Estrangement, Identity and Ethno-global Imagination through Thirdspaces in Toni Morrison’s Home

Toni Morrison shows how Frank and Cee initiate from the obedient minorities to self-conscious individuals in her tenth novel, Home. This paper focuses on the analysis of Frank’s and Cee’s mental and physical sufferings implemented by society or history, their resistance to domination and reconstitution of identity through the journeys of leaving and returning their home. Spatiality occupies the high priority in Morrison’s narratives. On the journeys, they pass by or shortly stay at many Thirdspaces, which are marginal, hybrid, subversive and radically open. Mapping and studying those Thirdspaces, assist to understand the hidden meanings of geographical places as well as interpret how American minorities undergo discrimination and reconstruct their cultural identities. Drawing on Lefebvre, Soja and Bhabha’s Thirdspace theorization as well as bell hooks’ marginalization viewpoints, this paper focuses on the analysis of protagonists’ mental and physical sufferings implemented by society or history.