"...Writers contruct meanig in chaos... writers turn sorrow into meaning..."
In Toni Morrison's speech, she says that a writer causes "troubles" with its words; troubles in social realities, political issues in day by day situations.
It is funny because it is true. Writers are the voices of the untold reality, the facts that nobody touches or even those that are as common as life itself.
In Toni Morrison's Novel "Sula", (the one I am reading), she pointed on the fact that a young black woman in the 1920's leaves her house, her family, her traditions, her "life" and goes after her expectations. It is a shocking and disturbing act, not only because she is a young black woman, but the fact she is located in a moment of history when it was unthinkable for a woman to do that, to express her individuality, her motivation of life, her desire of giving a "meaning" - a real one - to her "being".
On the other hand, Morrison tells us the story of Nell, Sula's best friend in her childhood, a good looking black female, who was taught the good manners of a woman in society, the correct language to use and the way a "good" black woman must behave. But deep inside, she was eager to look for something else, even when she was a little one, (age 12) after she came back from New Orleans from her grandmother's funeral; she recognized herself as a "me", a strong "me" reflected in a mirror.
Those examples of individuality, of self-recognition, show us the generosity of Morrison in her cultural and political "writer-being". She is a trouble maker because she expresses the voices of those passionate females and their lives. She responses to the - historic - chaos of the US, first naming and telling the story; then she mapped it locating the story in a black community and, finally; she expresses her "stillness" by defying the status of two black woman.
That is why I think Toni Morrison matches "perflectly" her own definition of a writer.
In Toni Morrison's speech, she says that a writer causes "troubles" with its words; troubles in social realities, political issues in day by day situations.
It is funny because it is true. Writers are the voices of the untold reality, the facts that nobody touches or even those that are as common as life itself.
In Toni Morrison's Novel "Sula", (the one I am reading), she pointed on the fact that a young black woman in the 1920's leaves her house, her family, her traditions, her "life" and goes after her expectations. It is a shocking and disturbing act, not only because she is a young black woman, but the fact she is located in a moment of history when it was unthinkable for a woman to do that, to express her individuality, her motivation of life, her desire of giving a "meaning" - a real one - to her "being".
On the other hand, Morrison tells us the story of Nell, Sula's best friend in her childhood, a good looking black female, who was taught the good manners of a woman in society, the correct language to use and the way a "good" black woman must behave. But deep inside, she was eager to look for something else, even when she was a little one, (age 12) after she came back from New Orleans from her grandmother's funeral; she recognized herself as a "me", a strong "me" reflected in a mirror.
Those examples of individuality, of self-recognition, show us the generosity of Morrison in her cultural and political "writer-being". She is a trouble maker because she expresses the voices of those passionate females and their lives. She responses to the - historic - chaos of the US, first naming and telling the story; then she mapped it locating the story in a black community and, finally; she expresses her "stillness" by defying the status of two black woman.
That is why I think Toni Morrison matches "perflectly" her own definition of a writer.
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