通過小說寵兒看美國的種族歧視

1、通過小說寵兒看美國的種族歧視An Analysis of the Racial Discrimination inAmerica inelovedAbstractBelovedis the masterpiece of Toni Morrison-the famous Afro-American woman writer. Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in 1993 which made her the first black woman to win this prize in the history of America. This novel is

2、 regarded as a milestone in American literature. Morrison is such a person who holds the firm national status, and has deep personal views on the racial contradictions. InBeloved, she stats a central story of Sethe killing her daughter Beloved. Through this novel she exposes the problem of racial di

3、scrimination in America.The author of the present thesis tries to see the racial discrimination in America through the analysis of the fate of Beloved. The fact that Beloved is not beloved could be displayed in many aspects, and through these facts, some racial problems could be exposed. What makes

4、Beloved not beloved includes the social reasons, the family reasons and the personal reasons. Beloved edy is s epgpme of the whole black people. At the end of the present thesis, the author tries to talk about the solution to the racial problem in America.Key words: Beloved; love; slavery system ; r

5、acial discrimination摘要寵兒是美國著名非洲裔女作家托尼莫里森的代表作，于1993年獲得諾 貝爾文學(xué)獎，從而使莫里森成為第一個獲此獎項的黑人女作家，而該部作品也成 為了美國文學(xué)史上的一個里程碑。莫里森作為一個黑人 ，對種族問題持有深刻的 個人見解。在寵兒中，她講述了塞絲殺死女兒的中心故事，并通過這個故事揭 露了美國的種族歧視問題。在本論文中，作者通過對寵兒命運(yùn)的分析來看美國的種族歧視。寵兒不受寵 的事實可以從多個方面得以體現(xiàn)，而通過這些事實，一些種族問題也得以揭露。造 成寵兒不受寵的原因主要包括社會的、家庭的與個人的原因，寵兒的悲劇是整個 黑人民族的縮影。在論文的最后，作者討

6、論了美國種族問題的未來以及解決之道。關(guān)鍵詞：寵兒；寵愛；奴隸制；種族歧視Contents TOC o 1-5 h z HYPERLINK l bookmark12 o Current Document Introduction1 HYPERLINK l bookmark14 o Current Document Introduction of Toni Morrison and Beloved1 HYPERLINK l bookmark16 o Current Document Background Knowledge2 HYPERLINK l bookmark20 o Current Doc

7、ument e Beloved Is Not Beloved3 HYPERLINK l bookmark22 o Current Document The Facts that Beloved Is Not Beloved3 HYPERLINK l bookmark34 o Current Document The Racial Problems Reflecting from the above Facts5 HYPERLINK l bookmark44 o Current Document o The Reasons that Make Beloved Not Beloved6 HYPER

8、LINK l bookmark46 o Current Document The Social Reasons7 HYPERLINK l bookmark54 o Current Document The Family Reasons9 HYPERLINK l bookmark62 o Current Document The Personal Reasons1.0. HYPERLINK l bookmark70 o Current Document ree The Echo of the Tragedy.12 HYPERLINK l bookmark72 o Current Document

9、 The Future of the Racial Problem in America13 HYPERLINK l bookmark74 o Current Document The Solution to the Racial Problem in America14 HYPERLINK l bookmark76 o Current Document Conclusion.16The Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao UniversityIntroductionIntroduction of Toni Mo

10、rrison andBelovedBeloved is an outstanding literature work of Toni Morrison who is one famous Afro-American writer born in the state of Ohio in 1931. Morrison has deep views on the racial problem and has written many books to display this long-existed problem in America. Beloved is the fifth and the

11、 most mature work of Toni Morrison, as well as the masterpiece of hers.Beloved got the Nobel Prize in 1993, thus making its author the first black woman to win this prize in literature, so the novel became a milestone in the history of American literature. Many critics have recognized Beloved as the

12、 best novel of America in the last 25 years. So Beloved is one work worth of studying. When this work is put into the wide background of the modern society of America, the fate of Beloved is not one fate of herself, but that of the whole black. Through the analysis of the fact that Beloved is not be

13、loved, one of the biggest problems in America could be exploded, thus having its practical values in the modern society.Beloved is a historical fiction as well as a ghost story in which Morrison tells a central story that Sethe kills her daughter Beloved. Sethe is a slave in the Sweet House-plantati

14、on in Kentucky, and unable to bear the inhuman treatment of slave owners. She escapesto her mother-in-law s house iCincinnati, where she and her children spend a happy life of 28 days, after which the slave catchers come and Sethe, in order to protect her children from slavery, chooses to kill them.

15、 However at last, only the elder daughter Beloved dies. Eighteen years later, Beloved comes back into the earth as a womanBeloveds return consumes Sethe to the point where she ignores her other daughter and even her own needs, while Beloved becomes more and more demanding. At last Paul D and Denver

16、expellee Beloved away. As Morrison says at the first page of this novel:Six MillionAnd more I will call them my people,The Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao UniversityWhich were not my people;and her beloved,which was not beloved.1ROMANS 9:251Background KnowledgeThe Setting

17、of the StoryThe setting of the novel Beloved is the reconstruction era in 1873, which is a period after civil war. The reconstruction period is ranked from 1865 to 1877, during which there are two extrusive problems which Americans face, namely the reconstruction of the status for the southern state

18、s and the reconstruction of the position for the black people. In the process of the reconstruction, the conflicts of classes, races, and religions are complicated. The black people are cruelly persecuted and the black slaves who have got freedom are also lynched by many terror organizations. The fr

19、eed slaves do n live much better than the slaves actually.This story frequently flashbacks to the early 1850s when slavery is rampant, as well as the time when the black people are in awake to have active attitude towards the fighting for freedom and equality. The white slave owners treat the slaves

20、 cruelly. 2.2 The Setting for the Creation of This StoryFor a very long time, Toni Morrison had a hope that she could rebuild the lost history for the whole black people, and she wanted to create a canon of the black work. In 1974, when Morrison was an editor for the Language Bookshop, she touched a

21、 true event that a black mother Margaret who was a slave in Kentucky escaping from the farm, and when the slave owners captured her, she killed her daughter with an ax in order to save the daughter from being a slave. Then after ten years of preparing and three years of writing, the striking composi

22、ng Beloved came into being in 1987. In the novel, Morrison borrows the true story of Margaret. The mother is the model of Sethe, and this incident is also the model of the central event iriBelovedThe Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao UniversityChapter One Beloved Is Not Belo

23、vedBeloved has an elusive, complex character. Her identity is the central character for the readers to understand the novel. As most readers consider, Beloved is the embodied spirit of Sethes dead daughter. Beloved never receives love truly, and through these facts some racial problems in America co

24、uld be reflected.The Facts that Beloved Is Not BelovedBeloved is a beautiful name, giving people the 川usion that she is a child who grows up in the atmosphere of being loved and cared. However, it is contrary to the fact, because she is the one who is never cared but only deserted and murdered. The

25、fact that Beloved is not loved could be displayed mainly in the following aspects.Beloved Is Murdered by Her Own MotherBeloved is killed by her own mother when she is only about one year old. Her mother, Sethe, cut her throat with a sharp handsaw. Sethe doe s want her children to experience what she

26、 has experienced in the Sweet House. Living there is a rather unpleasant experience for her. She is put to the animal side and works hard but being treated as a cow or goat. The two white slave owners hold her down and take her milk away. What more, her saint love as a mother is invaded cruelly. Fin

27、ally, Beloved becomes the only one who escapes from the earth because of her mother “ help but at the same time she becomes the only one who is deserted to the world full of darkness. At that time, she is still a small baby who could only crawl. She has to be used to facing the darkness by herself.B

28、eloved Is Hated by Paul DPaul D plays an important role to repress Beloved. From the beginning to the end, what he does is to exorcise Beloved out. When coming into the house of 124 for the first time, he uses his power to force the baby ghost go away. when Beloved comes back to the earth in the for

29、m of a woman, both Sethe and Denver treat her as a member of the house, but only Paul D could not accept a stranger again, even bases on the fact that he doesn know this woman is the ghost. So maybe his prejudice and unfriendliness is not pointed to Beloved but to all the persons who snatch SetK e l

30、ove.The Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao UniversityHowever, his hostile mood and his feeling or attitude to other intruders have made Beloved a person who could not get love from him nor from her mother at last. Paul D has played a role in repressing Beloved. He has no rela

31、tion with Beloved but adds more bitterness on her.Beloved Is Expelled to the Edge of Death by Her SisterAt the end of the story, as the sister of Beloved, Denver comes out of the house to seek help from the community, thus making Beloved disappear.To some extent, Denver is the murder of Beloved who

32、has come back to the earth. If it were not for Denver, no one in the community would pay attention to the house of 124, and without her, no one would come to the house to expel Beloved. Whether Beloved does right or wrong, it is a fact that her sister sends her to the death once again as her mother

33、did 18 years ago.Beloved Is Exorcised by the CommunityThe black community exorcises Beloved from 124: They treat her as just a haunted ghost, hates her and then forgets her.For a very long time, the community has ignored the family of 124 where Sethe and her children live. Because Sethe kills her ow

34、n daughter and all the people living in the community think that a mother who could murder her child would definitely not worthy of getting along with. Thecommunity makes the family of Sethe live 2 separately for nearly 19 years. But when Beloved comes back as a ghost, they show their empathy to Set

35、he for the first time and they try to drive the ghost away from their group. This behavior shows that comparing the criminals that the alive person has done, people who live in community could not endure the things the ghost does. Beloved sees that the black people become a hill before her. When the

36、 ghost without skin comes and takes her away to the darkness again, the community expellees Beloved out successfully. They give no living space for the pity girl at all.Beloved disappears,in other words, she is destroyed once more. People forget her. What Beloved left is just a dream that everyone i

37、s not sure whether it is true. This forgetfulness is the betrayal to Beloved, but also the necessity for the black people who are still alive. This forgetfulness is one thing that makes Beloved a floating deadThe Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao Universitysoul who is poor e

38、nough.Beloved Has No Identity of HerselfFrom cradle to grave, she even does not have a real name. When the minister makes his preach, Sethe hearshe word of“ Dearly Belovanld m istakes the wordsas the dead people. Then she offers her sex to make an exchange with the burier. Thus on the grave of the d

39、ead girl there comes her nameBeloved. No lucky children, orin other words, no child that gets enough love could get his name in this way. What s anywhere knowsher name.3 She is such a child that has no identity at all.more, in fact, it is not a name at all.Every!owdyvkiat she is called, but nobodyTh

40、e Racial Problems Reflecting from the above FactsIn Beloved, the author explores one of the most serious problems in Americathe racial problem through the fact that Beloved is not beloved.The Historical Origin of the Racial ProblemThe dark place that Beloved lives lonely is one that of the dark hot

41、quarters, a pile of dead bodies. The water may be the representative of the Middle Passage, to transport slaves. Slavery is the origin of the racial problem that makes their colored skin a brand for the inferior. Thus hundreds of years after the time when slavery ends, the black people still live at

42、 the bottom of the American society. In the slavery society, the black people are not humans who have the independent identities, they are treated as animals. And because of the slavery, the white people have the prejudice and discrimination towards the Black.The High Rate of Criminal for the BlackT

43、he dehumanizing slavery, as well as the racial discrimination has driven the black people to be brutal. The white people think that in every black person s heart, there is a wild wood, but they do not know it is their cruelty that makes this wood uncontrolled. The more the black want to estimate tha

44、t they are human, the more cruel would the white exploit them. When they are driven to some extent beyond their endurance, they would turn to the violent force, even to murder. The black people, a weak group, are more tended to use violence to solve problems. Sethe, a black woman,The Graduation Thes

45、is of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao Universityis the representative of the weaker. She could not use violence to hurt the white who has persecuted her but only could hurt her most imitate children. The mother who is helpless could only choose to kill her daughter to protect her and then go t

46、o the prison. America, a country which is considered as “the paradise of freedonmakessc, many people feel helpless as in prison. It is the result of the slavery and the racial problems.The Lack of Education for the BlackMost black people are 川iterate. Few of them have the chance to get education, be

47、causethe society show prejudice to them. Sethe even could not understand the simplest address of the preacher, thus giving her dead daughter a name like Beloved. The limit of the language is one signal of the poor education level.The Black Suffer the MostThe racial problem is the chronic 川ness of Am

48、erica. The black people could not face the past. Indeed it has the condonable and harmonious surface, but the racial problem exists in subtle everywhere.Enduring the discrimination, the black was lack of the courage to see theghost who had come back for debts. The ghost represented their brethrens w

49、ho were killed, if they accepted it, they would try to kill the white for revenge, but in one society that the white was in majority, if they revenged, they could 八口 not survive.So what they do could only be expelling the ghost away. The black would not only face the discrimination at present, but a

50、lso the history of dead souls. So they suffer the most that is all brought by the slavery and the racial discrimination in America.Chapter Two The Reasons that Make Beloved Not BelovedIn fact, Beloved is only a name, and the girl is never beloved. In other words, Beloved s parents want to love her b

51、ut the society could not allow. How could a child who seems to be very loved by parents become a ghost? There are many reasons that make Beloved not beloved, and they could be mainly categorized to the followingThe Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao Universitythree aspects: t

52、he social reasons, the family reasons and the personal reasons.The Social ReasonsThe social reasons are the root that makes Beloved not beloved, and these reasons mainly include the three aspects: the slavery system, the racial discrimination, and the whole black people s communityThe Slavery System

53、The cruelty of the slavery is well-known. From 1619, the first slaves were transferred to America, it had opened a stage of the bitterness for the Africans. Two and a half centuries later, it still tortured those who suffered a lot. Slavery was the origin of the racial discrimination, and also one r

54、oot for the disaster of the whole black people5There could be kinds of reasons for a mother to murder her own child, however it must be admit that this is the cruelest tragedy in the world. Even animals have the initial to protect their babies, how could human do this kind of dehumanizing actions? O

55、nly in this way could the author make the readers know that there are things crueler than this. That is the slavery.Then through it, there come to the fact that how cruel the slavery system is: slavery system gives the slave owners unlimited rights to control their slaves. The white treat the black

56、slaves as animals. In the Sweet House, the schoolteacher asks the two nephews to put the category of Sethe to the animal side.The biggest tragedy of slavery is the creak fothe slave s familyn institution, slavery necessarily shatters its victims traditional family structure.The slaves visimeasured b

57、y dollars, and the white owners could sell the black slaves at any time, even when they are still in their mothers bodies,thus creaking the family structures of the slaves, like Baby Suggs, she losses all her eight children and her husband because all of them are sold to the other slave owners6The o

58、ther tragedy of slavery is that the white people ruin the speech of the black slaves. Because the speech is the biggest difference between human and animal, theThe Graduation Thesis of Sifang College in Shijiazhuang Tiedao Universitywhite slave owners try their best to make the black people could no

59、t say what they want to say by making them illiterate or pressing them. Sethe could not remember the things related to her mother, and she forgets their tongue language of African. The loss of the language was a representative of the kind of cultural devastation suffered by the slaves. Only the illi

60、terate people would not rise up to resist, and only the uncivilized group would be controlled by them totally or easily7Where slavery exists, everyone suffers a loss from humanity and compassion; rather than surrendering to the slavery, Sethe would choose to kill Beloved. The slavery is the victim o