Black Women’s Self-redemption In Sula From The Perspective Of Black Feminism

Toni Morrison, a splendid pearl in American literature, exerts far-reaching influence on readers as well as literary critics for her high artistic accomplishments. As an Afro-American woman writer, she pays close attention to the destiny of black people in her novels, especially the humiliated and oppressed black women.In Morrison’s novels, she minutely depicts a series of female characters in their pursuit of self-consciousness and self-redemption, which thoroughly alters the traditional fixed images of black women. Sula, a classical work in black feminist literature, mainly elaborates the hardships of black women under the suppression of both racist and sexist oppression, and their struggles for self-consciousness and self-redemption. This thesis analyzes the self-redemption of three black women with vivid description and their potential leading effect on the Black Women’s Liberation Movement from the perspective of black feminism. Eva, Sula’s grandmother, shares the same name with the ancestress of human being in Bible, a classic which represents the male-dominated society. This is the very mechanism of Morrison who holds the opinion that Eva is the foremother to fight against the cruel society and passively seeks for self-redemption under the double oppression. Sula, the heroine of the novel, is treated as a representative fighting against the traditional rules and norms. Morrison names the novel after Sula also indicating a thought-provoking implication. Sula’s toughness, independence, rebellion and deviance contribute to her misunderstandings and isolations by the patriarchal society. However, it is these qualities that encourage her to search self-consciousness and achieve self-redemption. Nel, Sula’s best friend, is a rational rebel, whose friendship with Sula runs through the whole novel. Her searching for self-consciousness and self-redemption is so flexuous that it has already been awakened in her childhood and then has been erased gradually by the trivial things in her family. Nel regains self-consciousness after Sula’s death which lets Nel realize the importance of searching for self-redemption. Finally, Nel finds a rational road for her development.The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one briefly introduces the literature review of Sula and Toni Morrison and the related studies on Sula and Toni Morrison at home and abroad. Chapter two is mainly related to the introduction of the history of black feminism. Chapter three mainly talks about the hardships of black women from politics, economy, culture and mentality. Chapter four depicts the awakening of three black women’s self-consciousness in Sula. Chapter five analyzes the process of the three women’s self-redemption in detail. Meanwhile, through the analysis of the three black women’s search for self-redemption, we can also know about the maturing process of Toni Morrison’s feminism consciousness.