Toni Morrison - 1931
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I. Biography
"The problem I face as a writer is to make my stories mean something. You can have wonderful, interesting people, a fascinating story, but it's not about anything. It has no real substance. I want my books to always be about something that is important to me, and the subjects that are important in the world are the same ones that have always been important" (Maynard).
Toni Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio, on February 18, 1931, to George and Ramah Willis Wofford ("Nobel"). Her birth name was Chloe Anthony Wofford, and she was the second of four children (Maynard). Her father was a shipyard welder, and her parents had moved to Ohio from the South to escape racist views and to find better opportunities. Her father was a dedicated, hard-working man, and her mother was a "church-going woman (who) sang in the choir." A child of discriminating times, Chloe attended an integrated school, although she was the only black child in her first grade class (Bois).
Chloe dreamed of becoming a ballerina like her favorite dancer, Maria Tallchief (Bois). She loved to read, even at an early age. Her favorites were Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, and Jane Austen. Chloe graduated from her high school with honors in 1949. She attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., majoring in English with a minor in classics (Maynard). She changed her name to Toni because many people could not correctly pronounce her first name. She chose "Toni" because it was a shortened version of her middle name, Anthony (Bois). She graduated 1953 and then attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and obtained her Master's degree in 1955 (Guthrie XV).
After college, Morrison was offered a job at Texas University in Houston, which she accepted. She relocated there to teach introductory English. In 1957, she returned to Howard University as a member of the faculty, where she taught English again. Here, she met Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect, whom she married in 1958 (Bois). Her first son, Harold Ford, was born in 1961 (Guthrie XV). While she was teaching, she joined a writing club just to relieve tension. One week, having nothing to bring in for discussion, she brought in a loosely written story based on a childhood friend. It was well received by the group, but Morrison put the script away, thinking she was done with it (Bois).
In 1964, pregnant with her second child, Morrison divorced her husband and, still living in New York and needing to support herself and children, went to work for Random House Publishers in 1965 as an associate director (Maynard). At night, when her sons were asleep, she began writing again. She took out the script she had written for her writing group and made it into a novel. She became senior editor of Random House, and in 1970, and at the same time had her first book published, The Bluest Eye (Bois). In 1971, Morrison went to work for State University of New York at Purchase as an associate professor of English while continuing to work at Random House (Maynard). She published her second novel, Sula, in 1973. This novel was nominated for the 1975 National Book Award in fiction. From 1976-1977 Morrison was a visiting lecturer at Yale University in Connecticut. At the same time, she was writing her third novel, entitled Song of Solomon , which was published in 1977 (Bois). In 1981 she published her fourth novel, Tar Baby (Maynard).
In 1983, Morrison left Random House, and went on to become the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at State University of New York in Albany. While in Albany, she began writing her first play, "Dreaming Emmitt," which was based on a true story about a black boy killed by racists in 1955 for apparently whistling at a white woman (Bois). Her next novel, Beloved, was published in 1987, and was the most well received of all her work. In 1988 it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (Bois).
In 1987, Morrison was named Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of Humanities at Princeton University. "She was the first black woman to hold a named chair at an Ivy League University" (Bois). When accepting her award, she said "I take teaching as seriously as I do my writing," (Bois). She taught creative writing and in 1992, published her next novel, Jazz. In 1993, Morrison received the Nobel Prize for literature (Maynard). She was the eighth woman to receive this prize, and the first black woman to do so.
II. Influences
Toni Morrison's writing was greatly influenced by the writings of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, according to Harold Bloom (Bloom 2). Also, her writing was greatly influenced by the town she grew up in, Lorain, Ohio. "I am from the Midwest so I have a special affection for it. My beginnings are always there…No matter what I write, I begin there…Ohio also offers an escape from stereotyped black settings. It is neither plantation nor ghetto," said Morrison about her writing (Maynard). In an interview with Robert Stepto in 1976, Morrison said, "I felt a very strong sense of place, not in terms of the country or the state, but in terms of details, the feeling, the mood of the community, of the town" (Guthrie 10). The behavior of her characters was influenced by the actions and attitudes of friends and family from her youth. "I knew my mother as a Church woman, and a Club woman-and there was something special about when she said 'Sister'," said Morrison when describing how she created her characters in her novels (11). Morrison obtained much of her inspiration from her childhood.
III. Critical Reviews
Cynthia A. Davis, "Self, Society, and Myth in Toni Morrison Fiction," from Toni Morrison (Modern Critical Reviews)
--"All Morrison's characters exist in a world defined by its blackness and by the surrounding white society that both violates and denies it." (Bloom 7)
--"Morrison's use of mythic structure, more and more overtly as her work develops, is central to her existentialist existence." (23)
(*Both of these reviews of Morrison's work describe her characterization technique and plot schemes. Much of Morrison's writing deals with African Americans struggling to
survive and prosper while under the scornful eye of the white person.)
Harold Bloom, introduction to Toni Morrison (Modern Critical Reviews)
--"…(Morrison's) imagination, whatever, her social purposes, transcends ideology and polemics, and enters again into the literary space occupied only by fantasy and romance of authentic aesthetic dignity." (Bloom 2)
(*This review by Harold Bloom suggests that Morrison uses her vivid imagination to create details so intricate and marvelous that her stories seem to exist on a plane of their own.)
Jennifer Uglow, Times Literary Supplement
--"The word 'elegant' is often applied to Toni Morrison's writing; it employs sophisticated narrative devices, shifting perspectives and resonant images and displays an obvious
delight in the potential of language." (qtd. In Maynard)
(*This review describes how Morrison maintains her dignity and maturity when writing, though she uses topics that are very passionate for her and can often be subject to
controversial views.)
Charles Larson, Chicago Tribune Book World
--"(Each of Morrison's novels) is as original as anything that has appeared in our literature
in the last 20 years. The contemporaneity that unites them-the troubling persistence of racism in America-is infused with an urgency that only a black writer can have about our society." (qtd. In Maynard)
(*This review states that Morrison uses her own background and history to re-create, in different contexts, problems that only a person who has experienced them could explain.
This helps create a sense of reality in her writing.)
Susan Lydon, Village Voice
--"(Morrison) works her magic charm above all with a love for language." (qtd. In Maynard)
IV. List of Published Works
Fiction
*The Bluest Eye, 1970
*Sula, 1973
*Song of Solomon, 1977
*Tar Baby, 1981
*Beloved, 1987 Reality, 1992
*Jazz, 1992
Non-Fiction
*Playing in the Dark, 1992
*Race-ing Justice, En-gendering -- Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social
Plays
*"Dreaming Emmett," 1986
Music
*Honey and Rue, 1993
Speeches
*The Dancing Mind, 1996
V. Awards Received
(List compiled from Maynard's website and Guthrie's book Conversations with Toni Morrison)
*Ohioana Book Award, 1975, Sula
*National Book Critics Circle Award, 1977, Song of Solomon
*American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1977, Song of Solomon
*New York State Governor's Arts Award, 1986, "Dreaming Emmett"
*Washington College Literary Award (first recipient), 1987, Beloved
*Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 1988, Beloved
*Robert F. Kennedy Award, 1988, Beloved
*Elizabeth Cady Stanton Award from National Organization for Women
*Nobel Prize for Literature, 1993
VI. Quotes by Morrison
(The following quotes express either Morrison's views on her writing or on the subject matter of her novels.)
** "Good fiction should be beautiful and powerful, but it should also work. It should have something in it that enlightens, something in it that opens the door and points the way." -(qtd. In Hatcher "Wings")
** "I look very hard for black fiction because I want to participate in developing a canon of black work. We've had the first rush of black entertainment, where blacks were writing for whites, and whites were encouraging this kind of self-flagellation. Now we can get down to the craft of writing, where black people are talking to black people." -(qtd. In Maynard)
** "I feel personally sorrowful about black-white relations a lot of the time because black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war, to prevent other kinds of real conflagrations." -(qtd. In Angelo)
** "(Beloved) was about these anonymous people called slaves. What they do to keep on, how they make a life, what they're willing to risk, however long it lasts, in order to relate to one another-that was incredible to me." -(Angelo 3)
** "…Racism is a scholarly pursuit. It's all over the world, I am convinced. But that's not the way people were born to live. I'm talking about racism that is taught, institutionalized. Everybody remember the first time they were taught that part of the human race was Other. That's a trauma. It's as though I told you your left hand is not part of your body." -(Angelo 4)
VII. Interviews
*Conversations with Toni Morrison, edited by Danille Taylor Guthrie©1994
-Collection of interviews-
*"The Pain of Being Black" Bonnie Angelo May 22, 1989
-Time Magazine-
*Modern Novelists: Toni Morrison, St. Martin's Press, New York©1995
VIII. Links
http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/tonibio.htm (this site is great for biographical information about Toni Morrison)
www.hotchkiss.k12.co.us/HHS/nobelnov/morrison.htm (this site has some good reviews of Morrison's work)
http://www.cob.montevallo.edu/student/HatcherCL/FRAMES.HTMn (this site is great for information you're looking for, either reviews or biographical information)
IX. How to Contact Ms. Morrison
Publisher Address:
Random House Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
(212)-782-9000
(Unfortunately, Random House does not give out author's addresses, however they will be happy to forward any requests on if they are able.)
X. Works Cited
Angelo, Bonnie. "The Pain of Being Black." Interview, Time Magazine. 22 May, 1989. 49 pars. 7 Feb. 2001 http://www.time.com/time/community/pulitzerinterview.html
Bois, Danuta (contributor). "Biography-Toni Morrison." 10 pars. 31 Jan. 2001
http://www.netsrq.com/~dbois/morrison.html
Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Toni Morrison (Modern Critical Reviews). New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990
Hatcher, Cindy. University of Monevallo. Updated 19 July, 2000. 13 Feb. 2001.
http://www.cob.montevallo.edu/student/hatchercl/FRAMES.htm
Maynard, M. "Biography." 8 pars. 14 Feb. 2001. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/mmaynard/Morrison/biograph.html
"Nobel Prize for Literature 1993." 7 Oct. 1993. 7 pars. 31 Jan. 2001. http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1993/press.html
Taylor-Guthrie, Danille, ed. Conversations with Toni Morrison. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994
This essay submitted by a student in Breen Reardon's 11th Grade Accelerated English Class at Sycamore High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.