An Ecofeminist Interpretation On Morrison’s Beloved

Toni Morrison(1931-)，the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in1993, enjoys greatreputation for her various literary perspectives and abundance of works in literary world.Beloved, the fifth novel of Toni Morrison has been the focus of studies for many scholars.This novel is mainly based on a true story of a black slave woman named Margaret Garnerwho flees from a Kentucky plantation to Cincinnati in Ohio. Unfortunately, she is stalked byslave masters, which leads to her infanticide in order not to let her own child be slaved.Ecofeminists challenge all patriarchal worldview and point out that the cause whichleads to the wanton exploitation and oppression on colored people and nature is rooted in theideology of Anthropocentric Dualism in human’s minds, and aim at presenting a prospectwhere women, nature, men and all other existence forms coexist in harmony and equality.The thesis strives to interpret this novel in light of ecofeminism, dig out theecofeministic thoughts that are embodied in Beloved, and elaborate the trauma of debasedcolored people and the process of construction of their self-identity through a detailed textanalysis. At the end of the novel, they all find out themselves who have ever been lost andestablish a society within which all living things live together harmoniously and equally.This thesis is composed of four parts: the introduction, the theoretical foundation, themain chapters and the conclusion. Chapter One is the introduction which scans ToniMorrison’s life experience, her works and critical reviews on Beloved at home and abroad,which is the foundation of the main arguments of the thesis. Chapter Two is the theoreticalfoundation of the whole thesis. In this chapter, firstly, a brief introduction to ecofeminism ispresented. Then, ecofeminism against patriarchy is exhibited which provides the theoreticalguidance for the following analysis of the novel Beloved. Chapter Three mainly depicts thatblack women are tormented with the treatment of the loss of self-identity in White society andtry hard to explore how to assert their self-identity by means of close intimacy with nature soas to be liberated from an anthropocentric dualism ideology. Thus, they can establish aharmonious relationship between men and women as well as between human beings andnature. Chapter Four explores the physical and spiritual torture of black men and the recoveryof black men’s selfhood under the guidance of nature, embarking on the road full of freedomand harmony. Chapter Five, the conclusion part, summarizes the viewpoints of this thesis,puts forward that Beloved should be taken as a potential target of ecofeministic studies, andprompts people to find out an access to an equal and harmonious human society. This thesis,through the application of ecofeminism into the analysis of the classic text Beloved, expects torender great assistance to the following further study of Beloved. Besides, it also provides inspiration for other scholars to apply this approach into the study of other classic works aswell.