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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 NAMES IN TONI MORRISON'S NOVELS: CONNECTIONS by Jane Burris Clayton A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 1994 Approved by ~~.~ Dissertation Advisor CLAYTON, JANE BURRIS, Ph.D. Names in Toni Morrison's Novels: Connections. (1994) Directed by Dr. Charles Davis. pp. 346 This study examines Toni Morrison's naming within her six novels and demonstrates that although the names function on many levels, overall, they tend to connect her characters to their community and to their heritage. Names are an integral part of Morrison's fictive world. Few animals, businesses, organizations, places or characters, no matter how insignificant, pass through that world unnamed, and if they do, that lack of a name is notable. Morrison's names do not merely identify but often function as self-contained character sketches, alerting us to characters' possible actions, characteristics, or even fates. Names often serve as connections to her themes, especially those involving personal and cultural identities. Morrison uses names to firmly ground the inhabitants of her African-American cosmology within a specific time and place. Within this cosmology, names also serve as connections between characters and their communities. Although these connections may not always be positive ones, they are necessary for the characters' survival, often creating symbiotic relationships. After all, no Morrison character physically separates him/herself from the communlty; indeed, the community is necessary for the character's survival and names often attest to this. Inherent in Morrison's naming patterns is a mistrust of the heritage of slave names derived from the white culture's use of the Bible and classical mythology. Such names often contain irony or an inadequate allusion. By subverting two important myth systems within the white culture, she subverts its power. To counteract the inadequacies of the white culture's naming, the names of some of Morrison's strongest characters are derived directly or indirectly from Africa. Through names she connects characters not only to their past and/or their present, but also when she names from Africa, she often promises her characters (Sethe, Son, Solomon -- aka as Milkman) a future. This study includes an alphabetized listing, by novels, of the characters in Morrison's fiction, with pertinent information given for each. ------------------ --- c 1994 by Jane B. Clayton APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Members Date of Acceptance by Committee ~ t, 1'=1~, Date of Final oral Examination ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For all their sacrifices, their love and their understanding, I thank Doug and Lisa; I could never have started or finished without them. For their unfailing faith in me, I thank the other members of my family--my parents, my in-laws, my sister and brother-in-law. For the day to day support that I needed for so long, I thank the lunch bunch; for their encouragement, I thank my colleagues in Jane Freeman and at Pfeiffer. For his wisdom, patience, guidance and perserverance, I thank Dr. Charles Davis. For their fairness, support, and encouragement, I thank Dr. Randolph Bulgin, Dr. Kelly Griffith, Dr. Donald Darnell; for filling in on the committee, I thank Dr. James Ellis. For the financial assistance that made so much of my work possible, I thank Pfeiffer College; and I especially thank the deans and department heads there that helped me balance the roles of teacher and student without compromising either. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page APPROVAL PAGE • ii ACRNOWLEDGEMENTS iii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER II. THE BLUEST EYE . 46 III. .sllLA • • • . • 93 IV. SONG OF SOLQMON . • 125 v. TAR BABY . 175 VI. BELQVEP . 223 VII. ~ . 275 VIII. CONCLUSION . 312 BIBLIOGRAPHY 318 APPENDIX A. HISTORICAL NAMES • 326 APPENDIX B. OTHER NAMES 330 APPENDIX C. OTHER PLACE NAMES 338 iv l INTRODUCTION To enter the fictive world of Toni Morrison is to meet a fascinating array of characters--Pecola, an African­ American youngster who prays for blue eyes; Eva Peace, who lay in front of a train, allowing a leg to be cut off in order to claim insurance money for her children; Sethe, a runaway who kills her daughter rather than have her returned to slavery; Violet, who attempts to cut the face of the corpse of her husband's lover. Morrison skillfully reveals her characters to the reader through the literary devices of inner dialogues, description, and action, but one of her most effective techniques for developing character and theme in her novels is the naming of her characters and locations. In her fiction, Morrison names deliberately and extensively with attention to nuances, allusions, and irony. She will rarely refer to "a baker," "a neighbor," "a friend," but instead will name the most minor character because Morrison, like Pilate, the wise woman from Song of ~olomon, "knows the sanctity and magic of names is not to be disregarded" (Fabre 109). To disregard a name creates serious consequences. In the African culture: the name is the expression of the soul; because of this, the choosing and the keeping of the name is a major ritual. To lose the name or, in Afro-American 2 terms, to be 'called out of one's name' is an offense against the spirit. (Byerman 113) When Sula, who has discarded many men but thinks she has found her soulmate in Ajax (~), discovers that her lover's name was A. Jacks instead of Ajax, she realizes, "'And if I didn't know his name, then there is nothing I did know •• ·'" (136). The name contains the knowledge of the person, the essence, the identity. Milkman, who sheds his birth name when he discovers his African heritage (Song of Solomon), comes to the realization that "When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do" (333). Morrison illustrates this through Pilate, whose name will not die because it is written down in her earring and then carried away by a bird at her death. By strengt~ of their numbers alone, the names (people, places, historical figures, animals) in her novels demonstrate Morrison's philosophy that names must be "noted down and remembered." However, a majority of these names are so carefully chosen and woven into the fabric of the story that to modify them arbitrarily is to alter the entire piece--characterization, setting, theme, even plot. What names could effectively substitute for Macon Dead, Jr., who was spiritually and emotionally dead, living for money alone; for Pilate, who functioned as Milkman's pilot (SQng); for Valerian, the man whose life paralleled that of the 3 emperor for whom he was named; for son, a possible son of Africa or of Christianity (Tar Babv); for sweet Home, a farm worked by slave labor (Beloved); for the Bottom, a "nigger joke" (SY!A)? Changes in many of the names would create a misreading of Morrison's work similar to the misreadings prompted by editorial changes to Emily Dickinson's poetry. As she deliberately created such important names, names that are "noted down and remembered," Morrison drew from a variety of sources--the Bible, mythology, folklore, western history and African folktales. To know·this is to know how she names but not why she names from these sources. The premise of this study of the names in Toni Morrison's six novels is that she names, primarily, to demonstrate a presence or lack of a presence of her .characters' connections to their present day communities and/or to their past through their heritages. Morrison's concern for where her characters live and where they have come from is reflected in the names of their communities. From the first line of her second novel, SY!A, Morrison establishes the ·idea that the white culture will use naming to oppress, to invert; "in that ··place, where they tore the night shade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood;" "· •• when black people lived there it was called the Bottom" (3).