Abstract
A great deal of critical attention has been paid to Toni Morrison's fiction. Much of this scholarship has emphasized how her novels operate foremost as social critiques and there has also been lot of focus on her (self-proclaimed) interest in the notion of “love” and its potential excesses. I borrow ideas from both of these critical conversations, but my argument posits, more specifically, that these two dimensions of her fiction work in tandem and, together, point to a socio-political message contained within many of her novels: that the domestic sphere is a breeding ground (pun intended) for violence, that viewing the domestic sphere as a “private” space works to alternately hide and legitimize the violence that takes place there, and that, rather than existing and operating separately, the larger social problems that plague twentieth century American society—including sexism, racism, and poverty—are tied directly to the sexual objectification, commodification, and violation of women by those intimatel acquainted with them. In her 2003 novel Love, as she does in quite pointedly in The Bluest Eye—as well as, to varying degrees, in several of her other novels—Morrison portrays the domestic sphere as violent and, she also reveals how those who have attained a degree of power often use their privileged position to oppress others. At the same time, the novel offers a retrospective glance of the twentieth century as a whole.