Sula's Three Orders In Sula

Toni Morrison is an outstanding African American woman writer awarded the Nobel Prize as the first black woman writer. Her works display the true life of blacks from different angles, how blacks survive the conflicts between the black and white, as well as the state of their mind and spirit. She demonstrates the blacks'traditions, at the same time, seeks after the ego and soul of blacks, especially the humiliated and depressed mood of the double-oppressed black females.Sula is Morrison's second and favorite novel. Since its publication in 1973, critics have done researches on it from various perspectives. Although the psychological interpretation of the heroine Sula has also attracted some critical attention, few critics have applied Lacan's psychological theories to do a comprehensive study of it.This thesis attempts to use Lacan's theory of Three Orders to analyze the causes for Sula's tragic fate in Sula. Lacan holds that the human mind is divided into three realms:the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real. In the Mirror Stage of the Imaginary, the baby forms its first complete self-image. That is, the baby sees its self-image in the mirror and incorrectly identify with it. Because this image is based on misidentification and illusion, the baby's sense of lack is compensated by the unreal full image. When the child enters the Symbolic, under the influence of the Name-of-the-Father, its unreal complete image is broken resulting in sense of lack. However, human beings have never stopped the pursuit for the illusory complete image so that they can fill up their psychological lack in the Real.The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 makes an analysis of Sula's split-self in the imaginary. Sula identifies herself with her grandmother with masculine features, but there is a gap between Sula and her idealized image in the mirror. Therefore, she sometimes shows feminine features, hence, there is a split in Sula's self. Chapter 2 mainly discusses Sula's entrapment in the Symbolic. Sula is threatened by the Name-of-the-Father in the Oedipal Stage and her refusal of the Law of Father makes herself caught between the Symbolic and the Imaginary, hence her entrapment. Chapter 3 mainly reveals Sula's desire for the Real through her life and her final achieving of wholeness through death.The thesis draws a conclusion that Sula's crazy behavior is actually a struggle of finding her subjectivity. Sula's alienation and final death in loneliness is due to her repressed self-formation in the Mirror Stage and her refusal of the law of the Symbolic in the Oedipus Stage. And the basic cause of her tragic fate is her desire for the Real.