Cultural suicides, island retreats, and diasporic revelations: A socio-historical approach to Paule Marshall's "Praisesong for the Widow" and Toni Morrison's "Tar Baby"

Author

• Deonne Nicole Minto

Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1999

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

King, Natalie

Abstract

As reflected in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow and Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, many black characters in literature with a Caribbean setting inhabit a realm of stasis. They negotiate two worlds---a white world with hierarchies of power and success and selective acceptance, and a black world, usually with restricted power. Caught between these two worlds, the exiled slowly begin to lose their sense of roots and to embrace cultural suicide. Some flee to the Caribbean, where they may regain what is lost. This paradise, with all its historical markers of the African diaspora, ultimately forces these characters either to confront their rootlessness and to reconnect with the community or to destroy any connections they once had. In dramatizing the journeys and choices of their protagonists, Marshall and Morrison reinvent the Caribbean not just as a retreat, but as a site for reclamation of black identity.

Extent

123 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1999.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Recommended Citation

Minto, Deonne Nicole, "Cultural suicides, island retreats, and diasporic revelations: A socio-historical approach to Paule Marshall's "Praisesong for the Widow" and Toni Morrison's "Tar Baby"" (1999). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 1990 - 1999. 1425.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_4/1425

Identifier

FADT15752

Format

pdf