Toni Morrison

Race is a slippery concept in Toni Morrison's short story “Recitatif,” and it is meant to be. We cannot quite nail down the race of the characters, and the characters cannot quite nail down their...

"Strangers," an essay by Toni Morrison, addresses the concepts of "otherness" and "outsiders" with a personal anecdote. The anecdote begins with Morrison seeing a woman fishing in her neighbor's...

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison is a 2015 novel about the role of colorism in the abuse that parents inflict on their children. As the novel’s protagonist, Lula Ann, who is known as Bride, is...

The quote "If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic" appears in an essay called "The Site of Memory" by Toni...

In Toni Morrison’s story “Recitatif,” Maggie is the “kitchen woman” at the orphanage where Twyla and Roberta live as children, and she becomes a symbol for their mothers and themselves. Let’s look...

Morrison argues that American literature should be understood in terms of its relationship to what she calls "Africanism," a word that points to "the entire range of views, assumptions, readings...

This question from The Norton Reader’s twelfth edition of its nonfiction anthology refers to Morrison’s “Strangers,” which serves as the introduction to Robert Bergman’s photography volume called A...

In God Help the Child by Toni Morrison, patriarchal forces shape how the characters develop. From the very beginning of the novel, Bride, the main character, is rejected by her parents. No sooner...

One aspect of gender that is an integral element to this novel is the relationship between Christine and Heed. They begin as friends, children who play together and share a special bond, but when...

One of the first things to remember when considering Morisson as a writer is the fact that she began her career during the Black Arts Movement in the late 1950s-60's. This movement's goal was to...

In “Recitatif,” Toni Morrison uses various elements of setting and characterization to draw readers into the story and hold their attention. Let’s explore some of these. We’ll start with...

Some critics have written that Morrison's characters are too depressing and that they tend to play the role of victims, making them overdetermined. In other words, they think Morrison's characters...

Black girls at that time, depending on where they lived in the country, most likely lived in a religious home whether wealth was involved or not. A majority of black families practiced the...

First of all, I edited your multiple questions into one because eNotes allows only one question at a time. The intra-hatred theme in literature refers to a type of strong dislike between members...

The term "postcolonialism" is often widely debated in literature. However, most scholars agree that a piece of literature can be viewed as postcolonialist if it depicts a country or people after...

I might choose Ernest Hemingway. Many authors have discussed his life and works. In fact, Michael Reynolds, included below, has written about Hemingway in five different volumes. I placed him in...