The Foreigner

The foreigner is a recurring motif in The Source of Self-Regard, and shifts both in meaning and significance according to Morrison. In the first part of her book, “The Foreigner’s Home,” Morrison establishes that the ‘foreigner’ is a social construct used by humans throughout history to define themselves in opposition to an ‘other,’ thus contributing to their sense of self – their ‘self-regard’ – as well as their sense of belonging or home. In the next part of her book called “Black Matter(s),” which she calls an interlude, Morrison demonstrates how the black person, both in the real world and especially in literature, has been consistently used to portray this ‘foreignness’ which allows white people in general to formulate their identities and national ideologies. She calls this the ‘Africanistic presence’ in literature.

In “The Foreigner’s Home,” Morrison writes, “Who is the foreigner? is a question that...