Just information : narrative and identity in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Jazz and Love

Abstract

In this thesis I intend to discuss male identity as constructed through narrative in Toni Morrison’s novels Song of Solomon, Jazz and Love. In all three books, the characters are eager to shape their experiences through narratives. Through a contrastive perspective on the narratives presented in each novel, I will attempt to expose the assumptions that underlie a given narrative framing. For instance, I will ask whether Milkman’s development in Song of Solomon mainly is indebted to the materialism of his father or the spirituality of his aunt. In investigating my chosen primary texts, Hayden White’s discussion regarding narratives will be utilized. Arguing that narratives produce rather than reflect meaning, this perspective is useful when it comes to making sense of the narratives told in the novels. My discussion will be twofold in that I will discuss both how people define and are defined through narratives. While Solomon deals with Milkman’s attempt to redefine his world, Jazz illuminates what happens when human subjects are defined from an exterior position. Discussing Love, I will attempt to discuss how the characters relate to the labellings imposed on them by their memory of the dead man at the novel’s centre. The basic argument that will run through this analysis is that these narratives cannot, as Milkman’s father claims, be understood as “just information”. Rather, they are shaped by the assumptions of those telling the story. While there are many potential reasons for why these accounts differ, I will mainly focus on how the discrepancies can be understood as related to gender roles.