1 PREFACE 1. JUSTIFICATION For the first time in the world literature, black African - American female artist Toni Morrison received the noble Nobel Prize in Literature. The novels written by Toni Morrison produced a stir and attracted the concerns of many researchers and critics all over the world. Toni Morrison created a special world of art by language and way of thinking of the postmodern paradigm: Fragmentary language. This artistic characteristics created features for Morrison’s world of novels and her roaring success. It seems to be that her novels have attained the position of classical masterpieces. She is ranked at the same grade with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kawabata, Chekhov, Tagore, etc., humanitarians of all ages. The issue on fragment has been mentioned by many researchers; however, there has not been any research work on fragmentary language in Morrison’s novels. Thus, we choose our research topic “Fragmentary language in Toni Morrison’s novels” with the desire to offer a possible approach to explore the layers of artistic meaning hidden in the works of this black women writer. When we carry out this topic, we hope to contribute to opening a new research direction for the literature argument sector. This new research direction focuses on researching the post-modern literature works of the world in the view of semiotics. This direction will help us explore new and strange skies by wonderful colors of art, recover limitations of the previous approaches, mainly the approach in the aspect of world outlook and ideology. The success of the thesis will contribute practically to promoting the building of appearance of the system of theories on post- modern literature research and critic in the country, a both familiar and strange face. 2 2. PURPOSE, OBJECT AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH 2.1. Purpose of research This thesis aims to research fragmentary language in the novels of Morrison to discover artistic characteristics of Morrison, her creation and innovative in the works; based on that, the thesis orients to issues on black- white culture in conflicts, conciliation and irremovable sequelas between the oppressing and the oppressed races in the post-modern people’s life. On theoretical aspect, the concept of fragment - a characteristics of the post-modern literature is also made clear and can become a tool for researching the post-modern literature in general. 2.2. Object of research The thesis focuses on researching world of art in Morrison’s novels. After defining the concept of fragmentary language, the thesis surveys fragmentary language in her novels in two basic aspects including fragmentary language and fragmentary character. 2.3. Scope of research Scope of research of this thesis includes three novels of Morrison: The Bluest Eye, Beloved and Song of Solomon. Of which, The Bluest Eye and Beloved have been translated into Vietnamese. Novel Song of Solomon was researched in the original English version by us. However, in the research process, two novels The Bluest Eye and Beloved were compared with their originals. These three novels can represent and crystallize Morrison’s novel characteristics that have been researched and affirmed by the world researchers and critics. In which, the world of colorful people was mentioned with the sufficient attendance of generations: The Bluest Eye was the story about a girl; Beloved was the story about mother and daughter; Song of Solomon wrote about father and son, etc. Especially, Beloved novel was highly appreciated by the world researchers and critics. 3 Apart from the three mentioned-above novels, Morrison has another six novels including Paradise, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Love and A Mercy. Although we did not survey these novels carefully, in the research process, the thesis will make combinations and comparisons to indicate an unified view in Morrison’s works. 3. SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL MEANING OF THE TOPIC The thesis combines researching theory and analyzing the works of the American black women writer who got the Nobel Prize in Literature. On theoretical aspect, we surveyed and researched the circumstance of appearance, determining connotation of the concept of fragmentary language like a characteristics of the post-modern period in general and post-modern literature in particular. Then, we surveyed three representative novels of Toni Morrison. Her works contained characteristics of the post-modern novels with original, new and strange artistic creations, contributing new appearances to the world literature. In parallel to the research process, we translated Song of Solomon into Vietnamese. Researching and translating the works written by Toni Morrison contribute to introducing cultural heritages of the human kind and richening the storage of foreign literatures in Vietnam. In the short- term, these translated works will help students access to the American- African literature that has original artistic style, strong innovative and great humanitarian spirit of the contemporary authors. The thesis has scientific meaning in the point that it contributes positively to researching the post-modern critic theory; that is to research and build a instrumental theory term and practice applying into researching the post-modern literature works, a relatively new field in the country. In Vietnam, this is the first thesis that has the summary and general nature about the world of art in Morrison’s novels in some basic aspects. 4 The thesis summarizes some comments about artistic characteristics, especially, fragmentary nature - feature of the post-modern literature-in her novels The success of this thesis builds a small bridge for the following researchers on the world of art of Morrison in particular and the post- modern literature in general. 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY In the view of the post-modern critic theory, we applied some research methodologies to complete this topic: - Cultural-social methodology: We researched the novels of Morrison in their close relationship with cultural and social circumstances. The contents of the novels was analyzed and lighted up from the view of culture and society. Those were the cultural and social issues of the black people and community in the cultural and social environment of the white people. - Inter-branch methodology: This methodology was used to survey and build the concept of the fragment term. Here, we combined researching literature and history, philosophy, economy, culture, etc. to determine the circumstance of appearance and connotation of the fragment concept as well as use it into surveying the novels of Toni Morrison. - Historical poetry research methodology: This methodology was used to research and survey the critic methods in the history to indicate innovations in the post-modern literature - anti-traditional artistic forms, experimental novel techniques. - Theoretical poetry research methodology: This methodology was applied mainly when we analyzed and got to know basic artistic measures of the writer when she built the works. The thesis indicated role and value of details, techniques and artistic forms used by the writer to denote the ideology contents in the works. 5 - Biography critic methodology: We researched the biography of the writer to understand mutual relations and impacts between the life and cause of creation, foundations to justify the world of art in the novels of a relatively special pen in the work: a black women writer. Furthermore, we used activities of analysis, comment, etc. to both widen and deepen the researched issues. 5. CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE THESIS On theoretical aspect, the thesis summarized and determined the connotation of the concept of characteristic fragmentary language of the post-modern literature. This term was used scattered in the research works on the post-modern literature; however; the connotation of the concept was not indicated clearly. By justifying the connotation of the concept, the thesis contributed to building a theoretical tool to research the post-modern literature in general. For the world of art in Morrison’s novels, the thesis indicated clearly her fragmentary language, confirmed the value of the Truth - the Good - the Beauty and great contributions of Morrison to the world post-modern literature - a relatively new woman writer for Vietnamese readers. 6. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS Apart from Preface, the thesis include four chapters as follows: Chapter 1: Overview of the justification Chapter 2: Concept of “fragmentary language” Chapter 3: Fragmentary language Chapter 4: Fragmentary characters Although these chapters exist independently, they have their close relations in the point that they all orient to indicating the artistic characteristics in Morrison’s novels and their meaning to researching and criticizing literature argument. The final part is Conclusion, List of works relating to the this topic and references. 6 Chapter 1 OVERVIEW OF THE JUSTIFICATION 1.1. CRITIC ARGUMENT ABOUT “FRAGMENT” 1.1.1. In the world In this part, we conducted the survey based on the research works of Stuart Sim, the book called Critical Dictionary of Postmodern Thought and those of researcher named Le Huy Bac in post-modern short-story. Lively denotations of fragmentary art herein were surveyed relatively detailed: no topic, ending, storyline, motion and structure of the traditional novels and form was deformed in many forms: digital, asterisk, pictures, specks, etc. 1.1.2. In Vietnam The thesis surveyed uses and appearances of the fragment term in the life of criticizing and arguing literature in Vietnam. With 11 researches gathered by us from authors such as: Le Huy Bac, Phung Van Tuu, Le Nguyen Can, Chau Minh Hung, etc. it can be seen that there are many research works using the term of fragment. Additionally, research and translation works of La Nguyen, Phuong Luu, Ngan Xuyen, Le Nguyen Can, Loc Phuong Thuy, etc. are solid supports to enable us to determine the concept connotation to implement the topic. 1.2. RESEARCH SITUATIONS ABOUT TONI MORRISON 1.2.1. Researches on Toni Morrison in the world Through surveying the research works on Morrison’s novels, we saw there were two main research trends. The first trend was to research thinking of the writer: issues on race, gender, history, characters, individual and community, women’s rights, human spirit, etc. The second trend was prone to prosody and novel techniques of Toni Morrison, for example, poetry nature in the novels, folk culture elements, religious atmosphere, multi-topic description art through flow of inmist feelings 7 and interchange of sights, characteristics of the post-modern novel techniques. Especially, the fragmentary nature was seen as a feature of Morrison’s novels, expressed in both the novel contents and techniques. With our efforts, we summarized basic research directions on Morrison’s novels as follows: Firstly, the novels of Toni Morrison were researched in the view of psychoanalysis. Issues on fear, obsession, mental traumas, slave psychology, etc. were analyzed relatively carefully to interpret the thinking contents in Morrison’s novels. Secondly, Morrison’s novels were discovered from the view of poetry study. Thirdly, an outstanding research direction that should be mentioned was the approach to works of Morrison in the aspect of culture, religion. Fourthly, the world of Morrison’s novels was researched in the view of sociology. The issues on history and races of the black people in the white society were researched carefully to explain horror dramas born by the colorful people in the slavery regime history. Additionally, the pens emphasized the black post-modern nature of pen Morrison. Furthermore, there was the research trend in the view of description study on the novels of Toni Morrison. These works gave us precious comments and initial orientations to carry out the topic. Apart from the works that directly mentioned the fragment, some works in spite of not mentioning the fragment, they helped us much in determining the cultural-social foundation for the fragments and their features in the works of Morrison. 1.2.2. Researches on Toni Morrison in the country In Vietnam, we could not gather many research works and articles relating to women writer Morrison and her novels. In addition to some introductions about the author and works in books, newspapers, magazines and Internet, in our country, there were three research works of specific nature, including Master thesis of author Nguyen Thi Hieu Thien with the topic Pathway to freedom of the black American people in the novel art of 8 Toni Morrison (Ho Chi Minh University of Education, 2003) and Nguyen Phuong Khanh with the topic Visionary realism in the work “Beloved” (University of Social Science and Humanitarian, Vietnam National University, Ha Noi, May 2008). Additionally, there was the work of Duong Thi Thuy Tram, Master thesis, “Beloved” of Toni Morrison in the view of myth (Ho Chi Minh University of Education, 2009). Thus, research on fragment is a relative concentrated trend that is concerned by many post-modern literature critics in the world as well as in the country. It can be seen that fragment is surveyed and argued on many aspects: language, character, storyline, etc. Thereby, creations, innovative and new artistic opinions, etc. of the post-modern pens are deepened, discovered and justified in a scientific, persuasive and attractive manner. Research on Toni Morrison and her novels include issues such as human nature, frightened traumas born by the black while in the society where they are considered to be slaves; aspiration for freedom, happiness, motherhood, aspiration for family heat; issues on race, characters, personality, historical and religious elements, etc.; for novel techniques, the issues were discovered such as the existence of realism and magicism, interrace of many categories, effects from the Bible, use of many time frame, vagueness and polysemantics, mental flow technique, multi-subject, non-linear story telling, unconscious effects from psychoanalysis as well as art in Morrison’s novels. Those are suggestions for us to heritage and develop further in this thesis. In Vietnam now, research on the fragmentary language in the novels of Toni Morrison is still an open issue. Initial comments only have brief nature and just stop at the level of suggestion. This is a very characteristic self-telling art of Morrison’s novels; thus, we courageously choose this topic with the desire to find an approach to value layers of the masterpieces and open a window to initially get to understanding vast oceans of the world literature, especially the so called post-modern literature, with strong innovative and creations in many aspects. 9 Chapter 2 CONCEPT OF “FRAGMENTARY LANGUAGE” Fragment is often considered as a nature in art creation. Sometimes, it is raised to be fragmentarism. Thereby, in literature, this can be considered to be a trend of creation. Within the scope of this thesis, we only concentrated on determining and exploring this concept in the aspect of being a nature of artistic language, characteristic life interpretation way of the post-modern literature in general and Toni Morrison in particular. Before determining the concept of fragmentary language, we start with artistic language. 2.1. ARTISTIC LANGUAGE We based on the concept of artistic language of I.U. Lotman, semiotics creator who has the similar opinions with the post-logic structure scholars in language. According to Lotman, all elements that create the world of art: frame, space, story, event, character, structure, etc. are all the units that create meaning and artistic languages. When the natural language is used to retell event (with story telling and teller elements), it becomes artistic language. Those are voices that are imagined, modeled, created and have their individual tongues and styles. The unit of artistic language, therefore, is not word but motifs. With the same opinion, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mikhail Bakhtin and post-structure scholars, language is considered to always belong to some interactions and dialogues; that means it is always in the movement process. Therefore, artistic language is combined closely to society and history. Language in the post-modern spirit is considered to be a discourse, which means that language is being used, in the process of generating and creating meaning, capable of widening and developing its limits endlessly. Lotman concepts that artistic language is wider than what has been defined by the previous researchers and this is the spirit that the post- 10 modern scholars define about language. Accordingly, artistic language is form of secondary language, created in the system of daily social language. Artistic language of a literature work is character language, space language, storyline language, etc. or any form of the document that can communicate and create meaning and beauty capacity to the readers. Naturally, the post-modern artistic language will be different from the traditional artistic language. That difference comes from the view of considering the work to be a perfect whole of collections of fragments and not to be a perfect whole of collections of fragments but an adjacency of fragments. Then, we surveyed and compared the characters of the traditional artistic language and fragmentary language-feature of the post-modern literature. The thesis came to conclusion: under the effects of the rational philosophy, the traditional literature language is the perfect whole, unified, well-proportioned language; fragments, if any, are also components of a center-oriented whole. The fragmentary language is the one of post- modern thinking, product of the non-rational, non-centered philosophy. It calls for self-telling grand narratives and dispersion applause. 2.2. “FRAGMENTARY LANGUAGE” In the process we continued clarifying the concept of fragmentary language, we surveyed further the concept of fragment. Firstly, we surveyed the appearance context of the term and determine its connotation. 2.2.1. Appearance context: Through surveying the materials in the country and world, we concluded that fragment is the feature of the post- modern consciousness and also a feature of the post-modern literature, with the foundation of non-centered and anti-rational philosophy. 2.2.2. Fragment like a feature of the post-modern thinking: It can be seen that fragment is a feature of the thinking and Western post-modern literature. The post-modern writers said that fragmentary language is the [...]... works of Toni Morrison bring a fabulous atmosphere, making the readers daze with the longing for and toss about Through the fragmentary language art, Toni Morrison showed her great creation and innovative when she used the voice of the black people community in the town margin about the deleted name and efforts in retrieving their full name, ancestors and themselves Thus, as indicated by Morrison, ... into creating and criticizing literature like a core category Each literature author had his/her own feathers when using the fragmentary language but Toni Morrison was the master in this art With the topic of Fragmentary language in the novels of Toni Morrison, the thesis is the first research work on the American postmodern literature in the approach angle of metaphor and poetry study in Vietnam It... expression of the fragmentary language in two aspects, word and character layer The fragmentary language became main characteristics in the selftelling art of Toni Morrison In her novels, there occurred the violent war on the aspect of word For Toni Morrison, attacking word means attacking the foundation of the white culture, great self-telling discourse that dominated for a long time in a country which... discuss a painful collapse and nothing could save the fates of the characters of Toni Morrison Reminisces, scattered event fragments, whispers that were never written on pages were gathered to tell the events that “it is better not know anything about them” Extracting the story gradually through fragments was also an art Toni Morrison tried to ease and reduce the passion, prevent the feelings of having... in Morrison s novels, she paid special attention to artistic word Wordy fragments in Morrison s novels are specially rich in meaning, capacity of converting meaning and emotion 3.1 CONFUSED WORD 3.1.1 Wordy fragment - mirror of the reverse world Crumbling and repressing word to discuss the two white-black worlds make word like a mirror of the two completely opposite worlds In the novels of Toni Morrison, ... strange atmosphere, etc., the fragmentary character language was the place for Toni Morrison to show the readers the movement on seeking for the entity to end the passion and loss of the black people in the world of white people Thus, the fragmentary character became a spectacular symbol in the artistic thinking in the novels of Toni Morrison Using the fragments to use strange word, to express the sorrow... the existence of the fragmentary language 17 Chapter 4 FRAGMENTARY CHARACTER In chapter three, the thesis surveys Morrison s creations through the fragmentary language In this chapter, we continue surveying the fragmentary language through fragmentary characters of Morrison We can see that Morrison says by the fragmentary character language We also make comparisons, surveys with the traditional characters... the story of broken lives Characters in the novels of Toni Morrison are often intentionally named with abnormal, singular names, in the status of being mixed up, violating forbidden, something disgusting, despising Livers are named to be Dead; these 15 ridiculous absurdities still occur in the daily life of the black people Here, we also see that Morrison took pains in breaking language standards, system... she wrote about a destroyed and divergent world, Morrison was not hopeless She indicated her lovely group the pathway to freedom; that was love, connection with history and culture Morrison was the person who sang the winning song, lifted the grate swings crystallized from the black religion with primitive humanity and power of the community and love In Morrison s novels, we see that she specially emphasized... aspiration and love of the slaves In this chapter, we still see Morrison s emphasis on co-relation between language and life, character fate She still thirsted for fighting to affirm the voice, ask for the right to live, reduce deep grief for her characters It can be seen that the fragmentary character language is a 21 choice of special success of Morrison in pushing her characters to take steps on the hard . implement the topic. 1.2. RESEARCH SITUATIONS ABOUT TONI MORRISON 1.2.1. Researches on Toni Morrison in the world Through surveying the research works on Morrison s novels, we saw there were two main. literature, black African - American female artist Toni Morrison received the noble Nobel Prize in Literature. The novels written by Toni Morrison produced a stir and attracted the concerns. features in the works of Morrison. 1.2.2. Researches on Toni Morrison in the country In Vietnam, we could not gather many research works and articles relating to women writer Morrison and her novels.