Abstract
Toni Morrison discusses the rebirth of the entire Black race through self-recovery. However, her novels are not limited to the identity of Black women and people but are linked to a wider community. Morrison might have tried to imagine a community in which Black identity can be socially constituted. In this paper, we discuss the concept of community by examining communitarianism, which is the basis of justice and human rights. Although community is an ambiguous notion in the context of communitarianism, communitarians criticize the abstract conceptualization of human rights by liberal individualists, but also see that human rights are universally applicable to a community as a shared conception of social good. Communitarianism emphasizes the role and importance of community in personal life, self-formation, and identity. Morrison highlights the importance of self-worth within the boundary of community, reclaiming the development of Black identity. In the Nancian sense, a community is not a work of art to be produced. It is communicated through sharing the finitude of others—that is, “relation” itself is the fundamental structure of existence. In this regard, considering Toni Morrison’s novels alongside communitarianism and Nancy’s analysis of community may enable us to obtain a sense of the complex aspects of self and community. For Morrison, community may be the need for harmony and combination, acknowledging the differences and diversity of each other, not the opposition between the self and the other, the center and periphery, men and women. This societal communitarianism is the theme covered in this paper, which deals with the problem of identity loss in Morrison’s representative novels Sula and Beloved and examines how Black individuals and community are formed. Therefore, this study aims to examine a more complex understanding of community, in which the self and relations with others can be formed, in the context of Toni Morrison’s works.
Highlights
What is justice? In recent years, Korean academics have emphasized communitarianism as the most important consideration when dealing with justice and human rights [1].Communitarians emphasize the role and importance of community in personal life, selfformation, and identity, because a community has inherent moral values as a means of promoting and protecting individual freedoms and rights [2]
Individualism is often traced to the doctrine of liberalism; liberal individualism is usually criticized by communitarianism through its promotion of community [8] (p. 3)
This paper focused on Toni Morrison’s novels regarding the relationship between the individual and community in the framework of the intersectional character of literature and human rights—that is, the meaning of self-formation and community
Summary
What is justice? In recent years, Korean academics have emphasized communitarianism as the most important consideration when dealing with justice and human rights [1]. The historical background itself cannot define the political consciousness and mode of action of human beings in recognizing and solving the problems of their times; rather, it is universal values—that is, human rights—that can lead to community development based on individual equality In this aspect, Toni Morrison’s novels discuss racial self-denials of the Black community, as well as the racial issues of Black and White, centered on Black women suffering from the oppressive structure of sex and class within a Black community. Morrison discusses the origins and identity of America through various categories of different races in early American society In this way, we will explore the concept of community, which is the basis of justice and human rights, by examining the importance of equality and the coexistence of the community across racial, gender, and class lines in the novels of Toni Morrison, a Black. This societal communitarianism is the theme covered in this paper, which deals with the problem of identity loss in Toni Morrison’s representative novels, Sula and Beloved, and examines how individuals, not as Black but as human beings, and communities are formed
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