“Window? or Door?”: Beyond the World of Signs in Toni Morrison’s Paradise
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It may not be an exaggeration to say that American academics have been preoccupied with how to overcome conflicts mainly caused by differences in almost every walk of the society, such as in races, sexes, classes, religions, and cultures in general. Easy leveling down can degenerate into totalitarianism while mere tolerance into rugged individualism. This essay maintains that Morrison’s Paradise suggests a way to dissolve such conflicts. Assuming that all conflicts are of signs, not of reality beyond signs, Morrison challenges us to stand above signs and at the same time embrace all differences in signs. Centering around the conflicts between Ruby and the Convent, the novel starts with Ruby men’s culminating attack on the Convent. I maintain the novel attempts to explain how unnecessary and futile the attack was, how the seemingly contradictory groups are actually “flip sides of the same restless coin.” There are many other variations on this theme in the novel by presenting other contradictory signs such as black/white, life/death, transcendence/immanence, and dream/reality. Only by being aware of the ultimate sameness of different signs, it becomes possible to embrace otherness. Morrison is claimed to suggest in the novel that such a capacity to see through the surface of different signs and realize their ultimate interdependence can make it possible to overcome conflicts.
Abstract
It may not be an exaggeration to say that American academics have been preoccupied with how to overcome conflicts mainly caused by differences in almost every walk of the society, such as in races, sexes, classes, religions, and cultures in general. Easy leveling down can degenerate into totalitarianism while mere tolerance into rugged individualism. This essay maintains that Morrison’s Paradise suggests a way to dissolve such conflicts. Assuming that all conflicts are of signs, not of reality beyond signs, Morrison challenges us to stand above signs and at the same time embrace all differences in signs. Centering around the conflicts between Ruby and the Convent, the novel starts with Ruby men’s culminating attack on the Convent. I maintain the novel attempts to explain how unnecessary and futile the attack was, how the seemingly contradictory groups are actually “flip sides of the same restless coin.” There are many other variations on this theme in the novel by presenting other contradictory signs such as black/white, life/death, transcendence/immanence, and dream/reality. Only by being aware of the ultimate sameness of different signs, it becomes possible to embrace otherness. Morrison is claimed to suggest in the novel that such a capacity to see through the surface of different signs and realize their ultimate interdependence can make it possible to overcome conflicts.
참고문헌 (21)
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