Subversion Of Patriarchal Authority In Beloved

Beloved, a masterpiece of the Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, describes Afro-American women's conquering of mental trauma inflicted by slavery through"re-memory". Morrison establishes female identity by means of feminine discourse under a phallus-centric language structure, which enables the subversion of patriarchy from the psychoanalytical feminist perspective. It comprises of five major chapters. The first chapter offers a brief account of the author,the novel and earlier critical comments. The second chapter presents French psychoanalytic feminist literary theories advocated by Helene Cixous and Julia Kristeva. The third chapter analyzes the heroines'development of feminine discourse and female identity under Real, Imaginary,and Symbolic Order in terms of theories discussed in chapter two. The fourth chapter probes into the subversion of patriarchy. The fifth summarizes the significance and influence of the subversion in the women's pursuit of identity.