Summary

Part I of Toni Morrison’s The Source of Self-Regard is called “The Foreigner’s Home.” Its first chapter, “The Dead of September 11” is extremely short and expresses Morrison’s desire but inability to speak to the dead, her frustration at the failure of language and her wish to “hold you in my arms” (4) one final time.

The next chapter, “The Foreigner’s Home,” after which this part of the book is named, opens with a rumination on the mass movement of peoples around the globe today and the consequent confusion arising when the ‘foreign’ and the ‘domestic’ interact or – as often occurs – come to blows. She sees the xenophobia arising out of globalization as one of the latter’s greatest flaws, alongside the near-total distortion of the line between public and private. It becomes difficult...