Toni Morrison

ANDI OLIVER ON NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR TONI MORRISON

[BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives (24 January 2020)]

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1. This podcast is devoted to author Toni Morrison. What can we learn about:

A: her family background

Her family was a working-class black family, descended from slaves from Alabama who moved in Lorain to escape death and violence. Her grandparents were unschooled, and they couldn’t read, but this was for them a revolution react to learn how to read and write. Her dad took a second job to allow her to go to college, where she was the only black girl. She completed a master, got married (even if it failed) and had 2 sons.

B: her sons

Her youngest son died at 9 years old, he had pancreatic cancer.

C: her writing routine  

Her empathy run through all here books, she wants people to love them and care about them.

1. Toni Morrison’s first book is entitled The Bluest Eye. Explain what the title refers to A: In the book

The title refers to the wish of the main character, Pecola Breedlove, to have blue, clear and sweet blue eyes. She thinks that with blue eyes, long blond hair, and white skin the world would be so nicer to her.

B: In Toni Morrison’s own life

When she was around 10 years old, Toni Morrison’s friend told her why she didn’t believe in god: she prayed him for 2 years to get blue eyes and stopped believing in him because she never saw her wish come true. The title represents the wish of the little girl to look different because she wanted people to be nice with her even if she was beautiful.

1. Was Andi Oliver’s first encounter with Morrison’s writing a positive experience? Use quotes to support your answer.

Her first encounter with Morrison’s writing was a positive experience: “The central character Pecola Breedlove is this young black girl who is in pain and is lost”. This was the first book ever where she could identify as the main character, Pecola wasn’t a young white girl with blue eyes and blond hair, even if she wanted to be like this in the story, she was a young black girl living with the same pain and wishes as Andi. She discovered it at the age of 19 or 20 and she was absolutely knocked by the book.

1. Why were books so important to young Andi Oliver?

When she was quite young, books were an escape to her creativity, as food was. According to her, they marry each other quite obviously. Books saved her life and made her remember that she won’t always going to be stuck in a bedroom.

1. Andi Oliver says she suffered from “casual 1970s racism”: what does she mean by that? Explain.  

She explains that because of this “casual 1970’s racism” her classmates were grounding her down every day, always with nasty comments, even teachers weren’t defending her. She thought that this was because of her hair, so one day she asked her mom to plait her hair to look more like every other girl and went to school with her new hairstyle, but even with that, her German teacher make her come in front of the class to let everybody humiliate her for 20 minutes. This was traumatizing for Andi Oliver, and it made her angry.

1. Was Andi Oliver a passive victim to her bullies?

Andi used to fight verbally and physically and to defend herself, she wasn’t passive against all the violence she was the victim of, she retaliates against her bullies by many ways.

1. Sum up what is said about Toni Morrison’s writing. What makes it great according to:

The three of them agree that Toni Morrison reflects her life in her writings: the central characters are mostly black girls, her books show that black people aren’t destined to be stuck in racism and bullying forever. She also reached to cross the ocean and “hear” what black women want to read, and she wrote with her own specific language.

A: Matthew Parris (the host)

• Empathy

B: Andi Oliver

• Make people identify to the main character
• Specificity of her language & intimacy
• Musicality of Toni Morrison’s writings

C: Fran Lebowitz

• Gigantic, sweet tooth
• Toni was the biggest person

1. Why does Toni Morrison call reading “a revolutionary act”?

Her grandparents descended from slave in Alabama, they learn how to read to get a better life and to survive even if white wanted to keep black people unlettered. Her parents moved in the south to escape death and violence, and she talks about all she has endure in her books and interviews.

1. Contextualize each of the following quotes about Morrison: Who said them? What did she/he mean by that?  

1. “There’s a sort of duality about her”.

Andi Oliver talk about Andi Morrison, meaning that on the one hand in her writing there’s such great vulnerability in her characters, but there is also a sort of fire behind them and inside of Toni Morrison, a sort of power through the most

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