The Comparison Of The Great Mother Archetype In Sula And The Lost Daughter Of Happiness

Toni Morrison is a celebrated contemporary writer in the United States, even in the world, who is a shining star in the contemporary African-American literature. Morrison won the Nobel Prize for literature by her outstanding achievement, who is the first black woman writer to receive the honor. As a black female writer, Morrison was influenced by African mythology from her childhood; otherwise, she masters western literary classics. The mythical elements in Sula should not be ignored; and the character of Eva which is the vivid image is deeply rooted in people’s hearts. The lifelike archetypal characters have caught the attention of the critics. And the other author, Yan Geling has become a representative female writer in the new immigrant literature. Her works cause wide attention in the literature research field both at home and abroad. The writing experiences across the twofold culture make her work contained great richness and possibilities. In The Lost Daughter of Happiness, the author describes Fu Sang, the Great Mother like Nv Wa in China, so as to reveal the modern enlightenment of the myth prototype.This thesis adopts the view of Archetypal criticism, which is an important criticism school. The main founder about archetypal criticism is Northrop Frye, who is the world’s famous Canadian humanistic scholars, and The Anatomy of Criticism is his masterpiece. His theoretical basis is mainly based on a Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of psychoanalysis and British anthropologist James Frazer’s anthropology theory. According to the theory of archetypal criticism, there is a so-called the Great Mother archetype of the female image in the numerous archetypes, which points out the female characters that have both creative and destructive double characteristics. On the basis of archetypal criticism, based on the image of the Great Mother archetype, this thesis analyzes the characteristics of Eva, the heroine in Sula who has the features of the Great Mother archetype so as to dig up her creative and destructive features of the Great Mother archetype. In The Lost Daughter of Happiness, the heroine is Fu Sang with features of the Great Mother archetype like Nv Wa. From the perspective of archetypal criticism, the readers analyze Fu Sang’s touching beauty, which symbolizes deep cultural connotation.This thesis is divided into three parts, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion.The first part is the introduction. It introduces the two authors, Yan Geling and Toni Morrison. The innovative points in the thesis are involved in the part.The second part is the main body, which contains four chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces the theory of archetypal criticism, and the definition and image of the Great Mother archetype among the archetypal criticism.The second chapter emphasizes the characteristics of Eva in Toni Morrison’s work Sula, who is the image of black female contained traditional African culture. From the perspective of positive and negative characteristics in the Great Mother, the readers could seek for the creative and destructive characteristics in Eva. Eva is the unity of contradiction. This black woman obeys the black tradition. At the same time, she also breaks the routine to seek the freedom. In order to raise her three children, Eva who is the black women in the United States is at the expense of her one leg; Eva builds the NO.7 carpenters; and adopts many orphans and homeless, and so on. These mentioned above are the embodiment of the Good Mother. But Eva burns her beloved son Plum to death; she gives the names of Brother Dewey and Tar Baby which totally depend on her personal choice. All of those are the embodiment of the Terrible Mother.In the third chapter, the thesis analyzes the characteristics of the Great Mother in heroine Fu Sang in The Lost Daughter of Happiness, whose author is the Chinese-American immigrant writer, Yan Geling. The Chinese prostitute Fu Sang in San Francisco had the characteristics of the Great Mother like Nv Wa in Chinese culture. The readers seek for the beauty human nature in Fu Sang’s body. When she faced with the miserable plight, she has patience and tenacious vitality; she forgives those Chinese people and white people who trample her eventually with the gesture of kneeling down; Fu Sang takes care of Da Yong meticulously, who is the leader of bandits. She makes the spiritual redemption for white people, Chris and so on, all of which reflects the beauty of maternal nature in Fu Sang. Fu Sang is the embodiment of the Good Mother.The fourth chapter, through the comparison of the Great Mother archetype in Sula and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, the readers could compare Chinese-immigrant culture with African-immigrant culture in the foreign culture, which has the realistic significance. By Toni Morrison’s Sula, the readers have the analysis of the Great Mother archetype in Eva, from which the readers could know African-American black culture. The author identifies with traditional African culture; she emphasizes the differences of black culture. Black culture becomes Morrison regarded the traditional African culture as the basis and support of black writer’s dialogue with the outside world. She digs up the modern significance to build traditional African culture and seeks for self-identity. As the Chinese-American immigrant writer, Yan Geling has sympathy for the fifth generation of Chinese immigrants like Fu Sang. She has deep sympathy for the humble life, and difficulty of surviving. The author gives full of understanding and tolerance to different kinds of human nature in extreme dilemma. When Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States, there is the conflicting between Chinese culture and the local culture in the United States. They will be confused, disappointed and wandering in the process. In this dilemma, more Chinese immigrants should seek for self-identity and keep the national culture in the alien culture.In addition, the two authors put forward their own views about the revival of traditional culture. Toni Morrison points out the African black females carry the task of passing down traditional African culture from generations to generations. They are regarded as cultural metaphor and inheritance. So, African people should start with reviving the traditional African culture from the black women. Yan Geling makes use of her “particular” sensibility which is brought by the immigration status. She looks back the motherland and reflects on her home country through cross-cultural horizon. She affirms the essence of Chinese culture. Yan Geling experienced the whole new culture and the personal journey in exotic country, which makes the different changes constantly to surveying herself and the world. On this basis, Yan Geling has the foundation of maternal culture, as well as the exotic cultural elements, which could help the fusion of Chinese literature and world literature and change the western prejudice against Oriental culture.The part of Conclusion: By the comparison of the Great Mother archetype in the two works, the thesis mainly discusses the exploration and achievement of Toni Morrison and Yan Geling, which have enlightenment implications to the lost writers in the process of globalization. Under the historical background of the cultural globalization and multicultural integration, through this two authors’ works, the immigrants who come from different countries in the United States also obtain new spiritual home. These two authors try their efforts for making communication between different cultures and their cultural concept becoming more mature. Eventually each nation could achieve the real integration of world culture.