A Study of Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child from Postmodernism

Xiangyu Zhao

School of Foreign Studies, Guangxi Minzu University, Nanning, China School of English, Jilin International Studies University, Changchun, China

Email: zhaoxiangyu@jisu.edu.com

Chunyan Wang

Zhongxin Experimental School of Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China

Email: 187149061@qq.com

Xianhao Zhen

School of Nursing and Well-being, Changchun Humanities and Sciences College, Changchun, China

Email: zhenxianhao@ccrw.edu.com

[Abstract] This paper analyzes the postmodern narrative characteristics of Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child from three aspects: fragmentation, indeterminacy and multiple narrative perspectives. It is found that the fragmented narration of the novel is embodied within and between chapters. Through fragmented narration, Morrison breaks the boundaries of time and space, sets up suspense and urges readers to participate in the construction of the story. The indeterminacy is reflected in the theme, the characters, the plot and the language. Multiple narrative perspectives help to present the story from different angles, shape the characters and explore the inner thoughts of the characters.

[Keywords] God Help the Child; postmodernism; fragmentation; indeterminacy; multiple narrative perspectives

Introduction

Toni Morrison is a famous African American writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She sets her last novel, God Help the Child (2015) in 21st century, exposing the trauma that racial discrimination has inflicted on children. The publication of the novel caused a great sensation in the literary circle, and many foreign media reported and commented on the novel. Domestic scholars have also started to study the novel. According to data from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, by November 2021, more than 70 journal papers and doctoral and master’s theses are based on it. Toni Morrison is also regarded as one of the representative writers of postmodernism. Every one of her works is full of postmodern narrative features, and God Help the Child is no exception. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the postmodern narrative techniques in the works, and analyzes how the author skillfully uses these techniques to highlight the theme.

Fragmented Narrative

Fragmentation is one of the main characteristics of postmodern narrative. The postmodernist writer “distrusts the wholeness and completion associated with traditional stories, and prefers to deal with other ways of structuring narrative” (Mambrol, 2017). Traditional novels are organized in a linear structure, following the order of beginning, development, climax and ending; however, the postmodern writers tend to break the linear structure with different time and space intercrossed and fused, so the complete story is cut into several pieces, which makes the story seem fragmented, untraceable and logically chaotic. The technique of fragmentation is present in God Help the Child both within and between the chapters.

Fragmented Narrative Between Chapters

The novel is divided into four parts and 17 chapters. The chapters are not arranged in chronological order, and the plot is divided into several segments. As the scene is switched frequently, time and space are switched with it, and there is no coherence between chapters; each chapter feels like a fragment. The author sets suspense in the chapters to make the plot full of ups and downs and stimulate readers’interest in reading. Taking the beginning of the novel as an example, the first chapter starts the story from Sweetness’s point of view. She tells the birth of her daughter, the departure of her husband and raising her daughter Ann on her own. It combines the past with the present. This fragmented narrative requires the reader to participate in the construction of the story and clarify the relationship between the characters by piecing together the fragments of memory.

The use of fragmentation can skillfully disclose the theme of the novel. This book mainly focuses on child abuse in American society, but Morrison does not highlight child abuse deliberately; instead, she scatters the fragments related to the theme in different chapters. For example, Bride was abandoned by their parents since she was born. Her mother wanted to kill her, refusing to feeding her with breast milk, “nursing her was like having a pickaninny sucking my teat. I went to bottle-feeding soon as I got home” (Morrison, 2015, p. 5). After her father saw her, he said, “Goddamn! What the hell is this?” (Morrison, 2015, p. 5) and left his wife and children. Her mother didn’t want her to be called “Mama” but “Sweetness”. When her first period made the sheets dirty, she was slapped by her mother and pushed into a tub of cold water. Brooklynn was sexually abused by her uncle. Booker’s brother Adam was raped and killed by a retired auto mechanic who was once considered the nicest man in the world. Quinn’s daughter Hannah was being bullied by her stepfather. She told her mother, but Quinn didn’t care, and the incident worsened their relationship. However, child abuse is not limited to black children, white children also suffer from it. Six-years-old Rain was forced by her mother to make money as a child prostitute, for which she hated her mother, even wanted to kill her. Toni Morrison does not write these events together, but rather distribute them in different sections. It seems natural, but when readers connect these events together consciously, they will be shocked by their suffering and the darkness of the society. Fragmented storytelling brings the reader into the scene of reliving memories, experiencing trauma with the characters and participating in the construction of the novel. Therefore, the fragmented plot echoes the theme and resonates with the reader, making the reader pay special attention to the problem of child abuse in the society.

The fragmentation between chapters also helps to shape the characters. To take Bride and Booker for example, they used to get along very well, but broke up suddenly. The author does not tell the reason directly of their breaking up, but through the narration of each character, the reason is gradually revealed. In Chapter two, Bride told the story of visiting a convicted child molester on parole. Booker reacted strongly to her action, but also did not explain why. It is only in later fragmented accounts that the authors explain their childhood traumatized experiences. When Bride was a child, she accused Sophia, an innocent white woman, of molesting children in order to please her mother and gain maternal love. Booker was devastated by the death of his brother Adam, but his family chose to forget the painful memories and move on. Booker was so angry with his family that he ran away. Neither of them wanted to talk about the past, so lies and silence separated them. The fragments in and between the chapters reflect the character’s ambivalent psychology, making the whole story full of suspense.

Fragmented Narrative Within Chapters

In God Help the Child, fragmentation is not just between chapters, but within chapters as well. For example, Bride tells the story of her childhood in the fourth chapter. In order to get mother’s praise, she charged Sophia in court as child molester, but in fact she lied, and then she told the story of the scene beaten by Sophia, and her stylist giving her advice on how to dress, then mentioned her wounds recovering gradually, and recalled how she became a regional manager, how she met and fell in love with Booker. In the process of her narration, she moves between the past and the present, connecting the fragmented plots. In Chapter 6, Bride becomes the narrator again. She first confessed to Booker that she was beaten by a parolee, and then told Brooklynn about her affair with Sophia. Bride discovered that her body had undergone a strange change. Bride and Booker talked about the landlord’s sexual assault of a white boy. Bride was bullied at school because of his dark skin. It can be seen that the content of Chapter 6 is also fragmented and nonlinear. Through these two examples, it can be concluded that fragmented narrative in God Help the Child is not an accident, but a common phenomenon. What’s more, events in different time and space are intertwined, so the reader needs to connect the pieces to form a complete story. In the process of reading, the reader should focus on each fragmented plot to clarify the time line and have an overall understanding of the whole story. The reader needs to be very engaged so as not to miss any details; thus, the fragmented narrative encourages the reader to participate in the construction of the novel.

Indeterminacy

Indeterminacy is one of the fundamental features of postmodernism. British postmodernist David Lodge believes that “postmodernism exceeds and sublates modernism with its negative sense, and that postmodernism attacks the pursuit of determinacy of rationalism, holding indeterminacy as its intrinsic feature” (1986, p. 47). The category of indeterminacy can be extended into multiple meanings, such as “ambiguity, discontinuity, heterodoxy, pluralism, randomness, revolt, perversion and deformation etc., all of which represent the postmodernists’universal will to abandon everything” (Tong, 2003, p. 113). Indeterminacy in literary works is mainly reflected in four aspects, including theme, image, plot and language.

Indeterminacy in the Theme

In realistic novels, the theme is basically determined, and the author focuses on highlighting the theme. In modernist novels, they oppose realist way, but painstakingly construct their own. In postmodernism, the theme is not very obvious; everything is fragmented. “Postmodernist writers abandon their themes in their literary creation, because there is no meaning, center or essence in postmodern works…and writers’attention is paid to the randomness, extemporization and collage during the creative process of postmodern production.” (Li, 2013, p. 1339). As a black female writer, Toni Morrison unconsciously associates writing with the mission of national liberation in her works. She describes the living conditions of black people and reveal the persecution of black people by white hegemonism. At the same time, based on her unique female perspective and her own experience, she writes about the process of black women’s self-seeking and reconstruction of black national consciousness. Race and gender issues appear in all of her works. In the first chapter of God Help the Child, Toni Morrison addresses the issue of race through the narration of Sweetness. But, later, she depicted Bride as a successful black girl and Rain, as a white girl, also suffered from sexual abuse. It seems that the author has blurred the theme of race. Physical violence against children in the United States has gone beyond black and white racial boundaries and become a universal social phenomenon. It is the same with the theme of gender issues. In the book, the author depicts several females who suffered from sexual violence, but also depicts a male——Booker’s brother who died due to sexual violence, which shows that not only women but also men are victims of sexual violence.

Indeterminacy in the Character

In terms of characterization, realists prefer to depict the characters accurately, embody the personality and the inner world of the characters vividly, while post-modernists like to depict vague characters with uncertain personality and ambivalent inner world. Instead of giving relevant information about the characters directly, the author requires readers to construct the characters through piecing together various details. For example, the author does not give the characteristics of Bride directly, but let readers imagine and judge by themselves through the narration of different characters. The book has many narrators, including Bride, Brooklyn, Sofia, Sweetness, Rain etc. The author does not describe their appearance, age, family background and so on; therefore, the readers need to infer from narrator’s description. The indeterminacy of characters can enhance readers’interest in reading, stimulate their imagination, and promote their participation in the construction of characters in the novel.

Indeterminacy in the Plot -- the Open Ending

Postmodern writers oppose coherent and logical storylines, which they believe to be a closed structure. In postmodernist works, plots are completely devoid of logic and coherence. Time and space are randomly cut, reversed and replaced, so that the plots reproduce various possibilities. In postmodern novels, indeterminacy is often represented by the open-ended ending of the story. Open ending can leave readers with more suspense and space for thinking. It also means that there are multiple possibilities for the development of the story, and readers can have their own ideas about how the story will develop.

The fourth part of the novel is the ending part, which focuses on how Bride finds Booker through Quinn. She finally reconciles with him, and tells Booker that she is pregnant. Both of them have suffered from childhood trauma, so they expect their children to grow up healthily. Moreover, the last chapter is narrated from the perspective of Sweetness, and the story ends with Sweetness’s prayer, calling for social attention to children.

But Morrison left some questions unanswered. How did Bride handle her job after she married Booker? Has Booker reconciled with his family? ...Morrison does not give answers to these questions. Postmodernist writers often do not give a happy ending, but put a variety of possibilities together, waiting for readers to interpret, which greatly expands the space for imagination. Morrison sets up suspense to attract readers’attention and urges them to think about the future of the protagonists.

Indeterminacy in the Language

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstern is a prominent figure in reconstructing the nature of language. He believes that “l(fā)anguage pictures the world. Each use of language occurs within a separate and apparently selfcontained system complete with its own rules” (1961, p. 82). Postmodernist writers are good at playing word games and utilizing the symbolic function of the words. For example, the naming of each character embodies postmodernist feature. Each name seems to have multiple meanings. The hostess is called Bride. Once we think of “Bride”, we will connect it with the color white, for “Brides” usually wear white wedding dress. And the color “white” reflects her inner desire. Since she was born, she was abandoned by her parents for her dark skin. So, she expects to become white and win her parents’love. Besides, “Bride” and “pride” sounds similar, implying that she does not abandon herself as a black woman, but dares to challenge the society and takes pride in herself. Bride’s mother was called Sweetness. As a mother, she should have provided her child with sweet love, but she doesn’t. The name of Bride’s boyfriend, Booker, also has a profound meaning. Booker’s family are very fond of reading, so Booker also receives a good education. In addition, the author also adopts African folk writing style, using a large number of repetitive and intermittent circular language strategies, and the language is full of music beats, with strong artistic beauty, which greatly mobilizes the psychological emotions of the readers.

Multiple Narrative Perspectives

Generally speaking, a writer should adopt a certain perspective in his creation, such as the first person, the second person or the third person. Traditional works generally adopt the first person or the third person narration, but both of these two narrative perspectives have their defects. Postmodern writers tend to use multiple narrative perspectives, which subverts the traditional writing mode.

Morrison is very good at changing the writing perspective in her writing. Constantly changing the narrator and the narrative perspective makes it difficult for the reader to distinguish whether the narrators are reliable. The novel uses both first-person and third-person narratives. If the chapter is first-person narrator, then the chapter title is the narrator, and if the chapter is third-person narrator, then there is no chapter title. Of the 17 chapters, three are with the title of “Sweetness”, three with “Brooklynn”, three with “Sophia”, one with “Rain”, and four chapters have no title. The narrator of each chapter is different from the narrator of the next chapter. For example, the first chapter is “Sweetness”, the second chapter is “Bride”, and the third chapter is “Brookline”. Therefore, the next chapter will interrupt the narrative of the previous one, making the plot more fragmented and chaotic. The work presents events from the perspectives of different characters, restoring the real inner world of the characters.

Bride is the main character in the story, and her narrative occupies a large part, through which we learn about her childhood trauma. However, her first-person narrative is inevitably mixed with subjective emotions. Bride can only tell what she knows and what she thinks in her heart, but from the perspective of others, the facts she recounts are not necessarily the truth. For example, in Bride’s eyes, her mother does not love her. In fact, Sweetness loves her very much, but the widespread racism and sexism in society distort Sweetness’s maternal love. Although she knew she would be discriminated against for raising her daughter alone, she never thought about giving her up. Bride considers Brooklyn her closest friend, but according to Brooklyn, she covets Bride’s job and tries to seduce Bride’s boyfriend—Booker. Sophia plays an important role in the novel. She is the trigger for Bride and Booker’s breakup. Although Sophia’s narration just covers two chapters, it occupies an important place in the novel. As a result of Bride’s accusation, Sophia was sent to prison and endured 15 years of imprisonment, but she eventually forgave her. Rain’s first-person account only covers one chapter, but it enabled the readers to feel the great harm that children abuse has brought to children. To sum up, through the narration of the five women, readers can know their experiences, understand their real feelings and inner thoughts.

The work uses a third person perspective as well. It is not limited by time and space. The third-person perspective does not involve personal emotion, which makes the narrative more reliable and helps to show abundant plots and characters’inner thoughts, and plays an auxiliary role in the narrative of the work. Most of the work is narrated by five women from the first-person perspective, so there is no description of men. Men’s experiences can be supplemented by the third-person perspective. The third person narratives in this work are in chapters 10, 12, 14 and 16. These four chapters complement the storyline and explain some of the issues. The third-person narration is arranged in the last few chapters of the work, because the previous first-person narration leaves a lot of suspense.

Conclusion

This paper analyzes the postmodern narrative features in God Help the Child, including fragmentation, indeterminacy and multiple narrative perspectives. The fragmentation of the work is reflected within and between the chapters. The author skillfully and frequently changes time and space, which makes the story full of suspense and artistic charm, and stimulates the interest of readers. At the same time, the fragments of children’s trauma scattered in each chapter of the work echo the theme of the work. The story is also characterized by the indeterminacy in the theme, the characters, the plot and the language. The author does not give a detailed description of the main characters, but leaves enough space for the readers to imagine and judge by themselves. The open ending also stimulates the reader’s imagination and encourages the reader to participate in the construction of the story actively. Morrison’s unique narrative style has always been a feature of her works. In this book, the author combines firstperson narrative and third-person narrative to tell stories and explain social issues from different perspectives and stances. Through the analysis of this paper, it aims to make readers understand and appreciate this work better.