On the Realtionship of Voiceless and Voicing with Women Identity —exemplified in Tori Amos’s Songs and Toni Morrison’s Sula

On the Realtionship of Voiceless and Voicing with Women Identity

—Exemplified in Tori Amos’s Songs and Toni Morrison’s Sula

May 2016

ABSTRACT

    The study of voice is not only significant in musicology but also in its metaphorical implications in literary works. This paper approaches voice from the perspectives that voice is the representation of the object’s personal identity and discourse power, and that the loss of voice symbolizes the object’s loss of selfhood and social power. In order to retrieve power and to possess once again the voice, the victims who have been voiceless use different methods. Two examples are introduced in this paper: one from a real-life sexual violence victim, Tori Amos, who empowers women sharing similar experience with her song’s influence; the other from a literary figure Sula by Toni Morrison, who, based on reality, depicts the hardships black women endure under the pressure of patriarchy and race discrimination. From the above two examples, we can learn that women can be de-victimized through finding healing power and strength out of vulnerability, and that women are liberated once they assert their selfhood and fight against inequality and injustice.

Key words: voice, voicing, Tori Amos, Toni Morrison, Sula

Contents

Abstract (English).........................................................................................I

Chapter One  Introduction

1. Literature Review...................................................................................................1
2. Background............................................................................................................2

Chapter Two  Voiceless: Women’s Loss of Power and Identity

2.1 Loss of Personal Identity in the Song “Silent All These Years”............................4

2.2 Voiceless Women in Sula.......................................................................................7

Chapter Three  Voicing: the Empowerment of Women and Identity

3.1 Finding Strength from Disclosing Vulnerability in the Song “Me and A Gun”...10

3.2 Sula’s Asserting Selfhood ....................................................................................12

Conclusion....................................................................................................14

Works Cited .................................................................................................16

Acknowledgement........................................................................................18