Toni Morrison: Contemporary Critical Essays

Jacket Description/Back: This succinct, critical introduction to Morrison's work seeks to make her novels more accessible through unravelling notions of self-representation and narrative structure which will be new to readers accustomed to Euro-American literary conventions. Without ghettoising Morrison as a black woman writer, this is the first major study of how the experimental narrative strategies of her fiction are determined by its African-American content. Linden Peach argues that her novels are most usefully approached through an examination of the innovative techniques which they employ and the creative possibilities these offer. Biographical Note: Linden Peach is Reader in Contemporary Literature, Loughborough University. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments * General Editor's Preface * Introduction--Linden Peach * Self, Society, and Myth in Toni Morrison's Fiction--Cynthia A. Davies * The Crime of Innocence: "Tar Baby" and the Fall Myth--Terry Otten * Hagar's Mirror: Self and Identity in Morrison's Fiction--Barbara Rigney * "No Bottom and No Top": Oppositions in "Sula" --Madhu Dubey * "Tar Baby: " A Reflection of Morrison's Developed Class Consciousness--Doreatha Drummond Mbalia * Knowing Our Place: Psychoanalysis and "Sula" --Houston A. Baker, Jr. * Selfhood and Community: Psychoanalysis and Discourse in "Beloved" --Jennifer Fitzgerald * Knitting and Knotting the Narrative Thread--"Beloved" as Postmodern Novel--Rafael Perez-Torres * Daughters Signifying(g) History: The Examples of Toni Morrison's "Beloved" --Ashraf H. A. Rushdy * Experiencing "Jazz" --Eusebio L. Rodrigues * Signifying(g) Abjection: Narrative Strategies in Toni Morrison's "Jazz" --Angela Burton * Further Reading * Notes on Contributors * IndexPublisher Marketing: The novels of Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, have inspired stimulating and original criticism. This volume embraces modern theoretic approaches without neglecting the more traditional fare of literary scholarship, providing insights into the structure, themes, language and contexts of her novels. Each essay has been carefully selected for its contribution to current debates in African-American literary criticism, including the complex nature of African-American identities and the black nationalist aesthetic. The book will prove invaluable both for new readers and for those familiar with her work. Publisher Marketing: This volume embraces modern theoretic approaches to the novels of Toni Morrison.

Contributor Bio:  Peach, Linden Linden Peach is dean of the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Northumbria University.