A Necessary Ethics: Bakhtin and Dialogic Identity Construction in Four Morrison Novels

Abstract

Reading Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, Paradise and A Mercy through the lens of Bakhtin reveals identity construction as a dialogic endeavour. While this method may be necessary for character development, it serves the further purpose of making an ethical case for the self’s responsibility to others. This paper considers key theoretical instruments, as enabled by Bakhtin, in relation to Morrison’s treatment of naming and other character constructing elements. It is ultimately Morrison’s construction of identity as dialogical which enables the argument that Morrison’s fiction offers an ethics in the interest of the other. Writing about the marginalised, the abused and the voiceless reveals Morrison’s oeuvre is unmistakably an ongoing engagement with the injustice of slavery and its political, economic, social and psychological aftermath. The relevance of this article lies in its analysis of Morrison’s fiction as an antidote which challenges the self’s “self-interest”, which is at the heart of injustice. This study’s primary contribution is in articulating Morrison’s portrayal of the self’s identity construction as an inescapable dialogism that forms the foundation to a philosophy that promotes greater humaneness, given the other is not separate from the self, but in fact, integral to the self.