insights on pursuit for meaningful life in selected works of toni morrison

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INSIGHTS ON PURSUIT FOR MEANINGFUL LIFE
IN SELECTED WORKS OF TONI MORRISON




A Dissertation Presented to the
Faculty of the Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City, Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in English


by
VU THI QUYNH DUNG (Dzung)
June, 2014




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ABSTRACT
Title: Insights on Pursuit for a Meaningful Life in Selected

Works of Toni Morrison
Author: Vũ Thị Quỳnh Dung (Dzung)
Course: Doctor of Philosophy major in English and Literature
Year: 2014
Adviser: Dr. Maria Luisa A. Valdez

Summary:
This dissertation aims at presenting how the selected works
of Toni Morrison manifest the sufferings of black women in terms
of racial oppression, gender inequality, emotional abandonment,
and women’s sufferings; the sources of strengths and motive of
women’s resistance as shown in the love between mother and
children, husband and wife relationship, freedom and equality, and
self-identity; and the manner how the women in the world
portrayed in the novels express resistance to the different forms of
violence. Likewise, it shows the implications of the themes pursued




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in the novels to the study of meaningful family life among
Vietnamese students.
In dealing with the works, the qualitative method with content
analysis basing on the Sociological and Philosophical Approaches
and the theory of Viktor Frankl’s Meaningfulness of Life were
employed.
The study found out that 1) Mostly, the black female
characters experienced humiliation and suffered an acute isolation
in a white racist society that has marginalized them; 2) Black
women always resisted every sort of oppression with different
sources of strength and motives; 3) Oppressed women resisted
and revolted in various ways, such as verbal, physical, and armed
resistance with different manners such as violence, non-violence
or acquiescence; and 4) the themes pursued in the novels will
change the way Vietnamese students think and act, and foster
students to hold campaigns and propaganda focusing on
promoting the values of a meaningful family life, a life of prosperity,
equality, happiness, progress, a life without prejudice and violence.




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The dissertation can be used as reference for students of
Literature in the Contemporary American Literature course.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training, the educational
institutions may integrate the insights on the pursuit of meaningful
family life in the academe that will also inspire them to spawn
activities in the curricula. This paper will also make members of the
community understand that life is never made unbearable by
circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.




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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation appears in its current form due to the
assistance and guidance of several people. I would like to offer my
sincere thanks to them for their assistance and guidance has help
me during the whole period of study.
First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr. Maria Luisa A. Valdez, who has supported me
though out my dissertation with her patience and knowledge whilst
allowing me the room to work in my own way. I attribute the level
of my PhD. degree to her encouragement and effort and without
her this research, too, would not have been completed or written.
One simply could not wish for a better or friendlier supervisor.
I owe my gratitude to Dr. Matilda H. Dimaano and The
Panels for their highly intellectual abilities to give excellent advises
and detailed review during the preparation of this study.
I would like to give expressions to my gratitude to all the
teachers of the Graduate School of Batangas State University of
the Philippines for their valuable lectures that inspire me to carry
out the research.




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I would like to seize this opportunity to thank the Philippines
Government which sends each time with the utmost willingness
skilful and qualified teachers to Thai Nguyen University. The
cooperation between the two countries should be a lesson for
other Asian countries to improve education and achieve
integration.
I am indebted to ITC, Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture
and Forestry of Thai Nguyen University for accepting me as a
PhD. Student and for your guidance and supports during the
course.
I greatly appreciate the financial assistance and spiritual
supports of Hung Vuong University, of Foreign Language
Department, of my dear colleagues and students for me and my
family during my PhD. study.
I am grateful to To Loan Nguyen and her family to help me in
the search of documents while they were in Germany.
My classmates, thank you very much for making the
atmosphere of our class as friendly as possible.

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I cannot finish without thanking my family. I warmly thank
and appreciate my parents for their encouragement and looking
after my children in the process of study.
I want to express my gratitude and deepest appreciation to
my lovely husband and two sweet daughters. without your
supports and encouragements, I could not have finished this work.
I can just say thank you all for everything.






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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE i
ABSTRACT ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
CHAPTER I 1
THE PROBLEM 1
Introduction 1
Statement of the Problem 10
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study 11
Significance of the Study 13
CHAPTER II 71
REVIEW OF LITERATURE: SYNTHESIS AND HYPOTHESIS 71
Conceptual Literature 71
Literature and Philosophy 71
Meaningful family life in Vietnam 77
Sociological and Philosophical Approaches in Literary Criticism 90
Toni Morrison and her Significant Works 98
Research Literature 105
Frankl’s theory about Meaningfulness of life 116

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Conceptual Framework 124
Definition of Terms 125
CHAPTER III 130
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 130
Research Design 130
Treatment of Materials 131
CHAPTER IV 135
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA 135
1.1. Racial oppression 136
1.1.1. Racial oppression in Song of Solomon 137
1.1.2. Racial Oppression in Tar Baby 142
1.2. Gender Inequality 146
1.2.1. Gender Inequality in Song of Solomon 146

1.2.2. Gender inequality in Tar Baby 160
1.3. Emotional Abandonment 172
1.3.1. Emotional abandonment in Song of Solomon 172
1.3.2. Emotional abandonment in Tar Baby 179
1.4. Women’s Sufferings 184
1.4.1. Women’s Sufferings in Songs of Solomon 184
1.4.2. Women’s Sufferings in Tar Baby 191




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2. Manifestations of the Sources of Strength and Motive of Women’s
Resistance 196
2.1. Manifestations of the Sources of Strength and Motive of Women’s
Resistance 198
2.1.1. Love between mother and children in Song of Solomon 199
2.1.2. Love between mother and children in Tar Baby 204

2.2. Sources of Strength and Motive of Women’s Resistance in term of
husband and wife 213
2.2.1. Sources of Strength and Motive of Women’s Resistance in term of
husband and wife in Song of Solomon 213
2.2.2. Sources of Strength and Motive of Women’s Resistance in term of
husband and wife in Tar Baby 219
2.3. Freedom and Equality 222
2.3.1. Freedom and Equality in Song of Solomon 222
2.4. Self-identity 227
2.4.1. Self-identity in Song of Solomon 227
3. Manner of Women in the world depicted in the Novels that Expresses
Resistance to the Different Forms of Oppression 243
3.1. Manner of Women in the world depicted in the Novels that Expresses
Resistance to the Different Forms of Oppression in Song of Solomon
243




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3.1.2. Manner of Women in the world depicted in the Novels that Expresses
Resistance to the Different Forms of Oppression in Tar Baby 252
4. The implications of the the themes pursued in the novels to the study
of meaningful family life among Vietnamese students 253
CHAPTER V 259
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 259
Summary 259
Findings 260
Conclusions 263
Recommendations 264
BIBLIOGRAPHY 267
Primary Sources 267
Secondary Sources 267






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CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
What is my purpose in life is a question asked by many people
as they ponder the reasons for their existence. Life is the expression
of the reason for being. The reason epitomizes the intelligence that
is within all things. For instance, it is the power within a seed, when
planted in the garden, grows step by step to the self-actualization of
its reason for being. Everything has a purpose, a time and a season.
Autumn is a wonderful sample of the fulfillment of many plants as
men enjoy the abundance of fruits and vegetables that are
harvested at this time in the cycles or seasons of life, according to
the 2014 Society of Kabalarians of Canada Website (2014).
Philosophers, psychologists, spiritual leaders, and researchers
have all pondered on the thought of what makes life worth living.
The answers are different based on one’s cultural, social, religious,
professional or ideological backgrounds. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl
once wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but
only by lack of meaning and purpose.” For most individuals, feeling






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happy and finding life meaningful are both essential and correlated
goals. But do happiness and meaning always harmonize? It seems
questionable, given that many of the things that people regularly
choose to do are unlikely to upsurge man’s day-to-day happiness.
What is the purpose of life? Finding and clarifying one’s life
purpose and core life intentions can help men to move with greater
focus and clarity every day of their lives. Specifically, in these
challenging times, setting clear intentions and developing and
refining life’s purpose can make it much easier to sail across stormy
waters.
There are countless ways to both find and develop life’s
purpose and intentions. There are a number of useful resources to
help men on this path of discovery and to inspire them to be all that
they can be and to lead an ever richer, fuller life.
A great way to start exploring one’s life purpose and intentions
is to stop for a moment and ask oneself these two key
questions: What is most important to me in my life? and What are
my deepest values and beliefs?

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Though both can be valuable, there is a difference between
life purpose and life intentions. One’s life purpose is generally a
single statement related to the overall reason that man feels a
person is here. What is the greater purpose behind your being
alive? Why are you here in the world?
Rick Warren cites that the starting place must be with God and
his eternal purposes for each life. The quintessence of human
existence and significance comes from understanding and fulfilling
God's purposes for putting an individual on earth.
Both life purpose and life intentions can be rich and valuable
in helping to move through the challenges life brings men, though
some will prefer focusing on one over the other. If a person finds
this process somewhat challenging, he or she might do best to
focus on one first.
Different people hold different views about meaningful life. In

general, if an average person possesses these five things, their life
will be significant: a faith in God, a meaningful family life, a
meaningful career, bosom friendship, and the positive contribution





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to the society. Those five important components foster one another
to strengthen the life of the being.
For women, a part of a meaningful life is derived from the
liberation of their own lives. Throughout the world, governments
have committed to achieve the equality between men and women.
Women now take part more in the workforce, have more legal rights
and more opportunities of education. However, their status in many
countries remains considerably inferior of men in many aspects of
life. In developed countries, women are still suffering from unequal
wage in the workplace, from sexual harassment; the prevalence of

men in political, economic, and other fields.
Likewise, in developing countries, women’s traditional roles
are still family-focused with domestic chore, bearing and rearing
children, taking care of her household. In addition to those
obstacles, they are also oppressed with race discrimination, sexual
violence and domestic violence. As a result, many of them struggle
to fight against those so as to pursue a better life.
Similarly, the status of Vietnamese women has been greatly
improved since the foundation of the country in 1945. The





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proportion of women attending schools and universities increases
considerably. They take part in paid employment of almost all fields
such as politic, economic, cultural sectors. Gender relations and
attitudes also shift rapidly in recent decades. Women are more

respected in families and in society. Men now are willing to share
housework with their mothers, sisters and wives.
Nevertheless, in many parts of Vietnam people have been
severely affected by Confucian influence, which embrace the
patriarchal values. Women are expected to lead a life of “three
obedience” and “four virtues”. That privileges males and stresses
female subordination. Consequently, women are victims
of discriminations, violence, obstacles and gender disparities. It is
quite common that their work at home and at work are
inappropriately recognized and appreciated. They are burdened with
the noble job of a mother and a wife in the families as well as of a
citizen in the society. Never than before do they need the sympathy
and share from the other half of the population. That is the reason
why the search for a meaningful life of Vietnamese women is an
endless struggle.





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Literature is about human beings. It is the reflection of their
various experiences, ideas, and their daily passions. It allows
people to look back on their memories, allows writers to share their
experiences, and it also allows the reader to learn a life lesson
through other’s experiences. In literature, people find stories
designed to portray human life and action through some characters
who, by their words, action and reaction, convey certain messages
for the purpose of education, information and entertainment. It is
impossible to find a work of literature that excludes the attitudes,
moral and values of the society. This idea holds true particularly for
prose, which treat life in a more picturesque fashion than any other
form of arts.
The theme about women, about their lives, their work, and
their dream have attracted many writers, however, few authors had
taken on the task of writing about the diverse and complex lives of
black women within the black community as well as holding that
community responsible for its own actions as Toni Morrison.
Although the impact of white racism on black communities is
undeniable, Toni Morrison addresses the question of the position of





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women within black communities, and how their relationships with
both men and other women shape their lives.
Toni Morrison is an Afro-American writer, a spokesperson for
social reforms, and the most prominent issues in her writing
involved the problems of black women in various social institutions.
But among the contemporary black woman writers, Morrison herself
emerged as an African American star in the twentieth century. She
has distinguished herself as an author, editor and critic who has
transformed the American literary landscape with her presence in
the African American literary tradition. Toni Morrison is the first
African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1993.
Morrison is a major figure in the mainstream of American
literature. Throughout her writing career, she has embraced her
black culture and heritage and devoted her creative contributions to
her black fellows. She writes for black people, especially for black
women, and she is proud of her being a black woman writer. Her
double identities as a black and a woman provide her with great
advantages to penetrate deeply into the hearts of black women and

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reveal their psychological misery, emotions, feelings, thoughts, and
desires. She engages herself in breaking the stereotypes of black
female characters depicted in most of literary canon, molds a range
of vivid new images of black women, exhibits the conflict in their
minds with the stress of racism and sexism, and actively establishes
black women’s subjectivity (Jiao, 2012).
Black womanhood is the central theme in Morrison’s fiction
and is the topic she returns to time and time in her articles and
interviews. In her novels, the black women are portrayed as
breeding women, maids and domestic workers. Black women are
viewed and treated just the commodities to be handled by the white
masters. They are not allowed to have any human rights
whatsoever. But their white masters have all rights over them
(Beaulieu, 2003). They are forced to live in a setup which is full of
racism and sexism which result in alienation.
Toni Morrison’s passion in unremittingly exploring human

relations was striking. After she gained international recognition, the
opportunity to study her writings which manifest female oppression
and marked with nuggets of wisdom is timely. Her novels not only





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explores racism in the twentieth-century United States from the
point of views of blacks, but centers on black women and their
positions within their communities, she draws the reader’s attention
to intra-racial issues. Within the pages of Morrison’s works there
surface a collection of gems, reflecting deep philosophy and unique
expression.
The wisdom embodied in the selected works of Toni Morrison
could be one of the motivating factors that could help the
Vietnamese students re-examine their lives and values when they
become conscious of their genuine philosophical dimension. Her

writings could describe lifestyles that outline the Vietnamese attitude
towards life in general and towards specific actions in particular.
They may rightly be regarded as transformers of human acts,
influencing their deep inspirations. They are entwined in the raw
materials of the social development of a Vietnamese student as a
person existing in a community of persons. They lend support
certainly to the efforts of nation building.
With this thought in mind, the researcher was deeply
motivated to explore and undertake an analysis of how black





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females pursuing a meaningful life is reflected in the selected works
of Toni Morrison and gain honest implications on the study of the
meaningful family life among Vietnamese students.
Statement of the Problem

This study is an analysis of insights on pursuit for meaningful life in
the selected works of Toni Morrisonto gain honest implications of the
themes to the study of meaningful life.
Specifically, the study seeks answers to the following questions:
1. How do the selected works of Toni Morrison manifest the sufferings of
Black women in terms of:
1.1 racial oppression;
1.2 gender inequality;
1.3 emotional abandonment; and
1.4 women’s sufferings?
2. How are the sources of strengths and motive of women’s resistance
shown in:
2.1 love between mother and children;
2.2 husband and wife relationship;
2.3 freedom and equality; and
2.4 self-identity?





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3. In what manner do the women in the world portrayed in the novels
express resistance to the different forms of violence?
4. What are the implications of the themes pursued in the novels to the
study of meaningful family life among Vietnamese students?
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study

This study analyzes the insights on pursuit for meaningful life in
selected works of Toni Morrison pointing out the events and situations
which show honest implications of the themes pursued in the novels to
the study of meaningful family life among Vietnamese students. Likewise,
this paper tries to present how the selected works manifest the sufferings
of black women in terms of racial oppression,gender inequality,emotional
abandonment, andwomen’s sufferings; the sources of strengths and
motive of women’s resistance as shown in the love between mother and
children,husband and wife relationship, freedom and equality, and self-
identity;and themanner how the women in the world portrayed in the
novels express resistance to the different forms of violence.
This study employed the qualitative method of research in
analyzing Toni Morrison’sinsights on the pursuit of meaningful lifein the
representative literary works chosen. Likewise, this analysis made use of
the sociological and philosophical approaches as the bases for analysis.
Other approaches in literary criticism that may be employed in the

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analysis like the Formalist Criticism, Biographical Criticism, Historical
Criticism, Gender Criticism, and Psychological Criticism are not part of
this study.
This paper also involved content analysis, which is a systematic
technique in analyzing message content and message handling. The
data analysis in this research centered on pattern seeking and the
extraction of meaning from Toni Morrison’s selected literary narrative or
image data. Much effort was focused on the task of recording data or
making notes through concepts and categories; altering or creating new
codes or more subtle categories; linking and combining abstract
concepts; extracting the essence; organizing meaning; creating theory
from emerging themes; writing an understanding; and drawing
conclusions.
The essential features in the treatment of materials were
considered by the researcher in the conduct of this study. The general
rules cited by Alkiere (2014) as regards the four standards a piece of
literature should abide to in order to be considered literary guided in the
selection of works under study.

The representative literary works of Toni Morrison entitled Song of
Solomon and Tar Babywas analyzed. From these literatures, readers will
be able to see in them the writer’s most important teachings. The said





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selections were chosen because of the correlation between the following
themes; how the selected works manifest the sufferings of black women
in terms of racial oppression, gender inequality, emotional abandonment,
and women’s sufferings; the sources of strengths and motive of women’s
resistance as shown in the love between mother and children,husband
and wife relationship, freedom and equality, and self-identity;the manner
how the women in the world portrayed in the novels express resistance
to the different forms of violence; and the implications of the themes
pursued in the novels to the study of meaningful family life among
Vietnamese students.These novels constituted the primary and twining

sources of the study. Likewise, these works have been taken up in critical
analysis far less frequently than Morrison’s other popular novels entitled
“Beloved, The Bluest Eyes, Sula, A Mercy, Peeny Butter Fudge, and
many more.
Significance of the Study
The applicability of literary analysis as an indispensable part of a
research study is highlighted in terms of its implication to a number of
individuals. Therefore, it is vital to expound how this study is beneficial to
academic managers, working professionals, media practitioners, college
instructors of literature, students of literature, members of the community,
and other researchers.





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Academic Managers. This dissertation will help them, specifically
those from Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training, include

developmental priorities, programs, projects and policies in the
educational institutions to ensure that the insights on the pursuit of
meaningful life are integrated in the academe. This will also inspire them
to spawn activities in the curricula that will educate the academic
community of the beneficial outcomes of contemplating and aiming for a
meaningful life to all people regardless of gender, race, nationality and
religious backgrounds and to serve as a bridge builder in interfaith
encounter.
Working Professionals. This study will be beneficial for them in
the sense that the selected works may showcase how they could to
explore their journey into a meaningful life and lifestyle and the positive
implications of eschewing excess stuff in favor of focusing on life’s more
important aspects: health, relationships, passion, growth, and
contribution. Likewise, they may be motivated to bring the essence of
their existence in the mainstream of their disciplines, their lives and the
world and be inspired to organize workplace initiatives to nurture and
challenge people of all ages working in various sectors of society to a
happy and meaningful life in their workplaces. These initiatives may help