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1、Black Women under Double Oppressions：An Analysis of Toni Morrisons BelovedAbstractBeloved is the masterpiece of the renowned African American woman writer Toni Morrison. Black women and their maternal love are the major concerns and the most important themes in Morrisons fictions. The themes of loss
2、 and distortion of maternal across time run through almost all her novels. In Beloved, Morrison tries to cure African American peoples inner trauma with the black maternal love. Through the analysis of the painful experience of black women before and after the abolition of slavery, this paper attemp
3、ts to expose the tragic experience of black women under double oppressions. Beloved highlights the effect of slavery on the ex-slaves, especially the black free of serious mental disturbance. Morrison selected the woman who had suffered form racial and gender oppression as their national hero of the
4、 epic, committ the task of shaping the image, which is not against national history and the situated authenticity, but also reflects her consistent feminist ideology. Key words: Beloved ; maternal love ;oppressions摘要宠儿是美国黑人女作家托尼莫里森的代表作。在莫里森小说中，黑人妇女问题和母爱一直是她关注的中心。母爱的缺失与追寻是贯穿莫里森小说的一条内在线索。在宠儿中，莫里森力图用母爱
5、治愈黑人民族的心灵创伤。本文通过对宠儿中黑人女性在奴隶制废除前后悲惨遭遇的分析，试图揭露身处双重压迫下的黑人女性的痛苦经历。宠儿着重表现了奴隶制度对已获自由之身的黑人心理的严重干扰。莫里森选择种族和性别双重压迫下的女性做自己的民族英雄史诗的主角，承担为民族寻找自我、塑造形象的重任，既不违背民族历史和现状的真实性，也体现了她一贯的女权主义思想。关键词：宠儿；母爱；压迫ContentsChapter 1 Introduction11.1 Introduction to Toni Morrison11.2 Introduction to Beloved2Chapter 2 Heroines unde
6、r Double Oppressions52.1 Racial Oppressions52.1.1 The tragic experience of Sethe as a slave52.1.2 The tragic experience of Baby Suggs as a slave62.2 Sexual Discrimination7Chapter 3 Causes of the Oppressions93.1 Social Reason93.1.1 American slavery93.1.2 American Civil War93.2 Personal Reason10Chapte
7、r 4 Conclusion11Notes12Bibliography13Acknowledgements14Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 Introduction to Toni Morrison Toni Morrison received her highest compliment when she was awarded winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. This makes her the first African American woman to be cited for the prestig
8、ious award. The Swedish Academy of Letter deemed her as “a literary artist for the first rank” who “gives life to an essential aspect of American reality” in the novel 1As a female African American writer, Toni Morrison concerns seriously about the life and spiritual world of American blacks, especi
9、ally the black women. In her fictional world, Toni Morrison reflects miseries, abnormalities and distortions of the black womens feeling and mind under the oppressions of racism and sexism. Her remarkable achievements represent the recognition of a new kind of literaturethe black women literature th
10、roughout the world.Undoubtedly, it is Tonis family background and education experiences that enable her to claim the previous statement. Born inLorain,Ohio, Morrison grew up in a family that possessed an intense love and appreciation for black culture. Her parents encouraged her to believe in hersel
11、f and to be proud of her origin. She attended Howard University in Washington D.C, where she majored in English with a minor in classics. Toni got her B.A in English and then attended CornellUniversity and received a masters degree in 1955.Tonis early years experience made her feel more of the painf
12、ul effects of racial discrimination. She was exposed to a lot of materials about anti-slavery movements during her twenty years as an editor at Random House, which helped her produced a motive to figure out a terrible picture of slavery. Thus “Beloved” was created. It was published in 1987 and made
13、a literary sensation. It was considered as a milestone in the history of American literature. It received Pulitzer Prize in 1988. In 1993, the novel was awarded the Nobel Prize forLiterature. As Alice Walker praised: “No one can even write more beautifully than Toni Morrison, who constantly explores
14、 the complexity, fear and love in life of Afro-Americans. She deserves this honor. ” Morrisons other works such as The Bluest Eye(1967) Sula(1973), Song of Solomon(1977),Tar Baby(1981) Jazz(1992), Paradise(1998), Love(2003), also received high praise in the American Literary World.1.2 Introduction t
15、o Beloved Beloved is conceived on a true story which happened in the year 1873 when slavery had been abolished for ten years and after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War. Morrison adopted the materials from a newspaper clipping which told that a slave woman named Margaret Garner escaped
16、 from Kentucky to Cincinnati. When she was being chased by her old master, she attempted to kill all of her children, rather than allow them to be back into slavery. But she could only succeed in sawing one baby girl in throat. Based on the story, through Morrisons bold imagination and much research
17、, the historical Margaret changed to be Sethe, and the dead baby became Beloved. The story began in 1873, in a house named 124,the house they inhabit, is apparently haunted; poltergeist events occur there with an alarming regularity. Because of this, Sethes youngest daughter, Denver, has no friends
18、and is extremely shy. Howard and Buglar, Sethes sons, run away from home by the time they are thirteen. Their primary reason is the fear of being killed by their own mother. They do not understand why Sethe murdered Beloved and believe that whatever triggered the infanticide may happen again. Shortl
19、y after, Baby Suggs, the mother of Sethes husband Halle, dies in her bed.Paul D, one of the slaves from the Sweet Home, the plantation where Baby Suggs, Sethe, Halle, he, and many other slaves had worked in and either been freed or run away from, arrives at 124. He tries to bring a sense of reality
20、into the house. He also tries to make the family move forward in time and leave the past behind. In doing so, he forces the ghost of Beloved out. At first, he seems to be successful, because he leads the family to a carnival, out of the house in years. However, on their way back, they encounter a yo
21、ung woman sitting in front of the house. She has distinct features of a baby and calls herself Beloved. Denver recognizes that she must be a reincarnation of her sister Beloved right away. Paul D, suspicious of her, warns Sethe, but charmed by the young woman, Sethe ignores him. Paul D finds himself
22、 being gradually forced out out of Sethes home by a supernatural presence. When he is finally made to sleep in a shed outside, he is cornered by Beloved, who has put a spell on him for this purpose. She burrows into his mind and his heart, forcing him to have sex with her, while flooding his conscio
23、usness with horrific memories from his past. Paul, overwhelmed with guilt after the incident, attempts to tell Sethe, but cannot and instead tells her he wants her pregnant. Sethe is humored and elated by his wishes, and Paul D. finds the power to resist Beloved and her influence over him. However,
24、when he tells his friends at work about his plans to start a new family, they react negatively and fearfully. Stamp Paid then reveals to Paul D. the reason for the communitys rejection of Sethe. When Paul D asks Sethe about it, she tells him what happened all those years ago. After escaping from Swe
25、et Home and making it to her mother-in-laws home where her children are waiting, Sethe is found by her master, Schoolteacher, who attempts to reclaim Sethe and her children. In a heightened panic, Sethes grabs her children, runs into the tool shed and tries to kill them all, only succeeding with her
26、 oldest daughter. Sethe explains to Paul D her reasoning for doing it, stating she was “trying to put my babies where they would be safe.”However, the revelation is too much for Paul D, who later leaves the house for good. Without Paul D, the sense of reality and moving time disappears.Sethe comes t
27、o believe that the girl is the daughter whom Sethe murdered by slitting her throat with a handsaw when the child was only two years old, and whose tombstone reads only “Beloved” Upon this realization, Sethes begins to spend carelessly and spoil Beloved out of guilt. Beloved recognizes her mothers gu
28、ilt and becomes angry and more demanding, throwing hellish tantrums when she doesnt get her way. Beloveds presence consumes Sethes life to the point where she becomes depleted and even sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved grows bigger and bigger. In the climax of the novel Denver, the y
29、oungest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the black community. People arrive at 124 to exorcize Beloved. However, while Sethe is confused and has a rememory of the schoolteacher coming again, Beloved disappears.Although it has become a controversial source since its publication, Belov
30、ed proved to be an extraordinary success and gained Morrison great reputation. Besides being awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize, Beloved also won her the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Melcher book Award and the Before Columbus American Book Award. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Award from the
31、 National Organization for women also recognized the contribution the novel makes to the history of black women. As Dodson said: “With remarkable speed, Beloved has, less than twenty years after its publication, become a staple of the college literary curriculum, which is to say a classic”2. The Ame
32、rican literary world has a high praise for this novel. Nation magazine valued it as Toni Morrisons finest work and stated it belonged to the highest shelf of our literature.Chicago Sun-Time once valued Beloved as Morrisons finest work and stated that nothing she had written so sets her apart, so dis
33、plays her prodigious, almost shocking talents. Many critics are attracted to its controversial theme study. Elizabeth B. House says that, “Throughout Beloved, Morrisons theme is that remembering yesterdays, while not being consumed by them, gives people the tomorrows with which to make real lives.”.
34、 Kimberly Chabot Davis states that, “Thematically, the emphasis of Beloved shifts from external factors that create fragmentation toward internal healing process that allows for psychic integration and the novel chronicles this healing process, which, the character learned, must be based on love. ”
35、3. Tony Hilfer says that, “Recovering community and surmounting the repression of the past so as ultimately to exercise it are the heroic tasks of Beloved.” 4. Trudier Harris says that, “In Beloved, Toni Morrison makes clear where ownership leaves off and possession begins in the psychologically war
36、ping system called slavery.” 5 Deborah Horvits also provides a thematic analysis of Beloved, focusing on Morrisons “bonding, bondage, alienation, loss, memory, and mother-daughter relationships” Chapter 2 Heroines under Double Oppressions2.1 Racial Oppressions2.1.1 The tragic experience of Sethe as
37、a slaveSlavery and racial oppression have been the common themes in black literature. Almost every black in Beloved is veiled by the shadow of slavery. Their memory is full of bloody wounds. They want to forget the past, dare not to touch the terrible past memory. But they have to live in the circle
38、 of sorrow because it is too hard to avoid the representation that always flows out in their minds. However, Sethe has to rememory the past. According to Freud, the best way to cure a psychological harm is to make the past reappear as the immediate scene, that is, to reexperience what has happened a
39、nd how it happens. In 1873, two visitors come to the house of 124. This arrangement in the novel is to provide the possibility to trace back the past. The first visitor is Paul D, who has been a slave with Sethe on the plantation named Sweet Home and also suffered terribly before coming to the house
40、. Pauls arrival evoke Sethes painful memory.In a family, the relationship between the mother and the child is most significant because the relationship between the two plays a crucial role in the whole life of the child. 7 Sethes mother abandoned Sethe when she was a baby mainly because the mother w
41、as a slave. So the bond between mother and child had been cut from then on. In recalling the fate of her mother, Sethe brought to the surface her feeling of anger, bitterness and sorrow. When Denver asked Sethe what happened to her mother, Sethe suddenly remembered of “something she had forgetten sh
42、e knew.” What she remember was that, while trying to escape slavery, her mother had been captured and hanged before the rest of the slaves. Sethes childhood experience was very sad. Then she was brought by Mr. Garner. The owner of Sweet Home, Mr. Garner, knew how to treat well with his “slave proper
43、ty”. But after Mr. Garner death, Mrs. Garner brought the schoolteacher to the Sweet Home who changed everything. Like Chen guifeng said, “The schoolteacher, who is cruel and brutal, allows his nephews to conduct a pseudo-scientific study on the slaves, treat them like lab animals.” 8 One day, the tw
44、o boys came in there and took Sethes milk. Thats what they came in there for. They held Sethe down and took her milk. The slave mother has no choice. As an expression of love, milk is symbolized as mothers love. Thus, the rob of mothers milk can be viewed as symbolic of the predation of maternal lov
45、e. Sethe felt extremely painful after they robbed her milk which was for her babies. Milk creates a bond between the mother and the daughter through nursing. Sethe believed that she had “milk enough for all”. The milk symbolizes how strong her maternal love is. So Sethe would rather kill her own chi
46、ldren than let them back to the Sweet Home.The central plot of the novel revolves around the mothers killing of her baby. Sethe escaped from Sweet Home, but the schoolteacher did not let her off. He took the sudden appearance in 124. Sethe had no choice but killed her baby. In eighteen years, Sethe
47、lived in the shadow of the past. Further more, Sethe was under heavy burden of the dead girl. The guilty kept torturing her greatly. And her two sons, whom Sethe failed to kill flee away from the house because of the terror of the ghost. When “Beloved”, the second visitor comes, Sethe believes that
48、she is her baby girl and gives all the love to her.2.1.2 The tragic experience of Baby Suggs as a slaveMaternal love for African Americans should be based on self-identity in black culture. 9.For African-Americans, the most painful and humiliating experience in their history is the slavery system. I
49、t brings them not only inhuman physical sufferings but also unforgettable spiritual hurts that last long after slavery. After the abolishment of slavery, the slaves seem to be free. However, the nightmare they experienced in the past still goes on. These ex-slaves are still struggling hard for affirmation of self-identity. Further more, maternal love should be
