Negotiating Racism and Sexism through Spaciotemporal Lens in Toni Morrison’s Paradise

Abstract

Racism and sexism occupy a central space in the psyche of the African American in a nation where the culture of the dominant class determines the American way of life. In order to assess the place of African Americans in the larger nation space, their negotiating of racism and sexism must be placed in spacio-temporal matrix. For this purpose Lefebvre’s notion of “double illusion”, Homi K Bhabha’s concept of “hybridity”, and Edward Soja’s idea of “Thirdspace” have been applied to analyze Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise. The paper is an attempt to understand how Toni Morrison represents the community life of African Americans within the larger space of the American nation in the backdrop of their negotiation of racism and sexism in both national and community levels.