Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison's Novels

African American Review, Fall, 1998 by Karla Y.E. Frye

Reviewed by

Karla Y. E. Frye University of Alabama

Critical analyzes and theories about Toni Morrison's novels have adequately discussed her parallel concern with exploring the myriad permutations of African American identity and the art and substance of storytelling. Philip Page's Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison's Novels provides a strong analysis of Morrison's six fictional works, and an equally thorough reading of the criticism and theory. To his credit, Page also adds new insights, deftly synthesizing his own ideas with those of others and providing a strong "organic" reading of Morrison's style, structure, and ideology.

Page bases his theory on the notion that "any entity is simultaneously unified yet divided, a whole yet an aggregate of parts." While this may not appear to be an earth-shattering insight or new theoretical approach, Page provides a far-reaching and provocative exploration of this ostensibly simple concept. Page addresses the ideas of double-consciousness, pluralism, and multiplicity that abound in theories of African American writing and among post-structuralists and deconstructionists. Page's particular success, however, lies in his ability to provide new insights into, perspectives on, and links between both the novels and the critical analyses of Morrison's works over the past two decades. In addition, Page is quite adept at clarifying and making relevant the more complex ideas of deconstruction. In fact, Page makes a compelling and consistent argument for the similarities between deconstruction and African American cultural idioms, and provides one of the better syntheses of ideas from deconstruction, psychoanalytic criticism, African American theory, and practical criticism. What inheres is a sound, thorough reading of Morrison's novels "as texts" that summarizes and contextualizes previous readings, while adding new insights and approaches.

Page identifies three contexts within which he analyzes Morrison's texts: American culture, African American culture, and deconstruction. Page reads each text within these contexts, relying on the similarities among the three, as well as the juxtapositions which reveal important aspects of Morrison's writing. Through his own approach, Page reinforces the idea of fragments constituting the whole which he sees in Morrison's fiction. Page introduces these ideas/contexts chronologically, building their relevance to the previous ones to reveal the intertextual nature of theoretical ideas. For instance, once he identifies these three primary contexts, Page specifically applies two ideas from psychoanalysis - "self formed through separation" and the Lacanian notion of the connection between language and the self - as basic to his reading of Morrison within the contexts of American culture, African American culture, and deconstruction. From this premise, Page draws on the Derridean idea of the self as always in the process of becoming. This start allows Page to weave the necessarily multi-layered construct for reading Morrison's own intertextuality and what he identifies as her progressively complex narrative structures. It also allows Page more fully to explore and illuminate complex, often limned aspects of African American culture which are valuable in reading African American works.

While Page acknowledges the work of others who have successfully accomplished such readings - Gates, Stepto, Christian, and others - he pushes the limits to establish previously unexplored or underdeveloped ideas. Page performs an important task here, joining the company of scholars who have produced similarly "synthesizing" works. Late-twentieth-century analysis employs a number of approaches that combine close or practical readings with the more post-modern concern with the text as an isolated entity consisting of its own cultural idioms and matrices (such as the transformation in American experience and culture of African concepts of circularity and the notion of the "crossroads"). He simultaneously entrenches African American theory in the context of "mainstream" theories, while demonstrating the relevance of European-centered, Western concepts to Morrison's texts.

Another important aspect of Page's scholarship is its comprehensiveness. Dangerous Freedom provides one volume which addresses all the writer's fictional texts through Jazz. In addition, Page constantly refers to relevant ideas from Morrison's critical essays and interviews. While at times Page rehashes some old ideas, he places his essays squarely within the context of the constant stream of Morrison criticism. Page makes important connections between Morrison's texts by revealing how they at times build upon each other, and at other times extend the ideas of previous works. This intertextuality is central to Morrison's opus, and requires the multiple perspectives Page employs.

Page extracts Morrison's concern with exploring the complexities of human behavior within a solid context of African American existence and experience. He avoids lingering concern with specific aspects of Morrison's texts which have been adequately treated by other scholars. Instead, Page focuses on bringing a new perspective to the exploration of Morrison's larger paradigms and narrative frameworks. For example, he does not specifically or closely address Morrison's attention to magic realism; however, through attention to her concern with language and the power of myth and the story, he performs close readings which consider Morrison's use of such elements. He necessarily casts these concerns in the context of African and African American world views before pairing this combined perspective with kindred aspects of deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory, and practical and cultural criticism. In this manner, Page does not provide groundbreaking revelations about the novels, but instead his theory closely follows Morrison's lead and suggests several new ways of reading and uncovering the layers of her texts. The manner in which Dangerous Freedom is organized closely resembles and reflects Morrison's own narrative structures. Page urges a reading of Morrison which recognizes the importance of the telling, listening, and participation required to grasp fully any meaning from her texts. This kind of active reading, prompted by Morrison's narrative techniques, leads to reward for readers as they are led to "experience vicariously the dangers and freedoms of the authors and characters."