(最终稿)从芭芭拉----史密斯的黑人女性主义批评视角看《宠儿》的弑婴母题.doc

南 京 晓 庄 学 院
本 科 生 学 士 学 位 论 文

从芭芭拉·史密斯的黑人女性主义批评视角看《宠儿》的弑婴母题

ON THE MOTIF OF INFANTICIDE IN BELOVED FROM PERSPECTIVE OF BARBARA SMITH’S BLACK FEMINIST CRITICISM

所在院（系）： 行 知 学 院
学 生： 张 林 枫
指 导 老 师： 陈 永
研究起止日期：2010年6月至2011年4月

二○一一年四月

Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Beloved by Toni Morrison is taken as the best of Morrison’s works. Based on the real story of Margaret Garner, a black woman, Morrison has presented a full picture of the miserable situation of the black women under the oppression of slavery. The present thesis attempts to make a tentative study on infanticide from perspective of Babara Smith’s black feminism theory. It mainly analyzes Sethe’s infanticide and presents what prompts her to kill her baby. Sethe is constantly exposed to the traumas under the oppression of slavery, racism and sexism, and her infanticide indicates her self-consciousness and resistance to these oppressions.
Key words: infanticide; black feminism; Sethe

摘要：托尼·莫里森的《宠儿》被誉为莫里森的最杰出的著作。小说的原型来源于玛格丽特·加纳，一个女黑奴的真实经历。本文试图从芭芭拉史密斯的黑人女性主义理论角度探究这部小说的弑婴主题。本文着重分析塞丝的弑婴经历，并剖析其原因。在奴隶制、种族主义以及性别歧视三重压迫下，塞丝身心遭受巨大的折磨。塞丝的弑婴意味着她的觉醒和反抗。
关键词：弑婴；黑人女性主义；塞丝

CONTENTS

1. Introduction 1
1.1 Introduction to Beloved
1.2 Introduction to Toni Morrison and Black Feminism
1.3 Literature Review
2. Analysis of Infanticide in Beloved from the Feminist Perspective 3
2.1 Sethe’s Suffering from Slavery, Racism and Sexism
2.2 Sethe’s Awakening of Self-consciousness
2.3 Sethe’s Infanticide
3. Conclusion 6

Bibliography 7
Acknowledgements 8

On the Motif of Infanticide in Beloved from the Perspective of Barbara Smith’s Black Feminist Criticism

1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Beloved and Toni Morrison
Beloved presents the truths that even history sometimes fails to deliver. Morrison dedicates the novel to “Sixty Million and More” slaves and acknowledges the freedom that all the slaves yearned for (Therese, 2001). The publication of Beloved in 1987 shakes the American literary world, and is heralded as a milestone in American literary history.
Set in the Reconstruction era (1870-90) after the Civil War and emancipation, the novel revolves around a child murder case committed by a desperate slave mother in Cincinnati, Ohio for protecting her daughter from the potential sufferings of slavery. It is inspired by a true story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave from Kentucky who chose death for herself and her children rather than suffering from the misery and indignity of slavery. However, she succeeded only in killing one and the rest were recaptured and sold. Morrison transplants the true story into the novel and creates the mother infanticide Sethe, and the dead baby Beloved (Andrews, 1999). This novel penetrates deeply into the hearts of black women and reveals their agonies and distorted maternal love under the multiple oppressions of sexism, racism and class prejudices imposed on black women.
Toni Morison is the first black female writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is hailed as a remarkable representative of black female writers. She believes that she is a “black woman novelist”, as she says, “As a black and a woman, I have access to a range of emotions and perceptions that were unavailable to people who were neither.” (Caldwell, 1994: 243)
Throughout her life, Toni Morrison has contributed to the study and development of black and women literature. In addition to Beloved, she has written even more novels. As a matter of fact, Morrison’s novels are closely associated with two notions: “black” and “female”. Seven out of her eight novels are drawn from women’s unique experiences. In her writings, Morrison is dedicated to breaking the stereotyped black female figures portrayed in the canon of American literature,vividly creates a wide range of new images of black women, and presents the black women’s subjectivity. Besides, Morrison is also engaged in the description of black men and their relationship with women. Morrison’s great concern over the issues of black men exerts profound influence on other black women writers and stimulates the shift of the focus in black feminist criticism. Toni Morrison clearly knows her responsibility as an American black woman writer. She takes presenting the American social realities and destinies of common Americans as her major tasks. In Toni Morrison’s works, it is easy to perceive her sensitive insight, elegant language, talented writing and her honesty and outspokenness, with which she is able to reexamine the black people’s experiences, especially the black women’s struggling against sexism, racism and classism.

1.2 Introduction to Black Feminism
Black feminism is deep-rooted in the struggles of black women for generations. The introduction of black feminism into literature is of great importance. Among the black feminism critics, Barbara Smith is a forerunner. In her landmark essay “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” published in 1977, Barbara Smith names black feminist criticism and explicitly states the three points: first, feminist criticism must recognize the long literary history of black women because “black women writers constitute an identifiable literary tradition which parallels the tradition of Black men and white women”.(Showalter, 1985:174) Second, black feminist critics should “look first for precedents and insights in interpretation within works of other Black women.” (Showalter, 1985:175) Third, the politics of sex and the politics of race and gender are critically interlocked in the writings of Black women writers. Beloved reveals Barbara Smith’s two basic principles that black feminist criticism is expected to follow. Morrison agrees with the notion that “the politics of sex as well as the politics of race and class are crucially interlocking factors” (Showalter, 1985:170). Therefore, she makes an intensive analysis of how complexities of class, race, and sex affect black women and the whole Afro-American ethnic group.

1.3 Literature Review
Ever since its publication, Beloved has drawn attention from critics and scholars, who attempt to interpret it from as many different perspectives as possible.Some critics take the novel as an expression of ideology. Some critics focus on mothering and motherhood. To Margaret Atwood, the focus is on Sethe. Beloved should be interpreted as a tale of thick maternal love seeking for an ultimate way out for liberation of the black women. Jan Furman takes the novel as a song for Sethe’s maternal love and sacrifice. Stephanie A. Demetrakopoulous explores how slavery denies Sethe’s maternal love and twists it into a terrible infanticide. Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, based on Sigmund Freud’s theory, analyzes the characters from perspective of psychology. Feminists attempt to interpret the novel from a feminist perspective by analyzing the nature of woman slave’s oppression (Tian Wei, 2008).
In China, the critical studies of Beloved mainly focus on the analysis of the novel’s narrative characteristics, theme, mother-daughter relationship,symbolism and imagery.Zhao Na (2006) interprets the main characters in the novel and how they suffer from the traumas based on Freud’s psychological theory. She concludes in her MA thesis, based on history, represents the history of the black’s being oppressed and seeking for identity. Hao Xianfeng (2010) explores the hardships that Sethe experiences in the journey of gaining freedom and liberation. According to Hao, it is the genuine love that overthrows the cruel slavery. Zhao Yan (2010) explores the employment of symbolism in the novel. He points out that the employment of symbolism plays an important role in presenting human beings’ mentality, promoting the development of plot, deepening the theme of the novel and expanding the readers’ imagination.
The findings of critics indicate that Beloved is loaded with implications. Although these studies have touched upon infanticide, no intensive study has been made on the topic from the feminist perspective. The introduction of feminist criticism into literature actually provides us with a totally new perspective to interpret the novel.

2. Analysis of Infanticide in Beloved from the Feminist Perspective
The woman protagonist, Sethe, is a typical American black woman slave in a society controlled by slavery. She constantly rebels against the traditional mold imposed on black women and explores freedom and independence. Therefore, she stands far apart from other Negroes. Despite her resolution and boldness, Sethe leads an unhappy life as she is haunted by the past experience of infanticide.

2.1 Sethe’s Suffering from Slavery, Racism and Sexism
Slavery, racism and sexism are the common themes in black literature. In Beloved, Morrison explores the issues through portraying a series of female characters. Description of Sethe best manifests the themes. Sethe lives under the triple oppressions of slavery, racism and sexism.
The formation of slavery is based on the notion that slaves are the legal property of slave owners, which indicates that the slaves are not treated as human beings but objects. Under the slavery system, black women are suffering from the poor economic conditions;thus, they have to work outside their homes, which makes it hardly possible for them to offer proper care to their children. The slavery system not only erodes the black physically, but also destroys them spiritually. Slavery fetters them in that the slaves cannot lift themselves out of their miserable life. In Beloved, Sethe, as a capable black woman and mother, is suffering from loss of motherhood under slavery. She cannot protect her children from being persecuted by slavery in a normal way.Thus, she unwillingly kills her daughter. When the ghost of the killed baby returns, Sethe feels obliged to provide Beloved, whether her daughter or not, “a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it” (Morrison, 2000: 67- 68). The slavery once leads to the loss if motherhood, as Kubitschek notes, “On the plantations...black women’s nurturance—from the physical (nursing milk) to the metaphysical (energy and patience)—is used up primarily in working fields and tending white children” (1998:166). Therefore, when the ghost returns, Sethe has her responsibility as a mother. But for Sethe, who was able to have her children with her, “the major means of protecting children from slavery is to value them” (Kubitschek, 1998: 166). All in all, slave women are worthless unless they have the capacity of producing children like animals.
Persecuted by racism, Africans were forced to abandon their African language and culture. Instead, they were forced to accept a new language and culture of whites. In Beloved, Morrison displays the picture of Sethe’s childhood in a manner similar to montage. In the picture, Black men and women sing songs and dance. Sethe recalls her childhood back in Africa. “sometimes they danced the antelope. The men as well as the ma’ams, one of whom was certainly her own. They shifted shapes and became something other. Some unchained, demanding others whose feet knew her pulse better than she did” (Morrison, 2000: 31). When she is at early age, Sethe could understand the language, but several years later she cannot remember or recall her native language. The imposition of language and culture displays how deliberately a ruling group of white people maintains a social hierarchy to retain their own privileges, to exploit black people and to ultimately put them at the maximum disadvantage.
Besides, sexism is another shackle imposed on the black woman. The black women are taken as a “natural thing” to provide labor and to give birth to new laborers. Their basic emotion of love is suppressed and ignored, and they are even deprived of the right to be a wife and woman. “Slaves not supposed to have pleasure feelings on their own; their bodies not supposed to be like that, but they have to have as many children as they can to please whoever owned them” (Morrison, 2000: 209). Sethe comes to Sweet Home simply because Baby Sugg is too old to work For Sethe, she is deprived of the maternal love. She has a vague memory of her mother. Nor does Sethe can remember what language her mother speaks. Besides, Sethe suffers from loss of names. Naming is a critical means of keeping track of identity, place of origin and family bloodline. In an interview with Thomas LeClair (1994), Morrison states the significance of names and naming: “If you come from Africa, your name is gone. It is particularly problematic because it is not just your name but your family, your tribe. When you die, how can you connect with your ancestors if you have lost your name? That’s a huge psychological scar” (cited in Peach, 1998: 57). Sethe has no idea of what her original American name is. As a result, she suffers from a serious identity crisis and the distorted mentality. As a salve woman, she has nothing. Sethe is nothing but a subhuman. She once believes that she has “animal characteristics.”

2.2 Sethe’s Awakening of Self-consciousness
Sethe is a victim to slavery. Living in a society rampant with racism and sexual discrimination, she is forced to lose the self-hood but accept the existing social order and patriarchal ideas. As Sethe was born to a slave mother, she is doomed to have the doomed identity---a slave. The deprivation of her mother’s love makes Sethe completely live in a world with shackles. It is impossible for a black child like Sethe to gain self-identity.
Seth lives in Sweet Home, where the owner Mr. Garner claims that he treats his slaves as human beings. The men of Sweet Home have the rights of “buy [ing] a mother, choose a horse or a wife, handle guns, even learn reading if they wanted to” (Morrison 125), they were allowed to do so only as Garners’ property and within the bounds of his property. During the time when Mr. Garner is in charge of the Sweet Home, Sethe has the fantasy for something unrealistic-living as the precocious child of benevolent white parents has. When Halle asks her to be his wife, Sethe happily agrees and then at a loss as to what to do next. Therefore, she turns to Mrs. Garner for help as she regards. Mrs. Garner as her loving parent. When Mr. Garner’s brother-in-law, the schoolteacher, takes over Sweet Home after Mr. Garner’s death, Sweet Home changes to a horrible black slave community. Schoolteacher attempts to instill into the pupils’ minds that the black are properties and animals. The school teacher’s teaching wakens Sethe, who gains the strength to plan an escape. Early, Sethe and other slaves plan to escape under the guidance of two men, because “only Sixo, who has been stealing away to see his woman, and Halle, who has been hired away for years, know what lies outside Sweet Home and how to get there (Morrison, 2000: 223