Calling For Rationality

Toni Morrison is one of the most important African-American writers in American literature and the themes of her novels have always been in demonstrating and exploring the black history, destiny and the spiritual world. Black female characters in her novels are independent, making their efforts to improve themselves. Beloved can be called her masterpiece and made the process of pursuing freedom and independence more meaningful by means of a suppressed narration. Critics have studied Beloved from various perspectives and focused on different angles over the past twenty years, and their analyses mainly lie in creative approaches and content analyses home and abroad. The former concentrates in angles, strategies and symbols, etc. and the latter lies in analyses on themes and details.In order to reveal Morrison’s original intention of creating this novel and deepen its theme of adaption and changes, the author of this thesis tries to analyze the three generations’ processes of adaption, changes and their influences on the group from the perspective of Darwinian evolutionary theory. It is rare to analyze Beloved with this theory at home and abroad in the field of literary studies. Darwinian literary criticism has not been at the forefront of literary criticism, but it has been used for half a century with its powerful features. We can gain a deeper understanding of what Toni Morrison wants to reveal in Beloved from the perspective of Darwinian evolutionary theory.This thesis consists of four parts:the first chapter is introduction, including brief introductions to the author’s life and experiences, the main content of the novel, and the literature review. It is also necessary to clarify some conceptions in the second chapter, including Darwinian evolutionary theory, social Darwinism and the Darwinian Literary Criticism. The third chapter is the main body of this thesis, and the author of this thesis analyzes three female generations’adaption and changes in different environments generation by generation from the point of Darwinian evolution theory, the extent of their adaption promoted or prevented their changes. Meanwhile, this chapter also analyses the influences brought by individual changes to the group and the significance of group progress. Individual changes accumulated and spread to the group, the three black women led to changes of the black community. The last part is conclusion, which concludes the whole thesis and reveals the initial intention of Toni Morrison, she not merely wanted to condemn or accuse slavery system but also to inspire and educate black people to make rational changes under the circumstances of racial oppression and discriminations. Individual changes make sense to the community. To achieve the aim of continuance, independence and development, the blacks should make rational changes from individuals to the communities. This is also a good lesson for all the people who were in or are still in oppression.