Interpretation Of Beloved From The Perspective Of Deconstruction

Since the Second World War, with the development of the women’s liberationmovement, female writers in the United States have made considerable contribution toAmerican literature. Toni Morrison, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in1988andthe Nobel Prize for literature in1993, which makes her the first African American toenjoy the honor, is the representative of all. She is very good at describing the life ofAmerican blacks, reflecting ways of American black cultural development andrevealing abnormality and distortion of the black people’s spiritual world under whiteculture and values. Her identities as both a black and a female bring her manyadvantages to probe deeply into the hearts of black women and to reveal theirpsychological pains, struggle and distortion under the oppression of racism and sexism.Her remarkable achievements make a new genre of literature, the black womenliterature well recognized throughout the world.Her fifth novel Beloved, which reveals the cruelty and devastation of slavery onwomen and the black physically and spiritually is regarded as a milestone in Americanliterary history and shocks the American literary world. Most critics study her specialblack rhythmic language or her thematic subject from the perspectives of feminism,post-colonialism, post modernism and structuralism and so forth, however, there arevery few from the perspective of deconstruction. Deconstruction believes that a textcan have various interpretations, for the language meaning in it is uncertain because ofthe differance and dissemination of text’s meaning. The author of this thesis believesMorrison’s writing techniques, which are quite different from the traditional ones playan important role both in thought and artistic aspects, and the language meaning in it isquite open. All these are quite in agreement with the deconstruction ideas. Through herunique narrative strategies, Morrison succeeds in exposing the violence, cruelty anddegeneration of the slavery, and the physical sufferings, the psychological pains andmental humiliation of the black slaves. Deconstruction opposes hierarchy and logocentrism, challenges the existenceof objective structure or content, and attempts to find the disorder in text so as toreverse its surface meaning and any final interpretation. All these features are fullyembodied in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. This dissertation is intended to analyze Belovedfrom the perspective of deconstruction and shows the deconstructive nature of thenovel in three aspects including the textual form, the meaning of language and thecharacter image.The first aspect attempts to introduce the center-dissolving strategy applied byMorrison to deconstruct the textual form. The philosophic tradition is based on thedualism of binary oppositions, that is, logocenrism, which is opposed bydeconstructionists. Deconstruction destabilizes the hierarchy and thus dissolves theexistence of center by subverting the binary. The analysis will show the novel form inMorrison’s Beloved is quite different from the traditional form and meanwhile revealsthe nature of anti-plot and anti-tradition in the work. What’s more, the author will paymuch attention to the writing techniques, which are applied in Beloved to manifest thenature of anti-plot such as displacement of time, fragmentation, intertextuality, streamof consciousness and confused narrative perspectives. All these writing techniques willhelp further disclose Morrison’s dissolving of traditional novel form.The second aspect deconstructs Beloved from the perspective of the meaningof language on the language strategies. All meanings are only meanings, which are inreference to and in distinction from other meanings. In any sense, there is no meaningstable and absolute. Meanings are changing, contextual and multiple. In her Beloved,Morrison makes language untrustworthy, such as uncertain identity, ambiguouscharacter and open ending, thus challenging the traditional hierarchical order andfinally emphasizing the indeterminacy of the text.The third aspect deconstructs the character image of Beloved from theperspective of deconstruction. Traditionally, most readers regard Beloved as an avenger,the author will interpret that Beloved is, in fact, a rescuer by deconstructive reading.Her appearance forces Sethe, Paul D and Denver to face the reality, thus starting theirnew life. In conclusion, Beloved produces great influences, not only for its consummatenarrative strategies, but also for its strong social significance which presents the themeof critique on subjectivity and interrogation of received history. Through movingAfrican Americans from objects to subjects in American history, Morrison succeeds inreconstructing African American history, which reflects her high sense of socialresponsibility and her unceasing creativeness in her works, making the socialsignificance and the esthetic value combined perfectly.