ngôn ngữ mảnh vỡ trong tiểu thuyết của toni morrison tóm tắt tiếng anh

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PREFACE
1. JUSTIFICATION
For the first time in the world literature, black African - American
female artist Toni Morrison received the noble Nobel Prize in Literature.
The novels written by Toni Morrison produced a stir and attracted the
concerns of many researchers and critics all over the world.
Toni Morrison created a special world of art by language and way of
thinking of the postmodern paradigm: Fragmentary language. This artistic
characteristics created features for Morrison’s world of novels and her
roaring success. It seems to be that her novels have attained the position of
classical masterpieces. She is ranked at the same grade with Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, Kawabata, Chekhov, Tagore, etc., humanitarians of all ages.
The issue on fragment has been mentioned by many researchers;
however, there has not been any research work on fragmentary language in
Morrison’s novels. Thus, we choose our research topic “Fragmentary
language in Toni Morrison’s novels” with the desire to offer a possible
approach to explore the layers of artistic meaning hidden in the works
of this black women writer.
When we carry out this topic, we hope to contribute to opening a new
research direction for the literature argument sector. This new research
direction focuses on researching the post-modern literature works of the
world in the view of semiotics. This direction will help us explore new
and strange skies by wonderful colors of art, recover limitations of the
previous approaches, mainly the approach in the aspect of world outlook
and ideology. The success of the thesis will contribute practically to
promoting the building of appearance of the system of theories on post-
modern literature research and critic in the country, a both familiar and
strange face.
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2. PURPOSE, OBJECT AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH

2.1. Purpose of research
This thesis aims to research fragmentary language in the novels of
Morrison to discover artistic characteristics of Morrison, her creation and
innovative in the works; based on that, the thesis orients to issues on black-
white culture in conflicts, conciliation and irremovable sequelas between
the oppressing and the oppressed races in the post-modern people’s life.
On theoretical aspect, the concept of fragment - a characteristics of the
post-modern literature is also made clear and can become a tool for
researching the post-modern literature in general.
2.2. Object of research
The thesis focuses on researching world of art in Morrison’s novels.
After defining the concept of fragmentary language, the thesis surveys
fragmentary language in her novels in two basic aspects including
fragmentary language and fragmentary character.
2.3. Scope of research
Scope of research of this thesis includes three novels of Morrison: The
Bluest Eye, Beloved and Song of Solomon. Of which, The Bluest Eye and
Beloved have been translated into Vietnamese. Novel Song of Solomon
was researched in the original English version by us. However, in the
research process, two novels The Bluest Eye and Beloved were compared
with their originals.
These three novels can represent and crystallize Morrison’s novel
characteristics that have been researched and affirmed by the world
researchers and critics. In which, the world of colorful people was
mentioned with the sufficient attendance of generations: The Bluest Eye
was the story about a girl; Beloved was the story about mother and
daughter; Song of Solomon wrote about father and son, etc. Especially,
Beloved novel was highly appreciated by the world researchers and critics.
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Apart from the three mentioned-above novels, Morrison has another

six novels including Paradise, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Love and A Mercy.
Although we did not survey these novels carefully, in the research process,
the thesis will make combinations and comparisons to indicate an unified
view in Morrison’s works.
3. SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL MEANING OF THE TOPIC
The thesis combines researching theory and analyzing the works of
the American black women writer who got the Nobel Prize in Literature.
On theoretical aspect, we surveyed and researched the circumstance of
appearance, determining connotation of the concept of fragmentary
language like a characteristics of the post-modern period in general and
post-modern literature in particular.
Then, we surveyed three representative novels of Toni Morrison. Her
works contained characteristics of the post-modern novels with original,
new and strange artistic creations, contributing new appearances to the
world literature.
In parallel to the research process, we translated Song of Solomon into
Vietnamese. Researching and translating the works written by Toni
Morrison contribute to introducing cultural heritages of the human kind
and richening the storage of foreign literatures in Vietnam. In the short-
term, these translated works will help students access to the American-
African literature that has original artistic style, strong innovative and
great humanitarian spirit of the contemporary authors.
The thesis has scientific meaning in the point that it contributes
positively to researching the post-modern critic theory; that is to research
and build a instrumental theory term and practice applying into researching
the post-modern literature works, a relatively new field in the country.
In Vietnam, this is the first thesis that has the summary and general
nature about the world of art in Morrison’s novels in some basic aspects.
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The thesis summarizes some comments about artistic characteristics,

especially, fragmentary nature - feature of the post-modern literature-in
her novels
The success of this thesis builds a small bridge for the following
researchers on the world of art of Morrison in particular and the post-
modern literature in general.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In the view of the post-modern critic theory, we applied some research
methodologies to complete this topic:
- Cultural-social methodology: We researched the novels of Morrison
in their close relationship with cultural and social circumstances. The
contents of the novels was analyzed and lighted up from the view of
culture and society. Those were the cultural and social issues of the black
people and community in the cultural and social environment of the white
people.
- Inter-branch methodology: This methodology was used to survey
and build the concept of the fragment term. Here, we combined
researching literature and history, philosophy, economy, culture, etc. to
determine the circumstance of appearance and connotation of the fragment
concept as well as use it into surveying the novels of Toni Morrison.
- Historical poetry research methodology: This methodology was used
to research and survey the critic methods in the history to indicate
innovations in the post-modern literature - anti-traditional artistic forms,
experimental novel techniques.
- Theoretical poetry research methodology: This methodology was
applied mainly when we analyzed and got to know basic artistic measures
of the writer when she built the works. The thesis indicated role and value
of details, techniques and artistic forms used by the writer to denote the
ideology contents in the works.
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- Biography critic methodology: We researched the biography of the

writer to understand mutual relations and impacts between the life and
cause of creation, foundations to justify the world of art in the novels of a
relatively special pen in the work: a black women writer.
Furthermore, we used activities of analysis, comment, etc. to both
widen and deepen the researched issues.
5. CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE THESIS
On theoretical aspect, the thesis summarized and determined the
connotation of the concept of characteristic fragmentary language of the
post-modern literature. This term was used scattered in the research works
on the post-modern literature; however; the connotation of the concept was
not indicated clearly. By justifying the connotation of the concept, the
thesis contributed to building a theoretical tool to research the post-modern
literature in general.
For the world of art in Morrison’s novels, the thesis indicated clearly
her fragmentary language, confirmed the value of the Truth - the Good -
the Beauty and great contributions of Morrison to the world post-modern
literature - a relatively new woman writer for Vietnamese readers.
6. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
Apart from Preface, the thesis include four chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: Overview of the justification
Chapter 2: Concept of “fragmentary language”
Chapter 3: Fragmentary language
Chapter 4: Fragmentary characters
Although these chapters exist independently, they have their close
relations in the point that they all orient to indicating the artistic
characteristics in Morrison’s novels and their meaning to researching and
criticizing literature argument.
The final part is Conclusion, List of works relating to the this topic
and references.
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Chapter 1
OVERVIEW OF THE JUSTIFICATION
1.1. CRITIC ARGUMENT ABOUT “FRAGMENT”
1.1.1. In the world
In this part, we conducted the survey based on the research works of
Stuart Sim, the book called Critical Dictionary of Postmodern Thought
and those of researcher named Le Huy Bac in post-modern short-story.
Lively denotations of fragmentary art herein were surveyed relatively
detailed: no topic, ending, storyline, motion and structure of the traditional
novels and form was deformed in many forms: digital, asterisk, pictures,
specks, etc.
1.1.2. In Vietnam
The thesis surveyed uses and appearances of the fragment term in the
life of criticizing and arguing literature in Vietnam. With 11 researches
gathered by us from authors such as: Le Huy Bac, Phung Van Tuu, Le
Nguyen Can, Chau Minh Hung, etc. it can be seen that there are many
research works using the term of fragment. Additionally, research and
translation works of La Nguyen, Phuong Luu, Ngan Xuyen, Le Nguyen
Can, Loc Phuong Thuy, etc. are solid supports to enable us to determine
the concept connotation to implement the topic.
1.2. RESEARCH SITUATIONS ABOUT TONI MORRISON
1.2.1. Researches on Toni Morrison in the world
Through surveying the research works on Morrison’s novels, we saw
there were two main research trends. The first trend was to research
thinking of the writer: issues on race, gender, history, characters,
individual and community, women’s rights, human spirit, etc. The second
trend was prone to prosody and novel techniques of Toni Morrison, for
example, poetry nature in the novels, folk culture elements, religious
atmosphere, multi-topic description art through flow of inmist feelings
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and interchange of sights, characteristics of the post-modern novel
techniques. Especially, the fragmentary nature was seen as a feature of
Morrison’s novels, expressed in both the novel contents and techniques.
With our efforts, we summarized basic research directions on Morrison’s
novels as follows:
Firstly, the novels of Toni Morrison were researched in the view of
psychoanalysis. Issues on fear, obsession, mental traumas, slave
psychology, etc. were analyzed relatively carefully to interpret the thinking
contents in Morrison’s novels.
Secondly, Morrison’s novels were discovered from the view of poetry
study.
Thirdly, an outstanding research direction that should be mentioned
was the approach to works of Morrison in the aspect of culture, religion.
Fourthly, the world of Morrison’s novels was researched in the view
of sociology. The issues on history and races of the black people in the
white society were researched carefully to explain horror dramas born by
the colorful people in the slavery regime history. Additionally, the pens
emphasized the black post-modern nature of pen Morrison.
Furthermore, there was the research trend in the view of description
study on the novels of Toni Morrison.
These works gave us precious comments and initial orientations to
carry out the topic. Apart from the works that directly mentioned the
fragment, some works in spite of not mentioning the fragment, they helped
us much in determining the cultural-social foundation for the fragments
and their features in the works of Morrison.
1.2.2. Researches on Toni Morrison in the country
In Vietnam, we could not gather many research works and articles
relating to women writer Morrison and her novels. In addition to some
introductions about the author and works in books, newspapers, magazines
and Internet, in our country, there were three research works of specific

nature, including Master thesis of author Nguyen Thi Hieu Thien with the
topic Pathway to freedom of the black American people in the novel art of
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Toni Morrison (Ho Chi Minh University of Education, 2003) and Nguyen
Phuong Khanh with the topic Visionary realism in the work “Beloved”
(University of Social Science and Humanitarian, Vietnam National
University, Ha Noi, May 2008). Additionally, there was the work of
Duong Thi Thuy Tram, Master thesis, “Beloved” of Toni Morrison in the
view of myth (Ho Chi Minh University of Education, 2009).
Thus, research on fragment is a relative concentrated trend that is
concerned by many post-modern literature critics in the world as well as in
the country. It can be seen that fragment is surveyed and argued on many
aspects: language, character, storyline, etc. Thereby, creations, innovative
and new artistic opinions, etc. of the post-modern pens are deepened,
discovered and justified in a scientific, persuasive and attractive manner.
Research on Toni Morrison and her novels include issues such as
human nature, frightened traumas born by the black while in the society
where they are considered to be slaves; aspiration for freedom, happiness,
motherhood, aspiration for family heat; issues on race, characters,
personality, historical and religious elements, etc.; for novel techniques,
the issues were discovered such as the existence of realism and magicism,
interrace of many categories, effects from the Bible, use of many time
frame, vagueness and polysemantics, mental flow technique, multi-subject,
non-linear story telling, unconscious effects from psychoanalysis as well
as art in Morrison’s novels. Those are suggestions for us to heritage and
develop further in this thesis.
In Vietnam now, research on the fragmentary language in the novels
of Toni Morrison is still an open issue. Initial comments only have brief
nature and just stop at the level of suggestion. This is a very characteristic
self-telling art of Morrison’s novels; thus, we courageously choose this

topic with the desire to find an approach to value layers of the
masterpieces and open a window to initially get to understanding vast
oceans of the world literature, especially the so called post-modern
literature, with strong innovative and creations in many aspects.
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Chapter 2
CONCEPT OF “FRAGMENTARY LANGUAGE”
Fragment is often considered as a nature in art creation. Sometimes, it
is raised to be fragmentarism. Thereby, in literature, this can be considered
to be a trend of creation. Within the scope of this thesis, we only
concentrated on determining and exploring this concept in the aspect of
being a nature of artistic language, characteristic life interpretation way of
the post-modern literature in general and Toni Morrison in particular.
Before determining the concept of fragmentary language, we start with
artistic language.
2.1. ARTISTIC LANGUAGE
We based on the concept of artistic language of I.U. Lotman,
semiotics creator who has the similar opinions with the post-logic structure
scholars in language. According to Lotman, all elements that create the
world of art: frame, space, story, event, character, structure, etc. are all the
units that create meaning and artistic languages. When the natural
language is used to retell event (with story telling and teller elements), it
becomes artistic language. Those are voices that are imagined, modeled,
created and have their individual tongues and styles. The unit of artistic
language, therefore, is not word but motifs. With the same opinion,
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mikhail Bakhtin and post-structure scholars,
language is considered to always belong to some interactions and
dialogues; that means it is always in the movement process. Therefore,
artistic language is combined closely to society and history. Language in
the post-modern spirit is considered to be a discourse, which means that

language is being used, in the process of generating and creating meaning,
capable of widening and developing its limits endlessly.
Lotman concepts that artistic language is wider than what has been
defined by the previous researchers and this is the spirit that the post-
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modern scholars define about language. Accordingly, artistic language is
form of secondary language, created in the system of daily social
language. Artistic language of a literature work is character language,
space language, storyline language, etc. or any form of the document that
can communicate and create meaning and beauty capacity to the readers.
Naturally, the post-modern artistic language will be different from the
traditional artistic language. That difference comes from the view of
considering the work to be a perfect whole of collections of fragments and
not to be a perfect whole of collections of fragments but an adjacency of
fragments.
Then, we surveyed and compared the characters of the traditional
artistic language and fragmentary language-feature of the post-modern
literature. The thesis came to conclusion: under the effects of the rational
philosophy, the traditional literature language is the perfect whole, unified,
well-proportioned language; fragments, if any, are also components of a
center-oriented whole. The fragmentary language is the one of post-
modern thinking, product of the non-rational, non-centered philosophy. It
calls for self-telling grand narratives and dispersion applause.
2.2. “FRAGMENTARY LANGUAGE”
In the process we continued clarifying the concept of fragmentary
language, we surveyed further the concept of fragment. Firstly, we
surveyed the appearance context of the term and determine its connotation.
2.2.1. Appearance context: Through surveying the materials in the
country and world, we concluded that fragment is the feature of the post-
modern consciousness and also a feature of the post-modern literature,

with the foundation of non-centered and anti-rational philosophy.
2.2.2. Fragment like a feature of the post-modern thinking: It can be
seen that fragment is a feature of the thinking and Western post-modern
literature. The post-modern writers said that fragmentary language is the
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one that can free thinking, emotion and represent lively the inherent beauty
of life Fragmentary language is a specially successful creation of the
post-modern writers to enable expressing and showing consciousness of
the post-modern people.
2.2.3. Concept connotation
From the above-mentioned foundations, we temporarily determine the
concept connotation as follows:
Fragmentary language or expression way using fragment is a basic
character for the realistic approach of the post-modern literature. This
writing method appeared on the basis of psychology explanation,
instability, disruption, disconnection, erection, segment, vacancy, non
solemnly respect, random, etc. appearing mostly in the literature works,
expressing the sense organ “doubting great self-telling” of the post-modern
people.
Fragmentary language is expressed in all aspects and basic elements
of the artistic form in the work such as storyline, character, character
psychology, time, space, description art, language, etc. We cannot see the
compliance with any order, frame like the traditional literature works but
there is always disorder, fault, change, absurdity and abnormality. Readers
cannot hope to find a linear order in the describing way but they have to
participate positively into arranging, gathering and collecting those
segments to be able to imagine and access to the story.
From the view of philosophy, we see fragment is the product of the
chaotic conception about life when the society is standing at the threshold
of movement and change. Fragments collide and interact with each other

to create life and development.
From the view of aesthetics, fragment expresses that Beauty is the one
that has not been perfect in the shape of fragments. The fragment always
indicates shortcomings and disappearance of one “self” with sufficient
body, shape and humanity. Fragment is the beauty being on its movement
to become “it is”.
From the view of theory on literature critic: fragment is the product of
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chain of structure. When the peripheral is considered to be the center and
gradually moves into the center to make the non-center of some object,
phenomenon, the fragment appears. Thus, when mentioning the fragment,
it refers to non-center, line of succession, etc. line of great self-telling that
have become outdated.
Thus, we can conclude that fragmentary language is the image
expression of fragment nature in the artistic invent. Language herein, as
determined, is the artistic expression way of the literature work through
meaning creating units. Thus, within the scope of this thesis, we
concentrate on two fields: fragmentary language and fragmentary
character.
Chapter 3
FRAGMENTARY WORD
We indicated the artistic intention of Morrison when she created and
used the artistic structure of fragmentary word. Getting awareness of the
strength and power of language, she concentrated her creative power on
them. Language was the image and order of the world; thereby, the
governing quarters expressed their will, power and promulgate rules and
forced people to comply with. Using many various methods, she broke the
standard language system of the white people in America and replaced it
with her own language system - that of the black people. Attacking
language meant attacking the high and majestic system of intellect and

power built for a long time of the hegemony discourse. She displayed
unreliability, false, fabrication of the “white” language, strutted death-
blows into the white culture, vacillated the white sole aesthetics
foundation, etc. One one hand, she made the white culture become non-
centered. On the other hand, she confirmed black language, culture and
characters; fought for the right to raise the voice, live and free of the black
people - broken fates in the storm of the history. Word is the voice and
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vitality of one nation. Thus, in Morrison’s novels, she paid special
attention to artistic word. Wordy fragments in Morrison’s novels are
specially rich in meaning, capacity of converting meaning and emotion.
3.1. CONFUSED WORD
3.1.1. Wordy fragment - mirror of the reverse world
Crumbling and repressing word to discuss the two white-black worlds
make word like a mirror of the two completely opposite worlds. In the
novels of Toni Morrison, readers can realize that the author uses
characteristic fragmentary language in the documents, at many levels.
Interpreting the sentence, distance between words, using dots, ways of
capitalization, etc; cutting a paragraph of words into small fragments and
replace them at the beginning of each paragraph to replace the name of
chapter, etc. in her first work called The Bluest Eye indicated her intention
in creating a type of fragmentary word for the document.
3.1.2. Destruction power of language in the imaginary world
SEEMOTHERMOTHERISVERYNICEMO
THERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEMOTH
ERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLAUGHLA [116;110].
After that, she broke the story into many fragments, disordered the
usual linear order, including the natural circulation in the seasons to tell
profound frightened and horrible truths. Each image, event and character
in the novels was described in the form of fragments to increase its level. It

can see that Fragmentary language is an artistic character to express loss
in The Bluest Eye. Tragedy of a black girl described by this language
created the powerful resonance force from readers. Readers must imagine,
figure, combine, think, vibrate, etc. as commented by Lyotard: it is the
wonder of the superordinary Morrison created in her novels.
3.2. INCOHERENT AND NON-STANDARD WORD
3.2.1. Incoherent word
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We made the table on summarizing evens in the novel called Beloved
to see incoherence and fragment of time and events. This is a technique to
fragmentize story telling language of Morrison. In the traditional works,
we see time type of reminisce; however, time is not broken to such level as
mentioned herein. On the other hand, all past and reminisce have effect on
richening and supplementing the story. Here, space and time are created by
fragments that do not belong to the same topic or sometimes they belong
to the same issue but they are different, overlap angle, screens that do not
orient to the unified picture. That is the expression of the characteristic
fragmentary language in Morrison’s creations.
3.2.2. Non-standard word
English language non-standardization was executed by Morrison by
using the method of putting the irregular verbs. She represented
simultaneously and homogenized all tenses in English (using the simple
past tense for all events). In Beloved, the author focused on making the
events become incoherent by creating space-time fragments, creating
characteristics of the fragmentary language in the works. Disruption,
sudden and disconnection of the events were enhanced by the technique of
simultaneous appearance about time, along with fragments of status,
history, culture, religion; art of metaphor, hesitation, vague, magicizing
events, etc. made the work be told by special fragmentary language, an
expression of a pre-eminent literature art form.

3.3. DIVERGENT WORD
3.3.1. Random divergence
Song of Solomon is the story about names, divergent, distorted,
truncated, half-open names about the story of broken lives. Characters in
the novels of Toni Morrison are often intentionally named with abnormal,
singular names, in the status of being mixed up, violating forbidden,
something disgusting, despising. Livers are named to be Dead; these
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ridiculous absurdities still occur in the daily life of the black people. Here,
we also see that Morrison took pains in breaking language standards,
system of words together with regular expression meaning of words, etc.
Those names that were distorted, made ignominious, wrongly called,
placed names were the frightening stories about a nation that was enslaved,
damaged in term of culture, history and origin. Using divergent words was
also Morrison’s artistic intention when she broke the standard English
language to affirm the language of her black group.
3.3.2. Nick – name
A nick-name relating to the final bad meaning becomes the official
name of the character. Those that are not official, uncertain, vague about
their final meaning become real in the life of people herein. Art in using
nickname together with amending, naming those names that are given by
the white people to return an another world, those that are intentionally
hidden, not written; simultaneously, to fight against the peripheral
unknown and being whitened. That is the language of a destroyed world.
3.3.3. Cursed names
The black people took the names in the Bible to give name to their
children. The issue here is that those were the names of the characters who
killed the Bible or stood unlucky fates and were abandoned, prevented by
the white people. Ridiculing, toppling and destroying art for the standard
language of the white people, including those in the Bible; intention to

distort, misunderstand, use oppositely the language respected by the white
people, creating an another word of words, according to Lyotard is “the
wonder of the super-ordinary” that Morrison was succeeded in to affirm
the black values, characters and aesthetics building for her group,
“Beloved are not be loved”.
In comparison with the hopeless touching of F. Kafka when writing
about the lonely and small fate of human life, we see that the pen is full of
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womanly nature and overflowed love, optimistic vitality of Morrison flows
in each page. Although she wrote about a destroyed and divergent world,
Morrison was not hopeless. She indicated her lovely group the pathway to
freedom; that was love, connection with history and culture. Morrison was
the person who sang the winning song, lifted the grate swings crystallized
from the black religion with primitive humanity and power of the
community and love.
In Morrison’s novels, we see that she specially emphasized the role
and strength of language. It seems that language dominates all spiritual
life, thinking and action of the people and appearance of the life,
determines the world order. Simultaneously, she indicated unreliability and
inhumanity of the centered language. Using the fragmentary language to
rebuild the beauty of the black language that was intentionally erased, she
called for the equality between voices, skin colors and races. She believed
that there was not any language that was the center and dominant in
comparison with other language. Although the black people were
destroyed, they sill used their own voices to live, love and fight to gain
what they had been dispossessed. Murmurs and whispers through breath,
language that were blocked and could not spoke out still had an
extraordinary force that could not be obliterated. She also indicated a
terrible truth of the widespread fierce when all community followed a
hegemony language.

Fragmentary language is a pre-eminent creation of Morrison to fight
and strive for the right to live for her pitiful group. Simultaneously, she
also proposed eagerly for the equality between the voices, languages; this
has the similar meaning with striving for the right to live equally between
races and skin colors. She called for a world of equal language; that is the
recognition of the existence of the fragmentary language.
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Chapter 4
FRAGMENTARY CHARACTER
In chapter three, the thesis surveys Morrison’s creations through the
fragmentary language. In this chapter, we continue surveying the
fragmentary language through fragmentary characters of Morrison. We
can see that Morrison says by the fragmentary character language. We
also make comparisons, surveys with the traditional characters to see the
characteristics in the fragmentary character language, innovative in
thinking and artistic creation of the writer.
Before surveying the fragmentary character language, we determine
the concept, fragmentary characters. The structure of chapter four is as
follows:
4. 1. CONCEPT OF “CHARACTER” AND “FRAGMENTARY
CHARACTER”
4.1.1. Character: Based on the literature term dictionary (Le Ba Han,
Tran Dinh Su, Nguyen Khac Phi, co-editor), character is: “ A specific
person described in the literature work. Literature characters can or cannot
have their personal names (…). The concept of literature character is
sometimes used like a metaphor that does not indicate any specific person
but it is only an outstanding phenomenon in the work.
4.1.2. Fragmentary character: In this part, we survey the connotation of
the concept of character in the post-modern literature, with the conclusion
on character type that contains anti-traditional characteristics, of which,

fragmentary character is an outstanding example.
4.1.2.1. Traditional character: in the traditional view, character is a
whole, entire, unified and closely combined language. The traditional
character is the voice of an entire and center-oriented world
4.1.2.2. Fragmentary character: this is the anti-traditional, destroyed
character type that contrasts completely to its entire in the past. The
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fragmentary character is fragments, breakings, disputes, separation,
disconnection, etc. voice of a non-centered, distorted world, etc.
4. 2. FRAGMENTARY CHARACTER OF TONI MORISON
Fragmentary character is a voice Morrison took pains in building to
raise voice to the world about the hidden truths. The fates of black women
and men, especially, black girls are expressed gradually through the
fragment combining technique, which helps us imagine a huge and
indefinite world of fierce, together with heartlessness that is a black, deep
world we has never imaged that it occurred to the people. Different from
the previous characters, the fragmentary characters indicate separation of
a perfect whole, unity and entire. It is not a universe of unity, harmony but
a collection of segments; for the black people in America, character
fragments become violent. Thereby, we see Morrison’s emphasis on the
co-relation between language and life and fate of characters. She still
thirsted for striving to affirm the voice, right to live and reduce deep grief
for her characters. It can be seen that the fragmentary character language is
a choice of special success of Morrison to represent her artistic thinking.
The thesis surveys five main characters in her three novels in
following items:
4.2.1. Entity destruction - Pecola
Character Pecola, a black girl was analyzed in the aspect of voice to
the world about being destroyed in term of entity. She was a girl in the
process of developing humanity but there was not any thing to form belief,

beauty and value of herself. All people, from her father, mother,
classmates, teachers, community, etc. saw that she was too ugly and she
herself recognized that. All of people ignored and kept away from her each
time when they saw her; breaking occurred layer by layer, etc., led to a
saddening wish of the girl for the blue eyes, the condition for her to be
loved and accepted in the community. Ruin reached the top when she was
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raped by her own father. Morrison opened the truth about the passion of
losing culture, history and origin. Slave in culture ruined the girl in a
callous manner. The writer called for homologous voice, equality in
language, aesthetic values. Simultaneously, she demanded the rights to
raise the voice and live for the black people, especially women.
4.2.2. Connection of entity fragment - Milkman
Milkman was a nickname which related to bad, metaphor meaning
about the dependence and selfishness of this character. Although Milkman
was the child of the richest black family in the city, he always felt
frightened and passive and boycotted by the community. Being a bulk of
collapse, Milkman was embarrassed in complication and complexity of the
stories. He could not determine the truth about his family, fragments
without the destination source. Only when he connected to the black
culture and understood the voice of the community, did he grow up.
4.2.3. A human-ghost or Beloved entity
Character Beloved appeared in the shape of a human-ghost. It is
believed that Beloved appeared like a means to re-emerge a frightening
history. She may be the regeneration of soul and body of the black people
who were killed in the bloody slavery regime history in general and souls
of black girls in particular in a cruel society. Fragments of character
Beloved not only revived the untold stories but they were also the voice to
ask for the right to live, be loved and considered to be human living under
the sun light for unlucky black girls.

4.2.4. Unfortunate saint or destruction entity of Baby Suggs
Baby Suggs was the witness of a slavery history regime with its all
dirties. “Slavery life had gobbled her legs, hands, eyes, stomach and
tongue”. Her eight children had up to six fathers and all of these children
were sold, some child was sold when he/she did not grow wisdom
tooth”… Although her feet were paralyzed, she still had to do everything
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to serve the slave-owner, etc. When she witnessed that her daughter-in-law
killed her native grandchild because she did not want them to back to the
slavery life, she was helpless. Her life was a chain of unluckiness,
separation, collapse, etc. Until she was free, the only thing she had was her
heart. She devoted her heart to the community and called for the black
people to love themselves and each other to live and overcome disaster
together. But, she became an unfortunate saint because the black
community was heavy on the slavery psychology. Paralyzed physics,
broken heart, she died in the hopelessness because the earth was too short
of humanity.
4.2.5. Sethe Fight for the entity of child killing mother - Sethe
The first time of breaking up occurred to Sethe in Sweet Home when
students ranked her into the list of animal. She was anxious for her
children; thus, she made the plan on eluding with her husband and friends.
But the plan was revealed; Halle-her husband went crazy when he
witnessed the sight on which his wife was raped and indulged in violence
with seven-month child in her belly… But Sethe still eluded to Ohio. In a
short-time after that, a group of white people came and caught her child. In
the hopeless and needy situation, she decided to kill her own child to
prevent her from living in the slavery life. The whole life of Sethe was
then sunk in deep grief, repentance and worry for this. The past lived
together with the present of Sethe when the daughter-ghost soul appeared
and disappeared in a hard-to-understand manner. Character Sethe

contributed a voice about the hidden frightening truths, aspiration and love
of the slaves.
In this chapter, we still see Morrison’s emphasis on co-relation
between language and life, character fate. She still thirsted for fighting to
affirm the voice, ask for the right to live, reduce deep grief for her
characters. It can be seen that the fragmentary character language is a
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choice of special success of Morrison in pushing her characters to take
steps on the hard movement to seek for the entity and express her profound
and highly generous artistic thinking.
CONCLUSION
In the non-center movement of great self-telling, the post-modern
artistic thinking oriented to fragmentary language like a inevitability.
Fragment became the new standard on beauty. Fragment participated in
creating a staff of new authors and readers for the era when people did not
believe in the absolute power of the reason. From this post-modern sense
organ, fragment penetrated into creating and criticizing literature like a
core category. Each literature author had his/her own feathers when using
the fragmentary language but Toni Morrison was the master in this art.
With the topic of Fragmentary language in the novels of Toni
Morrison, the thesis is the first research work on the American post-
modern literature in the approach angle of metaphor and poetry study in
Vietnam. It can be seen that by this approach, to some extent, the thesis
has recovered the previous entanglements of some research works on
artistic language in the meaning creating process.
In term of the term, the thesis reviewed and developed the concept of
fragmentary language. Artistic language researched herein by us is
understood in its wide meaning; that is all meaning creating units of the
literature works based on the semiotics conception justified by semiotics
creator I.U. Lotman and post-structure scholars. We can see that, in nature,

the artistic language contains many types of languages. Those are
languages that are created and modeled on the basis of primary language
according to the writer’s intention, a special symbol type used by the
writer to model the world. The post-modern world is a unprecedented
reality. Thus, the artistic language has the capacity of developing and
widening its limits infinitely, creating layers of meanings thanks to
resonance from readers…
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The thesis also surveyed and indicated the features of the post-modern
language, that was fragmentary language. This language expressed the
thinking sense organ of the post-modern people. That language had the
power of creating the super-ordinary, exceeding the denotation of the
traditional artistic language. Within the scope of this thesis, we further
analyzed the expression of the fragmentary language in two aspects, word
and character layer.
The fragmentary language became main characteristics in the self-
telling art of Toni Morrison. In her novels, there occurred the violent war
on the aspect of word. For Toni Morrison, attacking word means attacking
the foundation of the white culture, great self-telling discourse that
dominated for a long time in a country which was drawn by aesthetic
words but the reality was not the same to establish the black cultural and
aesthetic foundation that was homologous to the white aesthetics. Toni
Morrison was worthy one of the courageous combatants in the non-
centered course of great self-telling. She became an excellent delegate of
the post-modern literature. She created an original, adhesive or separated
world of fragmentary language in term of form, using words with their
divergent meanings when comparing with the traditional usage way to
revive the hidden truths and display the black space, undeniable fragments
of the history, culture and fates of the serf.
From the cut, disordered fragments of languages, we can see easily a

structure of fragments in all images, detailed events, characters, etc. that
were built painstakingly to discuss a painful collapse and nothing could
save the fates of the characters of Toni Morrison. Reminisces, scattered
event fragments, whispers that were never written on pages were gathered
to tell the events that “it is better not know anything about them”.
Extracting the story gradually through fragments was also an art Toni
Morrison tried to ease and reduce the passion, prevent the feelings of
having to contact to what too coarse and horrible taking place in the daily
life. The art created from the stories did not say completely but it was “still
entangled in the center of the told story”, generating creativity, connection
in ideas and powerful resonance from readers, expressing a master art
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talent, making Lyotard have regard for her and affirm that was “the
wonder of the super-ordinary”.
Inevitably, the fragmentary language gives birth to fragmentary
character. From diversified and lively characters, fate fragments were
displayed gradually, circulated and repeated to create a type of spectacular
character fragment language to enable the readers to make effort on
collecting and joining the writer in creating a picture about the world,
slaver fate and serf in general. Present-past, realistic-visionary, human-
ghost fragments made the works of Toni Morrison bring a fabulous
atmosphere, making the readers daze with the longing for and toss about.
Through the fragmentary language art, Toni Morrison showed her
great creation and innovative when she used the voice of the black people
community in the town margin about the deleted name and efforts in
retrieving their full name, ancestors and themselves. Thus, as indicated by
Morrison, language had an extraordinary power which crystallizes culture,
history and life of a nation in itself. Giving wrong name, understanding
wrongly, etc. were the tragedy of the colorful people in the history, a
nation that was “erased the memory”. Additionally, understanding

differently, using oppositely, simplifying the standard language of the
white people, cracking it by many various ways were also the ways
conducted by the black people to fight against the enslave of this
overwhelm culture.
If the wordy fragment mainly indicated the painful loss of a group of
people both in the past and at present when they and all of people still
lived in the suspicious, envy and strange atmosphere, etc., the fragmentary
character language was the place for Toni Morrison to show the readers
the movement on seeking for the entity to end the passion and loss of the
black people in the world of white people. Thus, the fragmentary
character became a spectacular symbol in the artistic thinking in the
novels of Toni Morrison. Using the fragments to use strange word, to
express the sorrow for human life, to fight for the equality between two
white-black groups, to create the entity of new people and culture, etc.,
Toni Morrison affirmed her judicial capacity as a creator of wordy
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materials. She was really successful when she used the fragmentary
language to create the world of art. She also affirmed that the nature of
language as well as that of existence was not round entities as people
thought for a long time. In fact, in the liveliness of the existence, the nature
of language is fragments. This thinking brings the brilliant humanitarian
nature of the era. It is time that people realized voices and lives entitled to
exist at the equal level and have the same opportunity of living and
developing. The fragmentary language, as affirmed by Morrison is the
inevitable nature of the post-modern language; people should realize and
recognize it.
From the above-mentioned researches, the thesis has opened a
promising research orientation. That is to research the post-modern
literature works from the view of semiotics. Surveying and determining
the conceptual connotation of the term fragmentary language help the

post-modern critics have an effective tool to discover the Vietnamese and
world post-modern literature. This can become a pathway for the domestic
literature critics to conquer the artistic tops of the human kind.
In front of the great art of Toni Morrison, our discoveries are very
small. We desire that there will have more research works on her literature
cause, a pen that fights tirelessly for the freedom, right and equality by a
tireless love and extraordinary artistic talent.