About this title: Toni Morrison deals with the subject of race as it has appeared in American literature--which has, she claims, often shortchanged blackness in favor of the white majority.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1993
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: Good. Moderate cover wear with scuffing to edges and creasing. GoodwillnyBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. You may return new items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1993-07-27
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: Good. Used for class has highlighting, underlining and notes. Cover shows some wear or creases. Pages yellowed/tanned. This book really opened my eyes! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1993
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. sd Hardly used! Clean, unmarked pages except for about 20 pages with some writing and underlining. Some shelfwear/rubbing on cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 112 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Reprint.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1993
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Back wrapper corner creased, minor circular marks on back end paper (looks like testing a pen), rubbing. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 91p. Audience: General/trade. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author now gives us a learned, stylish, and immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that promises to change the way we read American literature even as it opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780674673779ISBN:0674673778
Description: Fine in very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 110 p. William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780674673779ISBN:0674673778
Description: Fine in very good dust jacket. Light wear to cover, book near new, pages clear and unmarked. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 110 p. William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: 1st Vintage Books Edition
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1993
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: Near Fine. This 5 x 7.5 trade paperback book has black and white lettering on the silver spine with an illustrated cover. This is a learned, stylish, and immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that promises to change the way we read American literature even as it opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race. 91 pages. Nobel prize winner. Owner's name. Clean with tight binding in Near Fine condition. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 7/27/1993
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: Like New. Stated First Vintage Books Edition, first printing of new-looking softcover. All clean crisp text pages with nice secure binding. Book store sticker on front end paper. Free gift-wrapping. Daily shipping. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Boards
Publisher: Harvard University Press., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780674673779ISBN:0674673778
Description: Very Good jacket. First edition, first printing. Octavo (8.5in x 5.75in) black cloth spine and gray boards with silver titling to spine. xiii, [iv], 91pp. A clean and bright copy in near Fine condition in a dustwrapper that is lightly shelfworn and is Vg. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780674673779ISBN:0674673778
Description: ISBN 0-674-67377-8. Hardback. First Printing. Reading Copy Only. Tight sound copy with highlighting and notation to text, owner's name greened out with green marker on top edge. read more
Description: Fine. Excellent condition. Appears unread. No writings/underlines/highlights. Pages are very nice and clean. Minor shelfwear. Free deliver confirmation! Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780674673779ISBN:0674673778
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good Copy, Hardcover text is Clean and unmarked, binding is tight, Dust jacket has creasing. and wear. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 110 p. William E. Massey, Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1993
ISBN-13:9780679745426ISBN:0679745424
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: Acceptable. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
"What I found so compelling was how well Morrison articulates the idea of experiences and specific moments only being played out or felt by African Americans - what does that do to the people forced and written into these moments over and over? But Morrison also asks a question that is ignored so often (and I had not considered before) - what happens to the people scripted out of those roles? What disconnect does this create, not only from another people, but from something within themselves?
"What I propose here is to examine the impact of notions of racial hierarchy, racial exclusion, and racial vulnerability on nonblacks who held, resisted, explored, or altered those notions...equally valuable is a serious intellectual effort to see what racial ideology does to the mind, imagination, and behavior of masters." (11)
This idea reminded me of the moment in Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, when Mr. Raymond explains to Scout and Dill how he lies to the town by pretending he is an alcoholic so that he can be left alone to live his life with the 'others.' One never thinks of whites as disenfranchised and I'm obviously not suggesting this is what Morrison is arguing, but because Mr. Raymond is a white man he is written out of possibilities as well. He must explain his actions as out of the scope of the 'ordinary' (non-alcoholic) white member of society: "'It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason...folks can say Dolphus Raymond's in the clutches of whiskey - that's why he won't change his ways. He can't help himself, that's why he lives the way he does.'" Not only does this paradoxically restrict whites, but it reinforces the idea that they are somehow separate and thus above the 'other;' if one can't experience the raw emotions of a savage then one has evolved beyond him.
I wanted to include the following quote as well because I believe it so eloquently and lucidly states Morrison's purpose of Playing in the Dark:
"Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulfillment of destiny." (52)
Morrison's text illustrates the power of language - not only to reveal and liberate but to distort and imprison: "in matters of race, silence and evasion have historically ruled literary discourse. Evasion has fostered another, substitute language in which the issues are encoded, foreclosing open debate" (9). Morrison also poetically and grimly describes how enforcing such 'racelessness' is a transgression as well, on every side:
"The act of enforcing racelessness in literary discourse is itself a racial act. Pouring rhetorical acid on the fingers of a black hand may indeed destroy the prints, but not the hand. Besides, what happens in that violent, self-serving act of erasure on the hands, the fingers, the fingerprints of the one who does the pouring? Do they remain acid-free? The literature itself suggests otherwise." (46)
Morrison spends some time analyzing the construction of America and her literature, still deep-rooted in and feeding off the Old World:
"If the New World fed dreams, what was the Old World reality that whetted the appetite for them? And how did that reality caress and grip the shaping of a new one? ...For a people who made much of their 'newness' - their potential, freedom, and innocence - it is striking how dour, how troubled, how frightened and haunted our early and founding literature truly is." (34-35)
I thought the creation of a literature rooted in such "transactions" between the Old World and its developing new one might be a parallel to the creation of the 'Africanist' presence. What compelled the authors, what was within them that gave birth to such dark presences manifested only by their African Americans?"
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