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African-American Mothers in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Toni Morrison's Beloved
Piňosová, Michaela ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This BA thesis examines the concept of a black mother as a key figure in the fight for freedom as depicted in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and further explored in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Stowe's novel presents the idealized concept of motherhood in characters such as Eliza Harris, Aunt Chloe, Mary Bird and Rachel Halliday. These characters represent Stowe's ideology of Christian motherhood, in which the mother acts as a mediator of moral and religious principles in her family and community. To enable the identification of white middle-class female readers with the African-American characters in her novel, Stowe employed a distinctive method of characterization in Uncle Tom's Cabin. One of the main characteristics of her female figures is their ability to perform a maternal role. Mother love is depicted as a universal force, which is common to both white and African-American mothers, and which is equivalent to the love of Christ. Stowe believed that motherhood based on Christian values would free the United States from slavery and rebuild her society. For these reasons, Stowe encouraged white middle-class wives and mothers to present their abolitionist stances in their families and mediate them to their husbands, whose opinions might have been influential in political development in...
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African-American Mothers in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Toni Morrison's Beloved
Piňosová, Michaela ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This BA thesis examines the concept of a black mother as a key figure in the fight for freedom as depicted in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and further explored in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Stowe's novel presents the idealized concept of motherhood in characters such as Eliza Harris, Aunt Chloe, Mary Bird and Rachel Halliday. These characters represent Stowe's ideology of Christian motherhood, in which the mother acts as a mediator of moral and religious principles in her family and community. To enable the identification of white middle-class female readers with the African-American characters in her novel, Stowe employed a distinctive method of characterization in Uncle Tom's Cabin. One of the main characteristics of her female figures is their ability to perform a maternal role. Mother love is depicted as a universal force, which is common to both white and African-American mothers, and which is equivalent to the love of Christ. Stowe believed that motherhood based on Christian values would free the United States from slavery and rebuild her society. For these reasons, Stowe encouraged white middle-class wives and mothers to present their abolitionist stances in their families and mediate them to their husbands, whose opinions might have been influential in political development in...
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Elements of the Grotesque in the Novels of Toni Morrison
Hädler, Victoria ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
The aim of my bachelor thesis is to analyze the elements of the grotesque in the novels of Toni Morrison. The analyzed literature includes Morrison's most popular novels Sula, Beloved, and The Bluest Eye. The thesis begins with an introduction where the genre of grotesque writing is defined and specified, and its literary origins are traced; then Morrison's novels are addressed (their function, effect and role). Furthermore grotesque elements are analyzed in terms of concrete representations of grotesque marked bodies. The dominant Western white standard of beauty is interpreted in contrast to the Afro-American one. In addition the author's possible choice of the concrete representations of the grotesque is considered. The grotesque genre is dealt with in respect to the specifics of Afro-American writing of Toni Morrison.
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Feminism in Selected Novels by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker
Chýlková, Jana ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The specific works analyzed in this thesis will be Sula and Beloved by Toni Morrison, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I have chosen these novels for their significance in the African-American literary canon, and for qualities that were assessed over time. While the choice of the novels Beloved and The Color Purple is justified by The Pulitzer Prize, Sula - which is, among other things, a novel depicting the moral and physical decline of the main heroine - was selected to contrast with Walker's bildungsroman. However, the central theme of these novels that will be explored is a black woman and her questionable representation in literature. In their novels, Morrison and Walker find diverse solutions to the problematic nature of the place of black women in a patriarchal society. Nevertheless, the selected fiction will be explored separately in terms of the feminist/womanist aspects of Morrison's and Walker's works. The Conclusion will focus on a comparison of the selected works by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Thus, attention will be paid to the significant themes displayed in the novels such as racism and the limitations of gender roles. The objective of this analysis will be to find some common themes displayed in the authors' fiction that connect their understanding of the world, such as issues of...
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Community in Toni Morrison's Fiction
Brzobohatá, Michaela ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
English Abstract Toni Morrison deals with the topic of community to a greater or lesser extent in all of her books. Being influenced by her own upbringing, she has always been aware of the role community plays in one's life and its influence on an individual. Community can both save you and forsake you. The nature of black community has been changing, according to Morrison, and so has her view of it. Her writing career reflects these alternations, revealing a significant change in her perspective. Looking at her first novel, The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, her third novel written seven years later, Song of Solomon, and her seventh novel, Paradise, written in 1998, this thesis traces the way her position alters throughout the years. Being opposed to both radical separatism and blind assimilation, Morrison first proposed return to traditional African values as the possible cure for the black community destroyed by the forces of capitalist society. Later in her career, however, Morrison changes her ideology and suggests as a remedy a community that does not exclude the unworthy, but is open, caring, and inclusive. By evolving from individualism to individuality, communities that will include everyone can be created.
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Toni Morrison; Magical Realism Serving to Outline Cultural Experience
Hůlková, Kateřina ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Thesis Abstract In my thesis I focus on the application and role of magical realism in Toni Morrison's two novels, Song of Solomon and Beloved. Because the supernatural elements in these two stories serve mainly as catalytic forces that reveal hidden and submerged realities of the characters' lives, my goal was to discuss and determine Morrison's motivations for the use of magical realism, its purpose, and possible final results of the writer's literary effort. I began by analyzing Morrison's own critical work in which she focuses on her position as a writer being confronted with the dehumanized picture of blackness the way it was created by white Americans in order to preserve their own humanity in the wilderness of the New World. As for the literary language, the writer argues that the said point of view and the literary tradition that stems from it offer only two possible approaches: incursive glorification of the minority, or defensive conformity. These nevertheless appear to be metaphorical blind alleys to her attempts, as none has a potential to create an authentic picture of African Americans. A relevant hindering obstacle to mention is that a lot was lost through the process of dehumanization. My attempt was to demonstrate that by the application of magical realism, Morrison tries to re-humanize (to...
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