A Study on the Writing Skills of Toni Morrison | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

Toni Morrison uses a language full of metaphors and images to present the patriarchal oppression in her books. In an interview with Nellie Y. McKay, Morrison observes, ―I tend not to explain things very much, but I long for a critic who will know what I mean when I say ‗church‘ or ‗community,‘ or when I say ‗ancestor,‘ or ‗chorus.‘ Because my books come out of those things and represent how they function in the [B]lack cosmology. Morrison‘s writing requires that the reader have some knowledge of the African American community and its traditions. For this reason, she does not provide the details she assumes the reader already knows. She wants the reader to intervene, fill in the missing gaps and be able to understand the unwritten words of an oral language. Marc C. Conner argues, ―The reader is not told where the conversation is taking place—at a card table, in the kitchen, or over a backyard fence. Morrison leaves spaces for the reader to fill. She knows that there will be ‗holes and spaces‘ in the text that are caused by writing down an oral language, but Morrison also expects the reader to fill in those gaps with communal knowledge.