Toni Morrison's Fictions

Over the years African American literature has become an important part of the literary tradition of the United States. With this boom of popularity it is important to move beyond binary classifications to study these works as boundaries are being challenged and rewritten. This book therefore provides a hybrid discussion about Toni Morrison's Sula and A Mercy focusing on the contradictory aspects of women bonds. It is suggested that such bonds are not simply determined by biological factors or limited to black women as motherhood and sisterhood help the characters shape their own subjectivities and struggle for empowerment. However the alteration of the ethics of care causes many of these women bonds to rupture as the characters resort to unconventional actions to survive in a racist and sexist society. Thus this book provides an alternative vision of women bonds and the ethics of care in which the women characters cannot be judged according to essentialist paradigms of good and bad.