International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET)

Volume 11, Issue 12, December 2020, pp. 3489-3492, Article ID: IJARET_11_12_328
Available online at https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJARET?Volume=11&Issue=12
ISSN Print: 0976-6480 and ISSN Online: 0976-6499
https://doi.org/10.34218/IJARET.11.12.2020.328

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

PREDICAMENT OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE

SELECT NOVELS OF TONI MORRISON
Dr. D. Kausalya
Associate Professor of English, (UA),
PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

Dr. Reshmi K
Assistant Professor of English (UA),
PSG College of Arts & Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT
Toni Morrison deals with themes of love, friendship, beauty, ugliness and death.
Her heroines as well as heroes struggle to understand aspects of the human conditions,
both good and evil. Like Alice Walker, Paul Marshall, Toni Bambara and others, she
also has contributed her best to uplift these Blacks. She is no doubt a writer with
commitment as the problems highlighted in her novels make the wide audience think
and find a solution. This article – Predicament of Black women in the Select Novels of
Toni Morrison – attempts to show how Morrison has artistically expressed these
problems in each of her work
Key words: marginalized, African – American, feminist consciousness, oppressed,
Euro-centred, inequality
Cite this Article: D. Kausalya and Reshmi K, Predicament of Black Women in the
Select Novels of Toni Morrison, International Journal of Advanced Research in
Engineering and Technology (IJARET), 11(12), 2020, pp. 3489-3492.
https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJARET?Volume=11&Issue=12

1. INTRODUCTION
Toni Morrison has brought to limelight various problems of the Blacks through her series of
masterpieces. These Blacks are members of the marginalized community, and they are people
who lack social, spiritual, psychological, historical and geographical place or centre. As pointed
out earlier, the problems of these Blacks are many, and Morrison has artistically expressed these
problems in each of her work.

2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In fact, Morrison incorporates Black men into the framework of her family with a view to render
justice to the Black race. It is very clear that she confined not merely to the issues of improving
the lot of the Black Americans, but is concerned with mankind in general.

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 D. Kausalya and Reshmi K

Toni Morrison dealt with various themes like the feminist consciousness, racial
consciousness, theme of alienation and repression and the quest of self and identity. The
feminist consciousness in the novels of Toni Morrison need special attention, as in almost all
her novels the protagonists are women.
Toni Morrison was quite aware of this distinction and her feminist – consciousness is
different from the feminist consciousness of others, especially of White women. Being an
African – American writer, Toni Morrison has projected African – American feminist
consciousness in her writings.
It is an apprehension that one is a victim just because one is female, poor and African –
American. African – American women have a distinct place in American life and literature.
Morrison is aware of this position of Black women, and thus, through her works, has projected the
different dimensions of Black women.
In the case of White women, they have support and can lean back upon. Morrison claims
that a Black woman's predicament is worse than that of White women, as she has nothing to
lean back "not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound
desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself" (Indian Journal, 35).
To Morrison, a Black woman is a feminist, if she takes the initiative to trust herself, accept
herself and her self-confidence as it is futile to expect love and affection from the people of the
new world.
A Black woman must love herself. She, having been a victim of American society, should
try to live up to the standard that she wants to create for herself. The ability to develop a positive
self-image is what Morrison expects in a Black woman and that is what she terms as African –
American feminist consciousness. Black women are alienated from the White patriarchical
society including their husbands as they are coloured and female, and so considered as inferior
to others.
A Black woman is a feminist, if she tries to liberate herself, though at a painful cost from
the most immoral and unjust world where justice and self-respect could not be restored.
Morrison wants Black women to be self-dependent and asserts that they have the potentiality
to be so. It is also essential to include in this study the definition of marginality as the Blacks
are considered as the members of the marginalized community.
Morrison is quite aware of the fact that Black women, unlike others, are suppressed to a
great extent in a White – dominant society. Through the victimization of Pecola and Geraldine
of The Bluest Eye and Nel of Sula, she advocates Black women to respect their own self. She
asserts the importance of self-esteem of an individual as it is self-esteem alone that helps the
individual to withstand. Black women, especially, have to transcend beyond the dictating terms
of the White society as well as her own community. These oppressed women, Morrison claims,
have immense power in them and it is pitiable that they themselves are unaware of their own
potentialities.
The social history found in her novels is a history of day-to-day inescapable assault by a
world which denies minimum dignity to the Blacks. The Bluest Eye deals honestly and
sensitively with the damaging influence of White standards and values on the lives of the Black
people.
Unaware of their own potentialities and power, most of the black women blindly run after
the destructive message of the White world and meet their ends like Pecola. Her immense praise
for Black women in general finds its place in one of the passages in The Bluest Eye :
Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. While women said, "Do this",
White children said, "Give me that", White men said "Come here", Black men said, "Lay
down". The only people they need not take orders. But they took all that … when White men

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 Predicament of Black women in the Select Novels of Toni Morrison

beat their men, they cleaned up the blood and went home to receive abuse from the victim (The
Bluest Eye, 108).
These women, as a result, have to lose their identity. Like Claudia, Freida and Pilate should
assert their self. Morrison also points out the artificiality in the White dominant culture.
Geraldine blindly follows these dictating terms of artificial culture and loses herself, whereas
Pilate, Claudia and Freida always had a critical stance towards this artificial culture.
In her novel Sula, Eva Peace, Sula and Hannah Peace, on the other hand, oppose the
patriarchal order of the society. The patriarchal orders, as Morrison highlights, also exists in the
Black community. They expected women to be subservient to men, despite all the humiliations.
The Black community, actually under the pressure of White hegemony for a long time, are kept
away from the responsibilities of Black man and Black woman.
Her novels show us how the condition of enslavement in the external world has deep
repercussions in the individual's internal world. These internal resonances are so profound that
one is supposed to do things which are unnatural.
A Black man and a Black woman in their ancestral home Africa usually shared the
responsibilities, but unaware of their real customs and tradition of Africa, they (Black men)
became male Chauvinists. But Morrison proves the independent nature of a Black woman
through Eva Peace and Sula.
One of the most prominent problems of those oppressed class is their Black consciousness.
Every now and then they are made conscious of their colour by the White dominant society.
Morrison condemns the attitude of the Whites as it adversely affects their psyche. Beloved
commits infanticide under White pressure and so too is the source of Pecola's insanity. The
injustice inflicted by the White duress is shown as the strong cause for the psychological scar
which results in the lawless behaviour of some of the Black people.
We also can find how Morrison brings forth the class distinction that exists among the
Blacks. The rich Blacks always look down upon the poor Blacks and they also act as an obstacle
if anyone of their fellow Blacks strives to be independent and move away from the stereotyped
way of life. As a result the individuals who crave independence and freedom are put down and
are alienated.
Sula and Eva Peace are alienated from their own society because they move away from the
stereotype roles assigned to them. Sula individually fought for her identity and fails to achieve
the same. What Morrison expresses is to opt for collective quest rather than individual quest for
identity. If the Black community as a whole fights against the cruelty of Whites, joining all their
hands, it can attain their self.
Toni Morrison wants a sea change in the social domain wherein she finds evils of great
proportion. What she is concerned about in the creation is that a change be wrought in the
traditional design of men and women. Morrison seems to recommend various ways in which
Blacks can escape from alienation. She recommends the Blacks to be Afro-centred rather than
Euro-centred.
Pilate was completely Afro-centric but Macon was Euro-centric and so too Milkman in the
beginning. She says that many Blacks are unaware of the many aspects of their rich culture. As
a result, they are prompted to embrace the false and artificial identity like Macon Dead II and
Geraldine. Only when Milkman shuns away from his false identity and embraces the rich
culture of his ancestral home, he becomes a complete self.
Morrison's novels eliminate the western principle of love and she aspires for love based on
human sympathy and compassion. We can find Pilate's true love and compassion with no sign
of artificiality and so too in the love of the prostitute Sweet for Milkman. He could feel very
much at home in her company.

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 D. Kausalya and Reshmi K

Morrison is not pessimistic. She strikes a note of optimism and induces the same in the
minds of her readers. While emphasizing the Black's quest for identity, she asserts her
conviction with certainty. It is in fact true that Pecola in The Bluest Eye has lost her identity but
she provides a solution to her problem through Claudia of the very same novel.
Similarly, through Pilate, Toni Morrison has given solution to the pains of alienation
experienced by Milkman. Her conscious awareness of Afro-American cultural heritage as a
sense of value has influenced her a lot.

3. CONCLUSION
Her cultural values are affirmed and Westernized middle class Blacks are criticized for their
blind adherence to the Western values. Her criticism is the result of her realization that Black
culture is at stake. Inequality exists in almost all segments of society. It naturally gives rise to
various kinds of problems.
Morrison, in fact has analysed various aspects of inequality in her works and though her
special emphasis is on the plight of the Blacks in general and Black women in particular, she
has given a universal touch by asserting the importance of the basic individualism and self-
esteem that are often questioned in human race. The overwhelming power of the writer as a
teller of stories is wonderfully felt in all the novels of Morrison.

REFERENCES
[1] Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York : Plume, 1987. Print.

[2] ------------------. Song of Solomon. London : Chatto and Windus, 1977. Print.

[3] ------------------. Sula. London : Picador, 1973. Print.

[4] ------------------. The Bluest Eye. London : Chatto and Windus, 1970. Print.

[5] Chase, Richard. The American Novel and its Tradition. New Delhi : Kalyani, 1973. Print.

[6] Harrell, David E. ed. Indian Journal of American Studies Volume 23, Number 2. Print.

[7] Scott, Wilbur S. Five Approaches of Literary Criticism. London : Collier Macmillan Ltd., 1962.
Print.

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