| Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, is a towering figure in the contemporary American and African-American letters and has drawn a lot of attention from the mainstream critics at home and abroad. Her fifth novel, Beloved, which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, is considered by many to be her best work. Ever since its publication in 1987, Beloved has aroused many critics'great interests and it has been regarded as"a milestone in American literary history."Due to Toni Morrison's black and woman identity, the novel Beloved is deeply rooted in Afro-American culture and black women's special experiences and feelings. Morrison engages herself in breaking the stereotypes of black female characters depicted in most of literary canon, moulds a range of vivid new images of black women, exhibits the conflict in their minds with the stress of racism and sexism, and actively establishes black women's subjectivity. Yet, black woman is not Morrison's only concern, she also gives admirable portrayals of black men and explores the relationship between black men and black women in her novels. Her fiction Beloved becomes the manifesto of black feminist criticism. Based on text analysis, this thesis aims at exploring and restoring Toni Morrison's real writing intention, leitmotiv and the value of her literary creation in the light of black feminist criticism.The thesis consists of four chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion.The Introduction is a brief assessment of Toni Morrison and her novel Beloved, a survey of various criticisms on Toni Morrison's Beloved, a general introduction to black feminist criticism and the aim of this thesis.Up to now, there are lots of articles and essays that explore Morrison's Beloved. The critics have made fruitful research on almost every facet of the novel, including the controversial theme, the poetic and characteristic language, the quite different and well depicted characters, the plentiful and significant symbols and the unique narrative devices. Some literary criticisms also find their materials in this novel, such as Modernism, feminist criticism, structuralism, postcolonial criticism, Marxist criticism and psychoanalytic criticism. Among these different literary criticisms on Beloved at home, black feminist literary criticism has attracted few critics'attention. Barbara Smith in his essay"Toward a Black Feminist Criticism"said,"…without a Black feminist critical perspective not only are books by Black women misunderstood, they are destroyed in the process."Therefore, it is rather convincing to study Beloved by the employment of Black feminist literary criticism.The aim of this thesis is to explore Toni Morrison's real writing purpose and reappraise the value of her literary creation in the light of black feminist criticism.Chapter One discusses Toni Morrison's black feminist stance. Toni Morrison's family background, education experience, working and writing experiences help her form and strengthen her black feminist stance. As a contemporary black American writer, Toni Morrison uses her unique way to think the history and reality of American Blacks. To her, the past and the present are closely connected with each other. As a writer, she focuses on the black's past experience in order to enlighten the black people. Beloved is such kind of novel whose main plot is based on a true historical occurrence. In Beloved, Toni Morrison fully embodies Barbara Smith's two basic principles that black feminist criticism should follow. First, she insists that the politics of sex as well as the politics of race and class are crucially interlocking factors, and analyzes the complexities of class, race, and sex and how they affect black women and the whole Afro-American ethnic group still captive in this present-day life. Second, Morrison also lays special emphasis on the black's, especially Black women's past experience and its educational significance for the contemporary blacks.Chapter Two discloses the traumas caused by slavery, racism and sexism. Slavery is the most vicious institutions human beings have ever devised. The history of American Blacks is the history of deprivation. Under slavery, the Blacks are deprived of everything human beings should have, more importantly, identity. Morrison depicts multiple examples of the loss of self of some characters such as Baby Suggs, Paul D, Sethe and Denver, etc. Through their experiences, Morrison wants to disclose that the most dangerous effects of slavery is its negative impact on the former slaves'senses of self.Under slavery, speech of the blacks is totally controlled by the slave owners. The blacks are deprived of the right to speak and the right to receive education. Even the use of their own language is forbidden. This is a kind of culture deprivation. For example, Sethe forgets the language Nan taught her, which her mother used too. Paul D is an illiterate. He can not read but only memorizes the letters of his name. Sixo is very smart and eloquent. But when he attempts to assert his rationality to reject his action of stealing, he is severely beaten by schoolteacher because"definitions belonged to the definers---not the defined."Furthermore, under slavery, racism and sexism, the normal black maternal images and status are also severely distorted. They are abused by the white as a tool to satisfy their sexual desire and a machine for reproduction. The crime of slavery is so cruel and inhuman that it even leads to the incident of infanticide. Ella is locked in a house and shared by a pair of white father and son when she is young. As for Baby Suggs, she has eight children with six different men. Sethe's nameless mother is raped by the crew for many times during the transportation from Africa to America. Thus, women slaves are more fragile than males under slavery system. For every female slave, there exists the tendency to be raped and deprived of the rights to be mothers. They have no control of their own fates, no more to say their own children. Slavery shatters their dream to be good mothers. Sethe is such a good example. Her act of infanticide illuminates the perverse forces of the institution of slavery. Under it, a mother's best way to expresses her love for her children is to murder them and thus protect them from the more gradual destruction wrought by slavery. Therefore, the institution of slavery is the cause for all the distorted black maternal love.All these cause the physical, emotional and spiritual devastation and make the blacks suffer a lot. Even after the abolition of slavery, the devastation continues to haunt those characters that are former slaves even in freedom. The blacks still live under the racial discrimination and oppression and cannot easily and completely walk out of the shadow of history.Chapter Three explores the awakening of black women's self-consciousness and black people's ethnic consciousness in the light of black feminist criticism.In Beloved, Morrison probes into the connection between the past and the present and attempts to enlighten the Blacks to combine the present with the history to rethink about the miserable reality and find a way out. Through the depiction of three generations of black women's struggles for freedom and self-identity, Morrison illustrates that for black women, the quest for self begins with the point of self-consciousness, the recognition of self as a black woman.Baby Suggs is the representative of the first generation and considered as a failed fighter. After gaining her freedom from slavery, Baby Suggs urges the black community to love their black body and self; yet after the community fails to inform her of the coming of the white men who are in pursuit of her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren and the subsequent misery of infanticide, Baby Suggs, once a benevolent fighter, loses her confidence in the black community and gives up her struggle for a whole self. She spends her time contemplating color in bed and her newly gained self-consciousness of freedom is gradually lost.Sethe is the representative of the second generation. She is an indomitable struggler for the achievement of her whole self. Unwilling to bear the dehumanizing treatment at Sweet Home, Sethe escapes from the slave plantation and successfully joins Baby Suggs at 124. There her sense of subjectivity is further developed. But infanticide ends Sethe's twenty-eight-day free life and drives her to the extreme. From then on, she is tortured by her past and ghost baby Beloved. Her self-consciousness is weakened again. It is Paul D's return that brings Sethe the courage to go on living and come to realize she is her best thing. Sethe's self-consciousness is awakened and there are possibilities of a future for her. Denver, the representative of the third generation, is the hope and future. Because of her mother's infanticide, Denver is isolated from her family and the community. After the appearance of Beloved, Denver completely forgets her self and devotes herself to taking care of her. But she is gradually shut out of the relationship bond between Sethe and Beloved. Denver watches Sethe waste away and feels her responsibility for her mother and her family. Finally, she successfully seeks for help from the community. After this experience, Denver transforms from a girl into a mature woman and begins, for the first time, to develop an independent sense of self.However, black woman's experience is not Morrison's sole concern. In Beloved, Morrison also points out that black women's struggle for the awakening of their self-consciousness cannot be separated from black men and the black community's efforts. Only with both sexes'efforts, the survival and development of the blacks as a whole can be achieved. Through the experience of black men such as Paul D, Halle, Stamp Paid and Sixo, Morrison assures the readers that black men's efforts and contribution cannot be ignored. The Blacks are a people full of hope. With the affirmation about subjectivity, Black people's ethnic consciousness is awakened.Chapter Four researches into the solution for the Blacks to achieve their true liberty and future development. That is solidarity. In Beloved, Morrison demonstrates the extent to which individuals need the support of their black community, the minorities and the enlightened Whites in order to survive. Since individual protest is too weak to protest themselves, they should unite all the people even including the whites as many as possible. Therefore, unity is the only way with which African American people can survive.The conclusion concludes that to interpret Beloved in the light of black feminist criticism is advantageous to explore and restore Toni Morrison's real writing purpose, leitmotive and value of her creation.By selecting the true material of bloody slave story, the real intention of Morrison's writing is not to frighten the readers, but to confront, reconstruct, and recover the past traumatic events and find a way out. Morrison has the strong ethnic consciousness. She strives for the improvement of African-American material life and social status. Meanwhile she has her eyes on her people's future. In doing so, Morrison wants to prove that the Blacks are a people full of hopes. Since the future is inextricably tied to the past, she hopes that black people could combine the present with the past to rethink about the origin of today's misery and find out something that enlightens their present and future.The way out suggested by Morrison is not only instrumental to the survival of African-Americans in a white-dominated culture, but may provide some hints to the survival of other marginalized. Morrison's focus is not only her black people and she has a huge horizon for the whole human beings. The novel Beloved is not only serving for her black people, but also belongs to all the races. Therefore, the effect and value of the novel is far-reaching.
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