Study On Love From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Toni Morrison, the first black American woman writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, is now one of the most outstanding novelists on the contemporary American as well as the world literary stage. Being both black and a woman, Morrison writes the black text with privileged insights and emotions. Massive study has been done to her former seven novels (The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise) from various perspectives both at home and abroad. Love, published in 2003, is her latest novel. However, in spite of a warm reception in the United States, it has rarely been discussed academically in China.As Morrison has always been an author caring about both material and spiritual life of black people, her works involve abundant moral factors such as parenthood education, loss of self-identity, cultural dislocation, sisterhood, as well as marital relationship etc. In this paper we intend to analyze Love from the perspective of ethical literary theory, which is an approach to literary criticism developing on the basis of introduction of ethical methods as well as the assimilation of them into the texture of literary critical methods. One expert on ethical literary criticism Li Dingqing inspires us that we can apply ethical literary criticism to criticism practices through four layers of relationship, namely human-nature relationship, human-society relationship, human-other relationship, and human-self relationship. By exploring the ethical factors in Love from the last three layers of relationship in this paper, we find that Morrison sets up good examples and moral norms in her works for people both of her own race and of the whole world, thus contributing a lot by her pen to the significant project of constructing humanistic spirit in the whole society even the whole world in a new era. This paper is divided into five chapters:Chapter one introduces Toni Morrison and the ethical literary theory. Firstly, itgives a brief account on Toni Morrison's life story, her writing experiences, her major concerns, her literary achievements, and critical reviews on her works. Then the background, development and major principles and significance of ethical literary theory are represented. In addition, representative theorists and writers as well as their contributions to the development of ethical literary theory are also referred. The last part of this chapter detects the connection between ethical literary theory and Love by analyzing the ethical or moral factors in Love respectively from three layers of relationship-the human-society relationship, the human-other relationship, and the human-self relationship.Chapter two makes analysis on the human-society relationship by narrowing down its connotation to the relationship between black individuals and black community, with two cases in Love as the sample. Firstly, Bill Cosey's final business failure is doomed by his self-isolation from the black community. Secondly, Civil Rights Movement is destined to fail by ignoring black women's role and rights, at the same time encountering doubt and misunderstandings from the black masses. We draw a conclusion that Morrison brings forth a universal truth that the relationship between black people and black community (society in a small scope) should be harmonious for each party's sake; thus her unwearied pursuit of truth in terms of human-society relationship is accomplished in this novel.Chapter three explores in detail Morrison's pursuit of good in terms of human-other relationship in Love. At first, sisterhood is one shape of good pursued by Morrison. Then, independence, equality and love take the other shapes of good. The three heroines'marriage experiences remind people, especially black women of the importance of independence, self-esteem, equality and love. Through Love, Toni Morrison tells us that the reasonable human-other relationship among black people lies in equality, independence, respect and mutual love like sisterhood.Chapter four makes study on the most intrinsic and hard-to-probe relationship-human-self relationship (the relationship between a human being and his inner self). We probe into the life stories of Bill Cosey and Romen to dig out Morrison's moral pursuit in terms of human-self relationship. Self-reflection, repentance, self-control and the desire of being a better and nobler person are the concrete forms of her pursuit of sublimation.Chapter five is the conclusion of this paper. In Love, Morrison goes on dealing with the problems of black community and relationships between human beings but in a different background and brand-new era. Such moral notions as truth, harmony, independence, equality, self-control, self-reflection, repentance, and mutual love are key elements of Morrison's belief. Her intense confidence and faith in love of all kinds reveal to us that love is Morrison's cure and the only cure for all problems.