An Ecofeminist Analysis Of Tony Morrison's Beloved

Tony Morrison, a Nobel Prize acquirer, is a well-known American contemporary novelist. In 1993, she became the first black female novelist who obtains Nobel Prize for literature because her description in novels is featured by visionary force and full of poetic and it gives life to an important part of American reality.Beloved is the fifth and also the most successful novel of Morrison. Critics and readers had researched this novel from different aspects. The former researches are mainly focused on its poetic languages, postmodern characteristics, maternal love, narrative strategy, gothic elements and magic realism. However, few have offered a systematic research from the prospective of ecofeminism. In Morrison's Beloved, nature and women are the two basic and the most important subjects which ensures the possibility of using ecofeminism theory to analyze it. This thesis is aimed at filling the research gap by using ecofeminism theory to research the connections between nature and women.Five parts are included in this thesis. The first part is introduction in which the author gives a brief introduction of Tony Morrison (the novelist), her works and the theory of ecofeminism. The first chapter is about the equivalence of nature and women. In ecofeminsm theory, nature and women are interconnected and both of them are in a position of being oppressed. In this part, the author analyzes the oppression and exploitation that Baby Suggs and Sethe had suffered under slavery. The second chapter explores how the three generations of black women gain strength from nature and search for selfhood. The aim is to demonstrate that both nature and women are having their intrinsic value and the equal rights of exist with respect to man. The third chapter analyses the possibility of harmonious coexistence. Ecofeminists put forward the assumption of people step off racism and sex discrimination and reach harmonious coexistence. In this chapter, through the discussion of the help from black community and the enlightened whites, the author concluded that there is probability of harmony not only among blacks but also between blacks and whites. The last part is a conclusion for the whole thesis.This paper, through the application of eco-feministic theories into the analysis of Beloved, expects to help the reader to understand Beloved from a new angle and thus to highlight the rational elements of Tony Morrison's views on nature and women and provide inspiration to other scholars to apply this approach in the study and analysis of other classic works.