Toni Morrison’s Literary Exploration Into The Black Females’Trauma Caused By Slavery-a Comparative Study Of Different Victimized Mother Image In Beloved

Slavery, a four-hundred-year system in the American continent, produced enormous dehumanizing effects on its victim-the Afro-Americans, particularly on the black females. Persecuted by both racial discrimination and sex oppression, black women had developed serious psychological trauma; on the one hand, as a slave, they are reduced to animals doing all the labor work; on the other hand as a mother, they are unable to fulfill the responsibility, both social and emotional, of a mother. With a humanitarian concern and a natural sympathy with their female companions, many Afro-American writers, have concerned themselves with the exploration of ways to overcome such trauma in their literary creations. Toni Morrison’s Beloved was one of the attempts.Many scholars and critics have examined Beloved from different perspectives since its publication. This thesis aims to study Baby’s and Sethe’s traumas and their recovery from trauma with the help of Trauma and Recovery Theory. Sethe and Baby Suggs both are former slaves and mothers. Yet while Baby fails to recover from her trauma and dies a miserable death. Sethe succeeds in overcoming the slavery traumas and eventually starts a new life. Baby Suggs tries to recover from trauma by renaming herself, rebuilding124, becoming an unchurched preacher and giving the sermon in the Clearing. However, the blacks that have internalized the racism betray her because of jealousy. Baby Suggs suffers from the betrayal from the community. She loses her hope and stops the struggle of recovering. In disappointment, she kills herself. Sethe, different from Baby Suggs, is an active struggler. She sends her children to her mother-in-law, and escapes from Sweet Home alone with six-month pregnancy. Although, the past life becomes an eternal trauma, she, too overwhelmed by the trauma, refuses to memorize the misery. However, in the end, with the help from her lover Paul. D, her daughter Denver and the black community, she has the courage of confronting the past and narrating it under the inquiries made by her Beloved, and eventually recovers from trauma.Through such a comparative analysis, the present writer reveals a hidden clue in Toni Morrison’s Beloved about the effective way of recovering from slavery trauma, that is, a black woman has to be active in her recovery; meanwhile she cannot overlook the help from the outside. Only by combining the courage of oneself with the help from the outside can a slave mother recover from the dehumanization of slavery.