A Study Of The Black Maternal Love In Toni Morrison's Novels

The black maternal love is a worthy topic deserving consideration in Toni Morrison's fiction. There have been lots of studies on Morrison's novels from different angles, such as feminism, post-colonialism mother-daughter relationship, bildungsroman and also maternal love. But the studies of the black maternal love are limited to her Beloved. This thesis bases Morrison's four novels—The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon and Beloved to analyze the black maternal love of African American closely and deeply. It points out that the reasons causing the African American mother in trouble are that the oppressions of the dominant society and the loss of their cultural carrier—the black community. Historically slavery, immigration and assimilation have huge impact on black traditional culture and render it a lack in black American populous in the white dominant society. As a result, African Americans stay away from their familiar community where they learn their own traditional culture and help each other. The maternal love of African American mothers as an important culture bearer and carrier is distorted completely. The thesis advances in the sequence of the writing background, the loss of the maternal love, mother's influence on the younger generation due to the failure of the community. From the detailed textual analysis of the above points in Morrison's fiction, a resolution to restoration and redemption of the African Americans is reached:the restoration of black maternal love and black community is the key to restoration of the black traditional culture. More importantly, with black maternal love and healthy black community the black younger American generation will grow in a friendly environment. They will depart from black self-hatred to self-affirmation, leading a positive and optimistic life of self-respect and self-importance.