|
Abstract
|
Previous studies, such as those conducted by Patricia Hill Collins, Andrea O’Reilly, and Lindsay Green have largely focused on the significant role of black motherhood in developing the identity of their children in Toni Morrison's fiction (Collins 2000, O’Reilly 2004, Green 2001). Whereas these studies still are credible, recently in a new postcolonial attempt, the role of other mother in Toni Morrison's ouvre has opened new ways of stressing the role of those female persons except for the biological mothers of black children who have played crucial roles in developing black children's identities in the absence of their own mother's. This thesis draws upon Collins' concept of other mothering that incorporates female black person's such as Cecile, Eva Peace, Lina, Willard and Scully, Brooklyn, and Queen Olive as other mothers who are different from mother surrogates that still hold sort of biological ties with children. The study argues that despite the existence hardship in black women’s lives, they are able to shape a constructive identity and perform their best in the condition of motherhood and other mothering. This thesis excludes O'Reilly's extremely extentionist study of the concept of other mothering that includes black male gender because such studies could rightly be changed into other fathering, instead of other mothering (2004). The findings of this study show that Cecile and Eva Peace in Sula, and Lina and Willard and Scully in A Mercy, and Brooklyn and Queen Olive in God Help the Child, which are novels by Toni Morrison, have been crucial other mother figures who have significant role in the lives of Sula, Florens and, Lula Ann and help the individuals to cope with the hardship situation of the discriminatory society which they are living in and perform their best in the condition of motherhood and other mothering.
|