Toni Morrison will long be remembered in the literary zeitgeist for her creativity, her narrative voice and her tireless commitment to the uplifting of everyday black experiences. Aug. 5, 2019, she passed at the age of 88— leaving the world to grapple with her loss and reflect on her life’s impact.
Journalist Rachel Kaadz Ghansah noted in her New York Times article “The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison” that “the perplexing but wonderful thing about Morrison’s career is just how much her prominence was created not by the mainstream publishing world, but by Morrison herself, on her own terms, in spite of it.”
To truly understand Morrison’s impact, it is first important to understand some basics of Morrison herself. She was born Feb. 18, 1931, and was a continuous advocate for herself in her academics and her work. Ghansah noted that during Morrison’s time at Howard College, a professor told her “it was low-class to read and research black life.” Morrison’s early understandings that there was a desire to censor and limit the accessibility of black narratives in literature and art were what solidified the importance of her work. Morrison often struggled to “take segregation seriously,” and would liken it to “theater” due to how constructed and nonsensical it seemed to her.
Morrison is so particularly significant because, as Ghansah put it, “she makes black life — regular, quotidian black life, the kind that doesn’t sell out concert halls or sports stadiums — complex, fantastic and heroic, despite its devaluation.”
Morrison’s work had the benefit of being both diverse yet not concerned with the marketability of diversity. Her novels are classics not because of a scramble to incorporate diverse writers, but because of Morrison’s own profound talent and ingenuity. Morrison was able to help launch a demographic shift in the field of literature, all while highlighting experiences that are typically overlooked.
When discussing her literature and its impact, Morrison has specified that her work “has always functioned for the class or the group that wrote it.”
Morrison was more concerned with writing work that was genuine, meaningful and accurate to the black experience than she was with writing work that was deemed significant to the literary canon. She had no intentions of ever censoring or moderating her work for the sake of ratings or broad approval.
“I would like to write novels that were unmistakably mine but nevertheless fit first into African-American traditions and, second of all, this whole thing called literature,” Morrison said on the matter. “It’s very important to me that my work be African-American. If it assimilates into a different or larger pool, so much the better. But I shouldn’t be asked to do that.”
Despite it being a secondary priority, Morrison’s work fit easily into the literary canon. This is true to the degree that she won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a Nobel Prize in Literature and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction, among other accreditations over the course of her career.
Associate professor of English Dr. Kimberly V. Adams emphasizes Morrison’s enduring significance within the context of representative literature. Prior to Morrison, there hadn’t been a black female author with as massive a presence in the literary zeitgeist. This was significant for the history of literature as whole but often caused Morrison to be put in troubling positions.
“When Morrison had published her first novels, some TV interviewers asked her when she was going to write about something other than black people,” Adams said. “Such deeply offensive questions underline the significance of this wondrous novelist’s Nobel Prize. The award, given for lifetime achievement, celebrates her putting African-American voices, particularly women’s voices, and African-American experiences at the center of her work.”
Morrison was significant for her refusal to equivocate on the significance of black voices, narratives and experiences. She was also significant because of her unique command of literary style and her dynamic voice, as is emphasized by associate professor of English Dr. John Rohrkemper— who has taught a number of courses on Morrison during his time at Elizabethtown College.
“[Toni Morrison] was a fearless and ferocious writer, always willing to challenge our comfortable assumptions about—well, about nearly everything we feel comfortable and complacent about,” Rohrkemper said. “She was a relentlessly innovative stylist who tackled the greatest and most troubling mysteries of our human existence.”
The impact of Morrison’s work is something that will continue to make itself evident for years to come, as her literary excellence and willingness to tackle tough issues continue to be significant.
