The Halo And The Hardships Mother-Daughter Relationships In Toni Morrison's Fiction

As the first female African American Nobel Prize laureate in literature, Toni Morrison has published eight novels from The Bluest Eye in 1970 to Love in 2003. The majority of the characters in her novels are female, and half of them are mothers or both mothers and daughters. Among many topics that have been touched upon by Morrison, mother-daughter relationship is always a recurring concern. Based on close textual analyses, this thesis intends to, by incorporating a womanist approach, examine how the mother-daughter relationships have been affected and distorted by a great many factors in three of Morrison's novels, namely, Sula in 1973, Song of Solomon in 1977, and Beloved in 1987. Through a meticulous depiction of a seemingly simple world of black women, Morrison reveals struggle of mothers and daughters in a society where race, gender, class are intricately woven together.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to Morrison's literary career, black women in history, womanism, and Morrison's womanist ideas. Chapter two focuses on the alienated mother-daughter relationships under economic oppression in Sula. Chapter three reveals how European-American ideology and patriarchy have perverted mother-daughter relationships in Song of Solomon. Chapter four exposes the traumatic experiences that have been inflicted on black mothers by slavery and how slavery has jeopardized mother-daughter relationships. Chapter five serves as a conclusion with the proposal that the loss or distortion of mother-daughter relationships signifies the rupture of black culture. Only with the help of sisterhood, brotherhood and community advocated by womanism can black mothers and daughters heal their trauma, establish their identities, and carry on the African American cultural heritage. The information conveyed by the above three novels expresses Morrison's hope and expectation on black mothers and daughters.