Abstract
The most notable element in Toni Morrison's novels is her experimentation with narrative techniques. The study at hand aims to follow the African American individual's struggle for survival while focusing on the development of psychonarration in the chosen works. The selected texts for this study are The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Beloved (1987) and Jazz (1992). These texts will not be dealt with chronologically, but rather in a way that serves the development of psychonarration that goes hand in hand with Morrison's experimentation with different types of narrators. In doing so, an interdisciplinary approach: literary, psychological and sociological will be adopted in order to present a critical study of psychonarration in Morrison's novels. The study, hereby, will start by an introduction followed by four main chapters and a conclusion. The introduction will give a detailed account of psychonnaration as one of the branches of narratology. The introduction will also present Morrison as one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary authors, who has been experimenting with narration. Nevertheless, the most informative section will be on the identity of the narrator, the degree to which and the manner in which that identity is indicated. It is this kind of identity that gives Morrison's texts their specific quality. Chapter one deals with The Bluest Eye, discussing the concept of beauty, which is presented through multiple psychonarration dominated by a first-person narrator. Chapter two acknowledges the sound of the dead through multiple psychonarration dominated by a third-person narrator as presented in Beloved. Chapter three elaborates on the sense of pain through single third-person psychonarration in Sula. Chapter four examines the record of imagination through multiple omniscient first-person psychonarration while focusing on Jazz. Since the previous novels have no resolution, this study shows how Morrison shifts the narrative truth from the author's responsibility to readers providing them with a new way of understanding her novels. Through critical reading, the researcher proves that Morrison's novels are narratively multilayered, and as a result the narrator becomes the most central concept in the analyses of her narrative texts. This study concludes that Morrison creates new types of narratives using different narrators to carry out the social and historical heritage of African Americans. As Morrison's choices of narrative techniques are of great ethical significance, this study encourages researchers to examine the employment of psychonarration in Morrison's other novels.
