A Psychological Rendition of Toni Morrison’s Bildungsroman novel, Song of Solomon

Abstract

Toni Morrison became the first Black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her works have been a source of transformation in its writing and rewriting of black life, its history and culture. Toni Morrison’s novels touch and explain deeply on the domestic ideas like family, culture and relationships. The author develops on the serious matter of familial dysfunction of the African- American community in her works, especially Song of Solomon and Sula. This paper focuses on the deterioration of family relations in Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon explains Morrison's attachment to black life, culture and relationships and scrutinizes the role of African Americans in relation to white society, the slavery and the experience of blacks in America. Hence this paper which follows the psychoanalytic method unwinds the plight of people who struggle in dysfunctional social set-up and the trauma and pain of the characters, both physically and psychologically.