The Origin of Others

In Chapter 2, Morrison notes that racial identification and exclusion do not begin or end with anti-Black racism. What is Morrison asserting about the nature of race, and how does she support this assertion throughout the text?

Explain the role that scientific racism has played in inventing and maintaining control over the Other and discuss how Morrison demonstrates this role in The Origin of Others.

In Chapter 2, Morrison writes “when we speak or write of the stranger, the outsider, the Other, we should keep in mind what the relationship signifies” (25). What is she suggesting? Provide examples from the text that illustrate what Morrison means about what the relationship signifies.

In Chapter 3, Morrison examines the work of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. What does their prominence as American literary figures imply about the role of literature with respect to ideas about race and belonging in American society?

Explain the impact that Othering has on those who have been Othered, both in relation to the privileged group and within the Othered community. How does Morrison’s discussion of Black towns and Paradise demonstrate this impact?

Why does Morrison say that “[n]arrative fiction provides a controlled wilderness” (91), and how does her own work demonstrate this?

In Chapter 6, Morrison writes that African and African American writers have a long history of confronting issues of exile and Othering. How does she demonstrate this confrontation in her own literary work?

Morrison suggests that anxieties around belonging and acceptance motivate people to try to fortify real and imagined borders. How does she illustrate this anxiety and the attempted fortification with the literature she examines in the text?