Becoming Corporeality in Toni Morrison’s Sula

Dr. Mostafa Hosseini & Fatemeh Savaedi

University of Bouali Sina & University of Malayer, Iran

The significance of body in postcolonial feminism is undeniable and third world feminists are well aware of it. Defying against the commanding discourses, they attempt to mold influence by representing the notion of female body as an element independent from male-centered conceptions. Postcolonial female body has been investigated widely; however, Deleuzian concepts of “desiring machine”, “becoming-woman”, masochism and schizoanalysis and Grosz’s ideas of corporeality and volatile bodies still require further research. To this end, the current study analyzes Toni Morrison’s Sula in terms of women body and its function according to Gilles Deleuze and Elizabeth Grosz’s theories. The results of the study indicate that the target characters of the selected novels possess this potentiality to rebel against the social structures which are considered as the ultimate truth. They are masochist individuals who strive to gain their subjectivity, or go beyond subjectivity and identity, through their corporeality.

 

The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.