Neurotic Need For Affection

Toni Morrison, the Nobel Laureate, is considered as one of the greatest American writers. She is famous for her brilliant narrative genius and her deep exposure of the sin of slavery system, which are naturally reflected in her masterpiece—Beloved. This novel perfectly displays her excellent writing techniques of plot arrangement, character analysis and language expression which are harmoniously combined with her writing purpose—revealing the characters' tragic life experience, their psychological trauma and the distorted mental state in the shadow of slavery. The most impressive feature of novel is that it vividly exhibits the neurotic personality of Beloved, the mysterious protagonist with ambiguous multiple identities.This thesis attempts to undertake a psychoanalytic study of Beloved in the light of Karen Horney's theory of Neurotic Personality and it focuses on the neurotic need for affection which is one of ten needs contained in her theory. Horney proposes that people's basic anxiety would cause their neurotic needs and neurotic need for affection is the most important characteristic of neurotic trends. The traits of this need include compulsiveness, insatiability (jealousy and demands for unconditional love). With the application of the theory of neurotic need for affection, the thesis probes the reasons for the central figure—Beloved's neurotic need for maternal love and her strong desire for the selfish possession of Sethe (another mam character in the novel); and then it furthers the discussion to analyze the traits of her neurotic thoughts and actions for affection as well as the destructive consequences.The thesis falls into four chapters. The first chapter is a general introduction including information of the author Toni Morrison, her novel Beloved, the definition of some terms of Karen Horney's neurotic theory and the research items (scope, focus, significance and limitations). Chapter two mainly focuses on the literature review. It contains the general review of the criticism on Toni Morrison's Beloved, and the literature review on the character analysis and on the theory. Chapter three is the part that reveals the important reasons for Beloved's neurotic need for affection. It would firstly analyze the ambiguous identity of Beloved. The revelation of her identity also tells her miserable experiences. No matter who Beloved is, she suffers a lot from losing her mother. Her greedy desire for affection almost kills Sethe. This chapter also discusses the obvious traits of neurotic need for affection by analyzing what Beloved has done with Sethe in the novel. The final part of this chapter would analyze the destructive consequences of Beloved's Neurotic Need for Affection. In doing so, the author of the thesis concludes that under the evil slavery system, the oppressed slaves or ex-slaves suffer much pain that cannot be expressed by words and Beloved's neurotic need for affection is one of the examples that can be passed on to accuse of its sin.