An Archetypal Study Of Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Toni Morrison is one of the most outstanding African American female writersin literary world. Among her literary works, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise are regardedas historical trilogy of black American literature. In1993, Morrison was awarded withthe Nobel Prize in literature. As a masterpiece, Beloved is the pinnacle of her literaryworks.This thesis intends to interpret the novel Beloved from the perspective ofArchetypal Criticism. Based on Carl Jung and Northrop Frye’s theories, this paperaims at exploring the universality of motherhood, life and death, rebirth and so on.Indeed, the article detects the issues including the abnormal motherhood, black slave’smiserable life and trauma under the system of slavery.The thesis consists of four parts: Chapter I states the internal and externalresearch situation including research results and issues. Chapter II is the analysis ofthe character archetypes that present the great mother, scapegoat, avenger, andredeemer character archetypes to detect the black slaves’ tragic fate and abnormalmotherhood. Chapter III reports the event archetypes to imply the black slave’s desirefor freedom and love. In Chapter IV, the universality of archetype and its expressionin the novel Beloved is discussed.