Y. Wang
pears in the novel A Mercy. The theoretical basis is her literature reviews: Unspeakable Things Unspoken: the
Afro-American Presence in American Literature (1989), Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Im-
agination (1992) and What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction (2008).
2. Definition of Morrison’s Black Femin ism
First, to rebuild the history of African American. Post modernism is to deconstruct and question things. Many
critics denounced that the official history reflected the ideology of the ruling class. According to Morrison,
American history recorded by government is the history of white Americans. In her interview with Christina
Davis (1988, 142), Morrison said: “There’s a great deal of obfuscation and distortion and erasure, so that the
presence and the heartbeat of black people has been systematically annihilated in many, many ways a nd the j ob
of recovery is ours.” [1]. In view of the absence of literacy, she can o nl y reb uild thei r hi sto ry thr oug h blac k fo lk
songs, stories, legends and black music. That’s why her novels are full of magic stories, musical redeems and
exotic flavors. Black feminist Barbar a Smith published a book named All the Women Are White, All the Blacks
Are Men (1982) reflected the absence of African-American females in history. Black feminist realized that in
this kind of society they can only rely on themselves to construct their own identity. Just based on this back-
ground, Morrison put forward to rebuild the history of African Americans and elaborated the significance of
constructing female identity. There exist gender and racial inequalities. Morrison aims to explore the origin of
inequality through the creation and interpretation of literature.
Second, the significance of blackness in American literature. In her book Playing in the Dark, Morrison ela-
borated from a historical perspective why African-Americans were marginalized in the United States. To her,
white Americans metaphorically used blackness as a way to show their uniqueness and proj ected oppression on
African Americans for their fear of losing freedom in the New World. In “romancing the shadow”, Morrison
explains from a historical perspective why African Americans are disparaged and relegated to a marginal posi-
tion. Because the immigrants from the Old World are poor and oppressed, the y seek fr eedo m and weal th in the
New World. The fear of repressi on alwa ys haunted the m ev en in the Ne w Wor ld. “In o rder to be free from thi s
fear, they projected it onto the blackness of African Americans, who became the surrogate insecure selves of
previously repressed white people.” Though blackness is always associated with sin, invisibilit y, inferiority, it
does not mean absence. However, it was always disto rted. Africanis m is an indispensabl e element in the defi ni-
tion of Americanness. “The c onte mplatio n of thi s black p re sence is c entr al to an y unde rsta nding o f our na tional
literature and shou ld not be permitted to hover a t the margins of the literar y imagination.” [2]. Therefore, r efl ec-
tion on African-American existence is essential for the understanding of American literature. Blacks should not
be in the margin of literature imagination and rejected by the mainstream. They should move from the margin
and be a part of literature classics.
Third, to make the unspeakable things heard. The black are repressed, not only deprived of freedom, b ut als o
the right o f speak. The y cannot express themselves, e ven if the y s peak, no man will listen. Morrison aims to give
voice to them, especially black women, for racially and sexually they suffer double oppression. Black women’s
voice is silenced by both gender and race. In order to regain their identity, t he y have t o gi v e o ut t he ir vo i ce fi rst .
They are the only person who can fill the vacancy of their history. Her literary career is inspired by “huge si-
lences in liter at ure, thi ngs t ha t have neve r be e n a r ticulat ed , pr inted or imagined and they were the silences about
black girls, b lack women. It was into that are a tha t I ste pp ed and fo und i t to b e eno r mous .” (Toni Morrison Wins
the Nobel) I n her inter view with Dandi Russell Mo rrison expresses her i ntention to write primarily for wo men.
“I write for black women. We are not addressing the men, as some white female writers do. We are not attacking
each other, as both black and white men do. Black women writers look at things in an unforgiving/loving way.
They are writing to repossess, re-na me, re-o wn. ” (Stephanie Li 2010, p. 46) [3]. Black female writers depict
their existence in society, the pursuit of self and the desire of dreams in their works, which are regarded as the
disc ourse of pr oving thei r exi stence, resi sting racial and gender d iscrimination.
Morriso n’s black femi nism i s to shatter the co nve ntio nal values i mposed by white mai nstr ea m society like t he
pieced mirror in her novels and reshaped the pieces through reentering the history. She wants to give voice to
black women, let them speak for themselves, so the main narrator s in her novels are alwa ys women. To her, “it
is crucial to reinscribe the received notion of slavery and history from a black female perspective.” (Mori, 1999,
p. 23) [4].
