It is safe to say that Toni Morrison is undoubtedly one of the best authors of our time. Novel after novel has proved to be not just a best seller but has continued to challenge societies norms and pillars. With her stellar ability to tell stories, she has time after time enthralled her readers with her repertoire of techniques like her epistolary form of writing, use of Bakhtinian principles among others.
According to the Paris Review, Toni Morrison detests being called a poetic writer because she seems to think it marginalizes her and denies her story the power and resonance. And this is indeed true, her writing possesses an unconventional depth that is rarely seen in anyone. Her ability to provide bits and pieces of each story through multiple narratives is another thing that separates her from other storytellers and makes her a class apart.
Her novels are predominantly about the marginalization that black people had to face in the United States. This article will largely focus on to novels in particular, Beloved, published in 1987 and Home, published in 2012. While Beloved is a postcolonial novel written in a time where slavery was legal in half of the United States, Home is a post-war novel written about a war veteran and his survival after he returns for war.
Toni Morrison's novels are characterized by her protagonists, and Beloved is about a marginalized woman, Sethe. Sethe escapes a slave owner, and the novel surrounds her and her actions of killing her child to prevent her from going into slavery. While this act may seem brutal, the novel is about justifying the act, and this is done through Sethe's eyes. Morrison writes about how Sethe comes to terms with her own acts and leads her life after killing her daughter, Beloved.
She uses vivid imagery, and a gothic element in order to show her readers the effect that slavery had on the lives of black people. Beloved is a powerful novel that speaks about slavery, and in this novel, Morrison uses the perspectives of various characters to explore the character of Sethe, a technique that is recurrently seen in her other novel Home, as well.
Home is set around the story of Frank, a war veteran who blames himself for the death of his friends during the Korean War. Although the war was integrated, the society that Frank is forced to come back to is segregated, and the novel talks about how Frank makes his way through this society as he deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In this novel, the powerful storytelling that Morrison employs is vivid and gripping. Readers have to find out what happens.
In both these novels, Toni Morrison's techniques make it difficult for a reader to put the book down. Her psycho-narrative exploration of the characters is also significant, as readers are given an insight into the characters feelings and emotions. Toni Morrison, in her novels, uses numerous techniques, and these not just make her books a must read but also a wonderful learning process. Her characters are very much like the philosopher Michael Bakhtian said characters should be.
She uses the technique of dialogism, ensuring that her characters transmit their own voices and opinions ensuring that the narrator isn't omnipresent and telling the readers what they need to know. This ensures that we learn about the characters on our own and understand them and their actions at our own pace.
All in all, Toni Morrisons novel showcases her powerful writing as well as storytelling style, and her novels are a must read. The next time you're contemplating reading a novel, make sure to pick up one of her books, you won't be disappointed.
