A New Historicist Study on the —African Military Images in Sula

Abstract

Toni Morrison was the fi rst African American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In her writing, she focused on the blood and tears of African American survival, struggle, and development, selecting fragmented history for novelization, exploring the trauma of marginalized African American groups, and actively participating in historical reshaping. Her works showed a strong new historicism.
The background of Sula was set in the period from post-World War I to the African American civil rights movement and the second wave of women’s liberation movement in the United States. The book depicted the lives of the “Bottom” people in the African American community who suff ered from racial and gender discrimination. This article studied the image of African American soldiers in the book from the perspective of new historicism, revealing their awkward and tragic living conditions after fi ghting for the country and integrating into the white mainstream society. It pointed out that Morrison’ s creative concept of writing “little people” actively participating in the reshaping of marginalized group history and dissolving center ideology.