Critical Insights: Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison has pinpointed the “trauma of racism” as “the severe fragmentation of the self” (Morrison, “Unspeakable” 214), and her works are dedicated to envisioning for African Americans ways of defining and developing identity for themselves, their community, and their literary tradition. As towering and daunting as this tripartite purpose may be, Morrison has achieved even more.Writing within the African American vernacular tradition and creating literature about and for African Americans (for she writes “without the White Gaze”; qtd. in Houston 4), Morrison gifts us with works (novels, essays, a play) that speak to and for all humankind, earning her a global audience as well as international accolades, awards, and ever-expanding critical study.