Significance of the Research

1、1.1 Significance of the ResearchThis thesis analyzes Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, in which the black woman Sethe kills her daughter by sawing her head with a handsaw, and for this reason years later the little ghost comes back to revenge Sethe. In recent years, scholars have concentrated on analyzi

2、ng Beloveds literary features, themes and its contents. Every generation has its own understanding about the novel and its value. This thesis focuses on illustrating Sethes resentments against slavery. To a large extent, black womens psychology, human nature and maternal love are distorted because o

3、f the long-term persecution of slavery, such as Sethe, who even kills her daughter. This thesis is digging out the different form and expression of maternal love in the novel Beloved by comparing it with normal maternal love. Under the oppression of cruel slavery and other factors aroused by it, bla

4、ck women have no choice but to do something seeming cruel. 1.2 Organization of the PaperThis thesis mainly analyzes the protagonists abnormal maternal love and its reasons. After an overall introduction, I will briefly present studies of this novel by scholars coming from home and abroad. The main p

5、art focuses on the motherhood of the black woman Sethe, especially stating the reasons of Sethes abnormal maternal love, including the cruelty of slavery, lacking of maternal love in her childhood and Schoolteachers oppression. At last, a conclusion will be given to terminate the thesis.Chapter 2 Li

6、terature ReviewToni Morrison (1931- ) is one of the most famous contemporary black writers. Morrison pays great attention to black people and has written a series of novels concerning black peoples miserable fate. Toni Morrisons novels are famous forvivid dialogue, specialthemes and typical characte

7、rs. In her novels, Morrison profoundly explores the inner world of black people, including love, race, religious belief, alienation, friendship, and betrayal, sex, and even supernatural, especially African American womens privileged and sensitive observation. In her novels, she shows people, languag

8、e, and society concepts of value, places, politics, and cultural traditions that have influenced African American people as well as herself.In 1993, Morrison won Nobel Prize for Literature. As the first African American who reached the honor, she has gained reputation all over the world and has been

9、 famous as one of the major figures in American national literature.Beloved is published in 1987 and is viewed as Morrisons best novel. The heroine of this novel is Sethe, who fled from the Sweet Home-the plantation in Kentucky. While a posse arrives in Ohio and tries to capture her back, she kills

10、her daughter and tries to kill the other three children. Filled with suspense and bitter poetry, Beloved is an extraordinary achievement. Glaring at the abyss of slavery, this excellent novel portrays history in the form of a story, which is as meaningful as Exodus and as smooth as a lullaby.After p

11、ublishing, this novel has gained a critical success. It won themany prizes. Moreover, ithas been adapted into film in 1998. Nowadays, the literary world still has a high praise for this novel, for example, Chicago Sun-Time once regarded Beloved as Toni Morrisons best work and that this novel excelle

12、ntly displays her prodigious. Los Angeles Times considered “it is even deemed to be such a masterwork that I cant imagine American literature can without it”. However, there still are some controversial about the novel. On the one hand, critics consider it is melodramatic even self-indulgent to some

13、 extent. On the other hand, admirers of the novel say these criticisms fail to appreciate Morrisons imaginative risks are necessitated in her magnitude topic. Based on so much argumentation, scholars from home and abroad are increasingly more. Consequently, I would like to illustrate a few of them a

14、s follows.To begin with, domestic scholars also attach much attention to this novel. Qi Jixiang, an instructor in Hebei Foreign Language Professional School, published an article on the interpretation of Beloveds identity. Xie Juans Memory, Storytelling and Survival in Beloved focuses on discussing

15、the battered survivors of slavery and their offspring who grow up in the shadow. Another Chinese scholar, Jiang Jiuhong studies the contradiction between maternal love and self-construction as well as the Lacanian psychoanalysis of Beloved. Based on Lacans theory of three-dimensional world, she anal

16、yzed the psychological activities of Sethe when she killed her child and how did Sethe overcome her psychogenic disorder. Wang Xiaogang and Huang Zhen interpreted the multiple identities of Beloved and claimed that the diversity and openness of Beloveds identity was naturally showed under the influe

17、nce of postmodernism. When it comes to overseas scholars, studies on the novel are more diversified. Take Tadd Ruetenik, an instructor in philosophy at Pennsylvania State University, for instance, wrote a thesis named Animal Liberation or Human Redemption: Racism and Specialism in Toni Morrisons Bel

18、oved. He abstracted:Toni Morrisons Beloved is a morally sophisticated slave narrative that (among many other things) deals with the topic of racism in American historical consciousness. It also implicitly addresses the issue of specialism. Morrisons novel is a poignant example of human meliorism, an

19、d yet is also a useful illustration of how the issue of human well-being cannot be cleanly separated from consideration of animal exploitation. To be sure, Beloved does little to promote the interests of exploited animals, focusing instead on exploited humans. Morrisons masterpiece seems to justify

20、animal exploitation as a condition for the liberation of human slaves (22). Besides, Lars Ecksteins A love supreme: jazz-thetic strategies in Toni Morrisons Beloved pays attention to the importance of music, not only concerning Beloved, but also with regard to the predicament of black Diaspora. Ecks

21、tein said: “With regard to Beloved in particular, her musical scope has received little critical attention. While Morrisons subsequent novel Jazz has been acknowledged and praised for its use of musical technique, Beloved has rarely been read under similar premises (Eckstein 2006).” Chapter 3 Analys

22、is of Maternal Love3.1 Maternal Love in Common SenseLove is not to be constrained in the aridness and simplicity of biology, but is to be left floating delicate and innocent of any material reality. The relationship between a mother and her child is different from other human beings relationships be

23、cause a mothers love for her child is irreplaceable. This is referred to be the wonder of maternal love. Although it cannot be defined or explained, it is universally regarded as one of the strongest and greatest forms of love that existing all over the world. It is proven to be the strongest form o

24、f love because of the fact that it is the first kind of love that everyone experience after he is born. The levels of maternal love may be different from one to another. Maternal love is the primary and visible love in the world. It is holy and is the earliest love created by progression. Mother-chi

25、ldren relationship is devout and it is a special part in motherly love. It flows naturally between mother and children and there is not any intention in maternal love. Mothers feelings are honest and generous. Maternal love teaches babies to be strong and prepares them the necessary abilities to sur

26、vive in the malicious and complicated world. Maternal love always inspires children to be excellent in doing their task. In a word, mothers love is invaluable.In a family, the relationship between mother and children is most important because the relationship between mother and children has crucial

27、and significant influences in the whole life of children. Only with enough maternal love, can children be able to grow up strongly. It is proven that if children can not be provided with enough love in the initial stages, they will end up being weaker when attempting to make it in the harsh world. T

28、he mother-children bond develops as soon as the mother becomes impregnated.According to scientific study, the rudiment of childrens personality has been formed when they are five years old. How the mother fosters and treats children will deeply affect the form of childrens personality. To each infan

29、t, mother is the person who is not only the primary emotional attachment but also the teacher of cultural attitudes and concepts of value. (Sharp 2003:25). Motherhood is a permanent theme in the literary world at any times and any places. As we all know, almost every mother tends to impart all of he

30、r love to her children. Mother is full of love and devotion and every mother can have the patience of saints. Mother wish is her children can grow healthily and happily. A great number of mothers have fostered a maternal awareness, that is, they would like to devote themselves to their children with

31、 all respect.Nevertheless, in Beloved, the representation of protagonists maternal love to her children is different and monstrous.3.2 Sethes Extreme Love to Her ChildrenThe baby Beloved, not more than two years old, was killed with the head sawed off by her own mother using a handsaw. In this novel

32、, Sethes maternal love is so “thick” that she kills her daughter and destroys herself. The incarnation of her daughter seems to testify strength of maternal love and the necessity of passing on mothers stories of love and resistance. As the only female slave in Sweet Home, Sethe has been torn not on

33、ly from the Schoolteachers record of her animal-like traits, such as his pupils milking and his wiping, but also torn from her own infanticide of Beloved. She kills her infant daughter so as to prevent her from being defined as racially inferior and animalistic when she grows up as well as from bein

34、g dirtied in the future. As a slave, the infanticide and brutality she suffered infused her everyday life and convinced the fact that past trauma can never be eradicated. She lives in the shadow of the past; whats more, she is unable to find a way out of the past memories. Eighteen years later, the

35、dead baby reincarnates and appears in Bluestone Road to ask for love from Sethe, which makes her exhausted under the torture of the past. Morrison has said that “I think, every time I write, Im writing about love or its absence, although I dont start out in that way.” Morrisons Beloved is about mate

36、rnal love as well as its distortion and loss, and also about slaughter with the bloodThen what are the causes for the distortion or loss of Sethes maternal love?Chapter 4 Reasons of Sethes Extreme Love4.1 Social BackgroundCruelty of SlaveryThe social background of the novel and the protagonists twis

37、ted maternal love is slavery. In the United States, slavery is a kind of cheap labor power which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century. It exists in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment coming to the United States Constitution in 1865 after the Am

38、erican Civil War. A large amount of slaves are black people and their freedom is held by the white, moreover, some Native Americans and free blacks also hold some slaves. Before the establishment of chattel slavery (outright ownership of a person as well as his/her descendants), black slavery labor

39、was controlled under a system of bonded labor known as indentured servitude. This system lasted for many years. People paid with their labor for the costs of transport to colonies. They make arrangements for poor economies in their countries. From the 16th centuries to 19th centuries, almost 12 mill

40、ion Africans were shipped to the Americas as slaves, among which almost 645,000 were shipped to where is known as the United States nowadays. There is no doubt that slavery is the cruelest system in human society. Slaves were the property of the slave owners and slave owners can buy or sell them wit

41、h the land they worked in. Even after the southern laws were extended to cancel the prohibition against allowing slaves to testify, the court still found it very difficult to determine the line between cruelty and correction. However, beating slaves couldnt be prosecuted as crime. Even though white

42、slaver owners killed a slave would not be considered as guilty because they have right to dispose their property. The legal right of property left it no doubt of the slaves utter dependence on their master. They had no right in things and whatever they might acquire belonged to their masters. The de

43、scription of the slavery system by Morrison is historically true.In discussing motherhood in slavery, Barbara Christian reveals that the African emphasis on woman as mother was drastically affected by the institution of slavery, since slave women and men were denied their natural right to their chil

44、dren. Being an individual member limited in the environment of the whole slave community, “the slave mother has no choice to choose”. As an African American writer, Toni Morrison fully realizes the bitterness of black people. She centers on exploring the miserable slavery period, especially slave wo

45、men bear the destruction at that time, in order to reveal the harm which slavery brought to the mothers. Here is a paragraph from which we can see their tragedy:It made sense for a lot of reasons because in all of Babys life, as well as Sethes own, men and women were moved around like checkers. Anyb

46、ody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadnt run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen or seized. So Babys eight children had six fathers. What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobod

47、y stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children (23).Morrison reflects the sorrow that slavery bring to black people, especially on the slave mothersAlmost every black person in Beloved is suffered by the shadow of slavery. Their memory is full of bloody wounds and hurt. The

48、y are eager to forget the past and they dare not to touch the terrible memory. However, they have to live in the circle of sorrow because it is very hard to avoid the terrible memory that always flows out in their minds. Being not willing to see the little girl follow the same disastrous road with h

49、er, that is, suffering from the tragic life under the oppression of slavery, the protagonist has no choice but to kill the baby.4.2 Lack of Maternal Love in Her ChildhoodAnother important reason lies in Sethes lack of nurture and maternal love in her childhood. Sethes mother is a one of survivors of

50、 the Middle Passage, who is often raped by the “ghost without skin” in the ship, whats more, white men throws away all her children far away. When Sethes mother is shipped to America and is sold to work in the plantations, she is still often raped by slave owners; at last, she is hanged. Although Se

51、the has her fathers name, she has no ideal about her father and her family ancestors. Like other children in the big plantation, baby Sethe is nursed by a one-armed slave woman, who is called Nan. When it comes to Sethes mothers maternal love, we can trace back to the novel Beloved:“Your woman she n

52、ever fix up your hair?” was clearly a question for Sethe, since thats who she was looking at.“My woman? You mean my mother? If she did, I dont remember. I didnt see her but a few times out in the fields and once when she was working indigo. By the time I woke up in the morning, she was in line. If t

53、he moon was bright they worked by its light. Sunday she slept like a stick. She must of nursed me two or three weeksthats the way the others did. Then she went back in rice and I sucked from another woman whose job it was. So to answer you, no. I reckon not. She never fixed my hair nor nothing. She

54、didnt even sleep in the same cabin most nights I remember. Too far from the line-up, I guess. One thing she did do. She picked me up and carried me behind the smokehouse. Back there she opened up her dress front and lifted her breast and pointed under it. Right on her rib was a circle and a cross bu

55、rnt right in the skin. She said, This is your maam. This, and she pointed. I am the only one got this mark now. The rest dead. If something happens to me and you cant tell me by my face, you can know me by this mark. Scared me so. All I could think of was how important this was and how I needed to h

56、ave something important to say back, but I couldnt think of anything so I just said what I thought. Yes, Maam, I said. But how will you know me? How will you know me? Mark me, too, I said. Mark the mark on me too.” Sethe chuckled. “Did she?” asked Denver.“She slapped my face.”“What for?”“I didnt und

57、erstand it then. Not till I had a mark of my own.”What happened to her?”“Hung. By the time they cut her down nobody could tell whether she had a circle and a cross or not, least of all me and I did look.” (61). The quotation above indicates that Sethes mother has never fixed up Sethes hair, not to m

58、ention nurtured her as a mother usually does. But we can still have an insight into her love by the words that she slapped Sethes face. Milk is symbolized as an expression of mothers love. Therefore, lacking of mothers milk can be viewed as symbolic of maternal abandonment. Sethes mother is only allowed two or three weeks to nurse the infant Sethe, which is long enough to guarantee the survival of the baby. This kind of situation is common. It is a mercilessly brief time. Sethes mother is then forced to come back to work in the rice fields so as to continue reaping for th