从《宠儿》透视美国黑人女性的悲剧与成长.docx

Acknowledgments

This thesis has taken me a long time to turn it from conception to the final completion. It is a work of joint efforts from many people. So I especially wish to extend my gratitude for the following people.
First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to my supervisor Professor Mou Xiaojin for her patient and constructive instructions on my thesis writing, her patient help and timely encouragement are worthy of high acknowledgment.
Then I do need to thank for Hu Xiaoying, a professor in our SFLC, the book she wrote called A Story Not to Pass on－The Artistic World of Toni Morrison’s Beloved has helped me a lot during my paper writing process.
Thirdly, I would like to appreciate the help of other teachers who trained and educated me for all these years.

Abstract

Toni Morrison is a female American novelist, was considered one of the foremost writers in contemporary American fiction. She is the only Afro-American woman writer who wins the Nobel Prize for literature, which makes her popular and got international reputation. Her works are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue and richly detailed character, and the most significant one is that her novels are mostly focused on the black women and the tragic realities. Beloved is her most important novel in her career. In Beloved, Morrison tells us a story that a black slave woman, Sethe, has a tragic life but keeps her faith in self-growth, she tries to reveal the menial situation of black women as well as their tough process of growth under the oppression of racism and sexism through different experiences of three generations. No matter how difficult the self-growth process is, black women never give up and build themselves up through the efforts of generations, and finally face the real life bravely.

Key Words: Beloved, Black women, tragedy, discrimination and oppression, self-growth

摘 要

托尼•莫里森是美国的一位女性作家，是当代美国文学界最伟大的小说家之一。她也是当今文学史上唯一一位获得诺贝尔文学奖的黑人女性作家，获此殊荣使得她逐渐被人们熟知，同时也获得了国际知名度。其小说以可歌可泣的主题，生动的对话和丰富的细节特征而著名，最主要的一点是她的作品总是代表着黑人女性并充满了悲剧色彩。《宠儿》是莫里森最重要的一部小说，在《宠儿》中，她讲述了一个生活在悲剧中却始终不放弃信念的黑奴塞丝的悲惨故事。她通过三代人不同的成长经历揭示了处于弱势地位的黑人女性在种族主义和性别主义的双重压迫下艰难的心路历程。不论成长的过程多么困难，她们从未放弃，通过一代又一代的努力，她们最终成长起来，勇敢的面对现实生活。

关键词: 宠儿, 黑人妇女, 悲剧, 歧视和压迫, 自我成长

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Contents
Acknowledgments i
Abstract ii
摘 要 iii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 A brief introduction to Toni Morrison and her Beloved 1
1.2 The Historical Background of Beloved 3
2 Literature Review 4
2.1 Domestic Research 4
2.2 Research Abroad 5
3 The Tragedy of Black Women in Beloved 6
3.1 The sources and the reasons of the tragedy 6
3.2 The reflections of the tragedy 7
3.3 The Influences of the Tragedy 9
3.3.1 The Passive Influences 9
3.3.2 The positive influences 10
4 The Growth of the Black Women in Beloved 11
4.1 The growth of Baby Suggs 11
4.2 The growth of Sethe 12
4.3 The growth of Denver 12
5 The life of black women nowadays 13
6 Conclusion 15
Works Cited 18

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The Growth and Tragedy of Black Women in Beloved
1 Introduction
Once Beloved was published, many people were influenced and started to research it. But who is Toni Morison and what does it mainly talks about? What kind of social background it is?
1.1 A brief introduction to Toni Morrison and her Beloved
Toni Morrison is a female American novelist, and she is the only Afro-American woman writer who wins the Nobel Prize for literature, which makes her win the renown and be one of the most influential writers in American history. She has published many novels, among which The Bluest Eyes(1972); Sula(1973); Song of Solemon(1977); Tar baby(1981); Beloved(1987); Jazz(1991); Paradise(1998) and Love(2004) are widely known by people, and we can see a general and eternal theme in all her works: the tragic life and the conflict between white people and black people, she devoted all her life to her career.
Beloved is Morrison’s most famous and important fiction, which wins the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award in 1988. The story of Beloved is based on a genuine history event: Margret Garner, a Kentucky slave woman, escaped from Kentucky to Cincinnati with her husband and their four children, but the slaveholders chased after them. She would rather choose to kill her children and herself than being returned to slavery while slaveholders captured them. However, she did not succeed in doing it, her children except her little daughter were recaptured and sold. After hearing this story, Morrison spent more than ten years to create a novel based on this event. The great work caused a great sensation once it was published, and shocked the American literary. It was served as a milestone of the Afro-American’s history.
In Beloved, story begins with two different time lines, one is the real life in Cincinnati, and the other is their experiences in “Sweet Home” twenty years ago. Sethe, one of the major characters in Beloved, a former slave who escaped from “Sweet Home”, had many traumatic memories in her past, including her killing her baby daughter “Beloved” to save her from slavery, living in spiteful 124 on the Blu4eroad with her youngest daughter, Denver, and Baby Suggs, the grandmother, who was dead of disappointment later. And they all believe that the ghost of “Beloved” haunts their house. The story develops with the appearance of Paul D, a former slave in “Sweet Home”, whose appearance aroused Sethe’s bitter memories, also, the consequent conflicts between Sethe and him; Denver and him as well as Beloved and him appeared, through the development of all these conflicts, Morrison tries to show us the unyielding soul, constant struggles and insistent self-growth of the black women; she tries to tell us that black women have the same emotion and sensation just as others do; she tries to reveal that black women never give up their faith to life and self-growth even though the reality is tough.
1.2 The Historical Background of Beloved
Although the story Beloved was finished in the end of 1980s, it involves many aspects of American history.
Firstly, the most significant one is slavery, as the major plot of Beloved is that a slave mother killed her baby daughter when the slaveholders chased them. In the human history, slavery may be the most evil social system what we have ever met, you will find that the history of black people is just the history of slavery if you go back into the American history. Since the moment that the first batch of blacks were sold as slave labor to America, they have been lost their self-identity even their basic rights and dignity; they are not allowed to express themselves; they have no rights to speak their own language; they even do not belong to themselves; they are just defined as the “Talking Slave” of those slaveholders. The American slavery is inhuman just like others. There have been 500,000 black slaves until the America announced to be an independent country in 1776. And in the first page of Beloved, Morrison wrote: “Sixty Million and more”, which means that there may be more and more black people were involved in the criminal slavery system. In most novels of Morrison, she wants to express one thought by describing the reality of black people: what hurt the black people most is not only slavery itself, but also the damage of their self-identity.
Secondly, the four-year American Civil War broke out in 1861. In fact, the development between the North and the South in American is rather unbalanced at that time. The Industrial Capitalism in North advocate free competition and personal dignity, while the Platation Economy in South try to maintain strict hierarchy and slavery, And finally the unbalanced development led to the American Civil War, which end with the victory of the North, which means that the slavery of the South should be abolished. As for the whole America, the abolition of the slavery is definitely a great progress, however, to the liberation of the black people, it is just a start, they still do not obtain complete freedom and equality.

2 Literature Review
As the Beloved is such an influential novel, once it was published, it shook the literary circle and became the focus of the literary critics. There have been many scholars researched it until now.
2.1 Domestic Research
Since the Beloved was published in 1987, the introduction and study to this novel in domestic country have never been suspended, but because of the failing reference materials and the different understanding to the novel, the earlier review articles have low qualities and shallow views. Later on, as time goes by, more and more people have a better understanding to it, and a new Chinese translation version from Panyue and Leige appeared in 1999, which means the study of Beloved in China has a great progress, also provide many more points to readers. But there is no specialized work to study Beloved in China now.
2.2 Research Abroad
Generally speaking, compared with China, the foreign countries, especially in America, the critics have done many research and criticism from different perspectives. Some of them study the multiple themes in Beloved, such as Robin Blyn, Kristing Bouderau and Gray Daily; some of them study the features of African culture, such as Stanley Crouch, Susan Bowers and Phlip Page. There are also many critics compared Beloved with other black women writer’s works. Until now, there has been an important proceeding citation of Beloved (William L. Andrews and Nellie Y. Mckay. Eds. Toni Morrison’s Beloved: a Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press,1999). However, there is no specialized literary work to study Beloved in America.
The paper is focused on the tragedy and growth of black women in Beloved by learning from the above-mentioned study and research to understand Beloved more comprehensive.

3 The Tragedy of Black Women in Beloved
3.1 The sources and the reasons of the tragedy
In American, black people, especially black women are totally distained by others, the sources and reasons are multiple.
Firstly, the concept of color prejudices. Although America is a superpower and the Declaration on Human Rights has existed for several centuries, black people have no equal rights compared to white people at all, they get the inhuman treatment, they have unequal rights and obligations, which they cannot refuse to, accept. Also, as America is a big country of immigrants, the population was divided into several certain classes according to color, and the white people boast to be the first class, they always think that they are superior to black people. Morrison reproduced the social features authentically in Beloved, and revealed the real life of black women with an example.
Secondly, it must be the racism and sexism. Even though the American law stipulated that “Men are created equal”, the black people especially black women are always looked upon by others, they cannot get equal respect and rights but contribute most to America. In Beloved, Baby Suggs, Sethe as well as their mothers were sold over and over again, they even do not know their real name. What’s more, with the rise of the feminist movement in the United states, the black women were not only pushed out, but also repressed by the white women, which means that the black women had a tragic life in a long time.
Thirdly, it’s because of the missing of the self-identity of the black women. In their real life, they faced the multiple repression from slavery, racism as well as sexism, no matter what positions they are, as a wife, as a mother even as a woman, they were always informed that they should be submitted, even their so-called name was just a trafficking tag, so most of them had no awareness of self-identity at all.
3.2 The reflections of the tragedy
In Beloved, the heroine, Sethe, a female image with self-esteem and independence, and also a mother who loves her children, although her mother had no chance to give love to her, her maternal instinct is her most significant feature. When she was a slave in “Sweet Home”, she suffered many traumas both physically and mentally, so she is unwilling to allow her children to have the same life as herself. She chose to kill her children and then committed suicide when she faced the chase of the slaveholders, which ended up with her killing the two-year-old daughter and hurting two sons, and she was put into prison for a period time. In her later life, the 124 was so spiteful that her two sons left home, and she was abandoned by the whole community. She and Denver, the only child left to her, believe that the ghost of the killed baby haunt 124 all these years. She was also tortured by the guilt that killing her baby, and some pains from Sweet Home 20 years ago. She was always trying to forget the past but failed. The arrival of Paul D, a former slave in Sweet Home, kicked out the ghost and aroused her hope for the future, however, to replace the left of the ghost in the house, here comes a girl, Beloved, who was believed to be the revival of the ghost, and with her coming, there are more and more conflicts between Sethe and Paul D, Sethe and Denver and even Paul D and Denver, which caused new pains to Sethe. Beloved wanted to monopolize Sethe’s love greedily, she tried to seduce Paul D to drive away him. Finally, Sethe was destroyed. Morrison makes Sethe in Beloved become a witness of tragic history of the black women.
Baby Suggs, Sethe’s mother-in-law, an old slave who lived sixty years under the slavery, her son Hale helped her be free. She has passed away at the very beginning of the story, but her voice existed in everywhere, she once was full of hope to the whole community, so she convened religious meeting regularly. However, she changed her mind and just waited for death lying in bed after Sethe’s killing baby, because she was extremely disappointed to the community. And in her last days, she just asked for “color” and she passed with the unfinished meditation to the meaning of the “color” (She also wanted to know why there exist differences between white people and black people) .
Denver, the youngest daughter of Sethe, was born on the way during Sethe escaped from Sweet Home. She was lonely, shy and sensitive. She hated to deal with others but eager to be loved by others. The only company she has is the ghost in the 124, so she was very sad when Paul D kicked out the ghost. She is afraid of the world outside, so she was extremely lonely. And she is immature in an excessive way as an 18-year-old girl.
Generally speaking, in American society, people usually hold the idea that the colored people should be treated differently, they cannot enter the places where white people entered; they cannot share the public equipment equally; they are even isolated in many places. What’s more, there are Wh