Black Looks & Black Acts

Book excerpt: How does Toni Morrison use language to represent race? Answering this question through literary criticism and linguistic research, this book shows how Morrison's language reflects the souls of black folk in The Bluest Eye and Beloved. The book focuses on the way in which Morrison forces language to reveal what cannot be spoken by a «black» grammar. To achieve the breaking of this silence, Morrison uses rhetoric, voice, and narrative structures not conventionally used to achieve the effect of «black English.» Students and teachers of Toni Morrison's novels and black English will find this book useful.