenWhen you die, you greyAnd you distinguish me coloured.Ch sharper One IntroductionThe present paper is an analysis of colonialism, imperialism, feminism, and postcolonial feminism. Postcolonial feminism is also called as tierce introduction Feminism or morose Feminism. The author first of all explai ns the idea of colonialism according to the Professor Edward Said that he discussed in his work Colonialism and Imperialism in which Said defines the colonialism and imperialism. Said gives in detail the ideology of the West how they structured the binaries oppositions and gave the concept of Orientalism by suggesting the idea of educating the rude(a)(prenominal)s. Homi K. Bhabha gives the concept of hybridity and Gayatari Spivik s famous work of Subaltern can speak are discussed in the following investigate paper.The author also explained the key points of postcolonial feminism in this paper and then with the reference of different writers discussed Toni Morrisons novels in the light of these salient features of postcolonial feminism.First of all the author analyzed Toni Morrisons novel The Bluest Eyes and showed the elements of postcolonial feminism draw, cozy practice , and identity in this novel. The author is of the view that Pecolas wish to fill Blue look is an escape from racial discrimination and to wipe out all ug bank notess not only from her community only when from all the world.The next novel that is analyzed is Sula in which once again the author tried to show the salient features of postcolonial feminism that is to speak back or showing the importance of female characters in the form of Sula and other female characters. The author from the original text proved that the white folk in fact brought all the blackness.The third novel which is discussed with reference to the postcolonial feminism is The high-priced, in which the key concept of postcolonial feminism is discussed is mother-daughter dealinghip and idea of mothering which is discussed with the reference of Morrisons theory of Mothering taken from her interviews is discussed.Finally the author concludes the paper in which he gives his finding intimately Toni Morrison and her novels that her works are true representative of postcolonial feminism.Chapter Two Colonialism and Po stcolonial ExplainedPROFESSOR SAID says that his aim is to set works of cunning of the imperialist and post-colonial eras into their apartal context. My method is to boil down as much as possible on individual works, to read them first as great products of the creative and interpretive imagination, and then to show them as part of the alliance in the midst ofcultureand empire.(Said, 22)If we observe the basic theory behind the postcolonial feminism we will come to the point that this theory itself is back up by the theories of psychoanalysis, Marxist-feminism and post-colonialism. In this paper I am going to trace out the Feminist Postcolonial Approach in Toni Morrisons novels. The author is of the view that Toni Morrison existence an African American writer focused her work on the above mentioned approach.Before we progress it is necessary to go through the briny idea and the main points which are the gritrock of the postcolonial feminist approach and before that we ener gise to discuss in detail the features of colonialism, post-colonialism and feminism.If we try to find out the roots of Postcolonialism we will come to the point that postcolonialism is in particular a postmodern intellectual discourse consisting re attains to and analysis of cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. In anthropology it can be defined as the relations between nations and areas being colonized and ruled. It comprises a set of theories that are found amongst history, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, film, political science, architecture, human geography, sociology, Marxist theory, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature.To destabilizing occidental ways of thinking in order to create station for the subaltern, or marginalized groups, to express and produce substitutes to overriding discourse is the critical nature of postcolonial theory. Often postcolonialism as a term is taken to guess just a time span after colonialism. This thing creates a problem because the once colonized world is full of contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of hybridity, and liminal ties. In order expressions, it is suggested that the word postcolonialism has plural nature as it does not simply refer to the period after the colonial ear.The goal of a theorist is to find out the balance wheel effects of colonialism on cultures and hence the main objectives of such theorists are to account for and combating these effects on the cultures. It does not simply mean to find out the historic aspects of these areas save it also comprises how these areas can move beyond this period together, towards a place of reciprocal respect.The main objective of these theorist is make clearing distance for the multiple gos of these areas and these were the voices which were previously silenced by the dominant ideologies-subalterns and among these discourses as is recognized this blank shell should be cleared within the academia. In his book Orientalism, Edward Said explained really clearly that scholars who studied what used to be called the Orient (mostly Asia) totally overlooked the assessments of those they actually studied while preferring instead to rely on the intellectual favourable position of themselves and their peers which was the approach forged by the European imperialism.It is recognized by many of the post-colonial thinkers that t present are many assumptions which are underlying the logic of colonialism and these are the forces which are active today. This is also argued by many of the thinkers that studying both the knowledge sets of the dominant groups and those who are marginalized as binary opposites maintains their presence as homogenous objects. Homi K. Bhabha thus emphasized his agenda that only hybridity can offer the most profound challenge to colonialism. He thinks that the postcolonial world should valorize spaces of mingling spaces where fact and legitimacy move digression for am biguity. (Bhabha, 1994). What is left by Bhabha is offered by Spivaks as the agenda of usefulness of essentialism.Chapter ThreeAfrican American Studies and PostcolonialismA Need To Talk BackColonial racialism is no different from any other racial discrimination. says Frantz Fanon and if we compare African American Studies and postcolonial studies we will come to know that though they belong to different fields but they share a lot concerning a goal of destabilizing racial hierarchies and debates concerning the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is exactly the same as that of between master and slaves in a bondage. Even within the United States and other area which are known as postcolonies we find the current reality of discrimination and racialism towards minorities or populations of minority joins these two studies together through neocolonialism.Precarious of current American educational policy, a prominent black feminist Bell maulers states, I believe that bla ck experience has been and continues to be one of internal colonialism (148). The necessity to decolonize the attitude of present-day America fuels existing efforts in take and convalescing minority history and literature. Hazel Carby in her Reconstructing Womanhood The Emergence of Afro-American Woman Novelist points New sociological and literary approaches to history become beneficial methods for reclaiming the past and imitating culturally sensitive paradigms for the futureCritics like Henry Louis Gates, Barbara Christian, Ella Shohat and Homi K. Bhabha are associated through a need to talk back.Another key question in postcolonial feminism is who speaks for whom and whose voices are heard in discussions of trine World womens issues. The lack of voice given to Third World women remains a problem as does the failure of Western women to problematise the role of the West in the issues discussed. The question of voice was raised by Gayatri Spivak in her influential essay Can the Su baltern Speak? (1988) in which she analyses the relations between the discourses of the West and the possibility of speaking of (or for) the subaltern woman (Spivak 271).Race and Multiculturalism in Academia Writing BackToni Morrison, Marlene van Niekerk, and Anthony Appiah are considered to be the frame World voices in the PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL 2010. The issues such as representation, nationalism and essentialism are fleshed out from African American Studies and Postcolonial studies and hence literature and literary theory under the core of these disciplines become sources of for such sociable commentary. Nation-making and redefinition of nation, along-with the obscuring between public and secluded spaces are among common subjects, critics in both fields are fast to point to the hazards of hurriedly discharging this literary work as political.Gates writes of a need to dissipate the myth of supposed primacy of Western tradition over the so-called non-canonical tradition such a s that of the Afro-American. E supererogatoryly cognizant of the dangers of essentialism in his book The Signifying Monkey, Gates studies the need to create a new narrative space for representing the recurring referent of Afro-American literature, the so-called Black Emperience( Gates ,111).Similarly, critical of essentialism , Homi Bhabha, a projecting Cultural Studies and Postcolonial critic, connects the two fields together as he remarks The intervention of postcolonial or black critique is aimed at transforming the conditions of enunciation at the level of the signnot simply setting up new symbols of identity, new positive images that fuel an unreflective identity politics(Bhabha, 247)Bhabha and Toni MorrisonBhabha even conducts a detail reading of Toni Morrisons Beloved in the introduction of The Location of Culture. Scholarship does indeed hatch in stimulating ways between these two fields. Much in the same way Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark examines and counts the ways i n which white selfhood in literary America is further established by actualizing black occurrence.Edward Saids Orientalism look to to show that European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self(Said,3)GenderThe juncture of race, ethnicity and gender politics has shaped dispute debates in the works of Bell Hooks, Barbara Christian, and Shirley Anne Williams as well as in the work of Gayatri Spivak and Chandra T. Mohanty. Patriarchy often becomes a symbol, a trope of power injustice and the offender for the ills of colonialism and neocolonialism. Bell Hooks states in Outlaw Culture, For contemporary critics to condemn the imperialism of the white colonizer without critiquing partriarchy is a tactic that seeks to minimize the particular ways gender determines the specific forms oppressions may take within a specific group(Hooks, 203) in that location is also a risk of totalizing along with this inter instalment. Barbara Christian in Race for surmisal that worrys against essentialist constructions of black womanhood, equates the dangers of an excessively rigid black feminism to the colossal, monotheistic Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Chardra Mohantly needs against the same essentializing exercise in the outgrowth discourse on Third World feminism. Negotiations of class are similarly called for in both fields of study. Remarkably, Hooks remarks upon what she sees as an ignored problem in cross-cultural feminist discussion in Yearning Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. She states, We often forget that many Third World nationals bring to this country the same contour of contempt and disrespect for blackness that is most frequently associated with white imperialism. (Hooks, 93)Chapter Four Postcolonial Feminism and Black feminismPostcolonial Feminism is also called as Third World Feminism which is a form of feminist philosophy and is concerned to the highest degree the idea that colonialism, racism and long lasting effects of colonialism in the postcolonial settings, are take form up with the unique gendered realities of non-white and non-Western women. Postcolonialism criticizes Western feminists as they have a history of universalizing womens issues, and their discourses are often misunderstood to represent women world-widely.Black Feminismargues that sexism, class oppression, and racismare inextricably bound together.The way these relate to each other is called intersectionality. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism andclassoppression but ignore race can discriminate against many people, including women, through racial bias. The Combahee River Collectiveargued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression.(Wikipedia)Postcolonialism gives the idea that the term woman is used as a universal group and that they are only descr ibed by their gender and not by well-disposed classes and ethnic identities. It is also believed that the mainstream Western feminists ignored the voices of non-white, non-western women for many years, thus creating resentment feminists in developing nations.Postcolonialism involves the descriptions of many experiences endured during colonialism which include migration, resistance, slavery, difference, gender, race, place, representation, suppression, and responses to the influential discourses of imperial Europe. Postcolonial feminists observe the parallels between recently decolonized nations and the state of women within patriarchy-both take the perspective of a socially marginalized subgroup in their relationship to the dominant culture.Postcolonial feminist have had strong ties with black feminists because colonialism ordinarily contains themes of racism. Both groups have struggled for recognition, not only by me in their own culture, but also by Western.(Wikipedia).Thus it c an be said that Postcolonialism discusses the issues of the women of those areas which were once the colonies of the West and it lumps up together all the women of the world. Feminism raises this agenda that all the women of the world have their own special identity and they should be regarded as self-sufficient personality apart from their sex and sexuality but postcolonial feminist also see that the fate of non-white and non-western women is different from the women of the west as theses non-white and non-western women are not enjoying the rights as the women of mainstream are enjoying .Postcolonial feminist approach gives rights of raising their voices which were once silenced by the colonizers.It can be inferred that as women were doubly colonized in the era of colony by their own male members of the society, and these non-white and non-western women were thrice colonized as they were considered less than the white women.(Web)Chapter FivePostcolonial Feminist Approach in Toni Morrisons NovelsLarry Schwartz in his essay compares Toni Morrisons art of writing with William Faulkners art of writing although in her interview Toni Morrison claimed that she is not like Faulkner but the deep study of her novels prove this fact.Toni Morrison being an African American writer is considered to be one of the renowned postcolonial feminist writers who touched the very idea of raising voice of repressed group of the black women. Her novels Belovedis considered by many to be her most impressive work of literature to date (winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1988), she has also written many award-winning novels includingThe Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Jazz, Tar Baby,andParadise. resemblingBeloved, most of Morrisons work deals with the struggles of African Americans, especially women (web).The Bluest Eye (1970)Toni Morrison in her novel The Bluest Eye highlights the idea of racism. In the colonial period the legacies of colonialism were consistently bound with racism. I n this novel Morrison very clearly depicts the effects of the legacy of 19th century classical racism for despicable black people in the United States.In the novel the daughter of a poor black family, Pecola Breddlove, internalizes white standards of beauty to the extent that she become crazy about it and bore a wish to have blue eye. The idea is very clear that binary oppositions structured by the Western blanched class concerning the beauty and ugliness are still at work. Even today we people think to be white is the standard of beauty. In the binary oppositions like man/woman, white/back, Occidental/Oriental, Rich/poor and such like those all the elements on the left of the bar are considered to be the supreme while the elements on the right are marginalized or rendered as Others. Pecola is seen so influenced by these binaries that she tries to escape from this so called or structured ugliness of her own society or race of colour. Her ardent wish for blue eyes comes to stand fo r her wish to escape the racist, unloving, poor environment in which she lives. For a long time mainstream white Western feminism paid negligible attention to the problem of race.Racism was considered secondary to patriarchy and had been one of the biggest problems of the non-white women. Many white women were of the claim that they did not see dissimilarity or to act upon it. It took a long, hard scuffle by black women to have racism included on the feminist agenda. One of the most moving and influential critiques of white satisfaction came in 1980 from the radical black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde By and large within the womens movement today, white women focus upon their oppression as women and ignore difference of race, sexual preference, class and age. There is a pretense to a homogeneity of experience covered by the word sisterhood that does not in fact exist(Lorde, 116)Morrison in the novel tries to explain why Pacola cute to have blue eyes, let us see the following lines w hich are taken from Chapter3of the Autumn sectionIt had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the opinions, and knew the sights-if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be differentHere the narrator tells about Pecola not only wanted to have blue eyes to look beautiful but in fact it was her thinking that with blue eyes every(prenominal)thing will also change. These blue eye speak about her wish to have liberty not from ugliness of blackness but the ugliness of the dark thoughts and her desires to bring in a change in her black society.Toni Morrison is of the view that beauty and ugliness are the matters of seeing and to be seen and both are linked with eyes. It is a famous saying When you look with loving eyes all the world looks lovely. The same idea is discussed in The Bluest Eyes where Pecola wants to look everything beautiful and to be looked beautifully. Her own community that was colonized are not colonizing Pecola imputable to her blackness though her internal portion was not black as she totally internalized whiteness. The idea is also seen in the look of Darkness where the symbols of black and white colours depict Conrads point of inward blackness and whiteness. Morrison uses the same technique by showing Pecolas internalizing whiteness.Here it is also clear that solid propensity of white women to disrespect racism was an effect of white privilege- a point women of colour were forced to make repeatedlyAs Third World women we clearly have a different relationship to racism than white women, but all of us are born into an environment where racism exists. Racism affects all of our lives, but it is only white women who can afford to remain oblivious to these effects. The rest of us have had it breathing or bleeding down our necks. (Moraga and Anzalda 1981 62)There is another key factor of postcolonial feminism in the novel as Pecola is raped by her own father who did all this in the result of that abjection that he suffered when he was having sex first time and was humiliated by two white men. Thus patriarchy is seen in this violence which is done to Pecola as she is colonized by her own father. Pecolas rape is the depiction of destruction of cultural identity of the Black community.Similarly, the seeds of marigold which did not bloom is also a depiction of village as their own soil did not permit those seeds to bloom as was commented by Claudia, Frieda and hence Pecola which is also a proof of ineligibility of their own black community. Pecola is a hope of decolonization as she wanted to be heard, to be seen beautiful and her illegitimate progeny is a symbol of her wish which was not allowed to be born.Toni Morrison here wants to depict that Black society was week at that as they did not allow Pecola to flourish and this thing compares the novel with Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart where Okonko was not supported by his own clan. All what is done with Pecola is true picture of Black feminism.Sula (1974)In the present novel the female characters are the embodiments of the matriarchal authorized of women. The novel depicts the social problems that were and are present in the society. Morrison tries to depict that these female characters attenuate the male characters. Eva, Helene, Hannah and Sula all represent such figures which are the control forces which precede the plot of the novel.Morrison wants to show that all the members of the society are the important ingredients who add flavor to the society. All the female characters are made central in the novel hence this novel proves to be a pure example of novels of postcolonial feminist novel.According to the post colonial theory the female part must speak back to the so called norms which are carved out by the males. The novel gives an exact example of subaltern can speak as the main character Sula is the symbol of such a person who being a female has power to chose her own wa y of living as she went away and comes back and proves herself such a person which is needed by the society.The novel shows that all the female characters of the novel are so important part of the Black community and their existence is necessary for bonding the society together. Sula also maintains the interdependence and closeness of the society with its members.Sula will open your eyes to social problems which exist in the present day. The women in the book such as Eva, Helene, Sula and Hannah represent the matriarchal authoritative women, weakening the male characters. Women drive the action in the story and give their importance in the family. They present their importance in the Black community and their existence in bonding it together.Morrison also shows in the novel the dying of blackness when Sula saysYou think I dont know what your liveness is like just because I aint living it? I know what every colored woman in this country is doing.Whats that?Dying., Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, Im going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.(143)These words spoken by Sula on her deathbed which she expressed to Nes her thoughts concerning her thoughts about the life styles that was accepted and the positions of women in Medallion. The line speaks dying old system.Sula also establishes the closeness and interdependence of the community with its members. The novels shows that each and every member is just like a spice that gives special flavor and odour to the community and which is essential for the society. In Sula all the characters including Shadrack and the Deweys give every individual importance in the community.Thus Sula proves to be full of such evidences which proves that there are elements of third world feminism in the novel as Suals actions are the alternates of her voices which were silenced before.Chris Weedon in her article depict Issues in Postcolonial Feminism A Western Perspective write s that in 1984 Black American feminist Barbara Smith spoke of being part of a Third World feminist movement And not only am I talking about my sisters here in the United States-American Indian, Latina, Asian American, Arab American-I am also talking about women all over the globethird World Feminism has enriched not just the women it apples to, but also political practice in general(Smith27). Thus the Third World Feminism is giving all the women especially the Black ones power and confidence to speak and now they are not silenced as were before.(Weedon).The Beloved (1987) The depiction of Morrisons theory of African American mothering articulate in her novels, essays and interviewsMothering is considered to be one of several key points of ideas of postcolonial feminism which is highlight in the present novel The Beloved. The novels is set after theAmerican Civil War(1861-1865), it is inspired by the story of an African-Americanslave,Margaret Garner, who temporarily escaped slavery during 1856 in Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, afree state. A posse arrived to retrieve her and her children under theFugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave owners the right to pursue slaves across state borders. Margaret killed her two-year-old daughter alternatively than allow her to be recaptured. (Wikipedia).In the novel Sethe in an attempt to save her children from slavery slaughters her eldest daughter and it is assumed in the novel that her daughter rejoinder as a ghost named Beloved because the same word was inscribed on the head stone of her grave. The novel depict the mother daughter relationship which is the one of the central key points of postcolonial feminism.The maternal bonds between Sethe and her children inhibit her own individuation and prevent the development of her self. Sethe develops a dangerous maternal passion that results in the murder of one daughter, her own best self, and the estrangement of the surviving daughter from the black community, both in a n attempt to salvage her fantasy of the future, her children, from a life in slavery. However, Sethe fails to recognize her daughter Denvers need for interaction with this community in order to enter into womanhood. Denver finally succeeds at the end of the novel in establishing her own self and embarking on her individuation with the help of Beloved. Contrary to Denver, Sethe only becomes individuated after Beloveds exorcism, at which point Sethe can fully accept the first relationship that is completely for her, her relationship with Paul D. This relationship relieves Sethe from the ensuing destruction of herself that resulted from the maternal bonds controlling her life.( Demetrakopoulos, pp. 51-59)Motherhood , in Morrisons view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and built-in to black womens fight against racism and sexism and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of motheri ng are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues OReilly, is Morrisons maternal theory-a politics of the heart.(OReilly)In spite of the mothering, the novel also depicts the theme of slavery and its havoc which is seen as destruction of identity. It also shows the importance of language and community solidarity.Toni Morrison also depicts the blackness hidden under the white skins of the White people which is evident from the following line taken from Chapter 19, at the beginning of Part II,White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their confection white blood. In a way . . . they were right. . . . But it wasnt the jungle blacks brought with them to this place. . . . It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread . . . until it invaded the whites who had made it. . . . Made them b loody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin the red gums were their own.Stamp Paid here consider the ways in which slavery in fact corrupts the identity and he it was the jungle whitefolk planted in them. And it grew and spread. The idea is very clear as is evident in Heart of Darkness where Joseph Conrad tried to say the same thing that the white were black from within and the same idea we find in Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare where Portias picture was in Lead, a black material, and in Othelo , Iago was white from without and was black from within. Here Morrison tells the same thing that only white fellows were in fact black from within. It is an apt writing back to the White colonizers which is a salient feature of postcolonial feminist writing.ConclusionIt is evident from the above going discussion that Toni Morrisons works are ground on the postcolonial feminism in wh ich she very skillfully highlighted the idea of gender, race, sex and identity and similarly she also highlights the concepts of talking back and making a space among white feminism. As the mainstream white feminism at first could not give proper position to non-white and non-Western women , black feminism became able to raise their voice and were able to even write back and hence succeeded in making their own identity.Toni Morrison hence secures a very apt position among the postcolonial feminist who helped these thrice colonized black women to stand up for making their own identity.The above mentioned three novels also show the death of the protagonist. The death in also a theme of Toni Morrisons novels which is also meaningful as the slavery is the destruction of identity which is depicted by death of the characters.The above discussed novels cover show many key points of postcolonial feminism.