In “Stranger in the Village” (1953), James Baldwin asserted that “the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.” In her article on naming in Toni Morrison's novels, Linda Buck Myers asks us to consider Morrison's insights regarding who does the controlling and how. In the end Myers offers us a number of useful and provocative observations regarding language and our uses of it as they inform ethnic experience.

Keywords:
Critique, Fiction of Toni Morrison
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Copyright, ©EES, The National Association for Ethnic Studies, 1984
1984
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