A Study On The Cultural Motifs Of The Bible In The Novels Of Toni Morrison

There is a profound biblical background in American literature. The culturalmotifs of the Bible flow in many American literary works. According to this, thecultural tradition of the Bible have a great effect on many American writers. ToniMorrison, a black woman writer subjects to the cultural background, and makes use ofthe cultural motifs of the Bible in her own way.The connotation showed by her works in specific circumstances is integratedwith the cultural motifs extracted from the Bible by Morrison. In the past, mostscholars used to study her novels from their own angles, but no domestic scholar hadsystematically conducted the study of her works in the perspective of the culturalmotifs of the Bible. Therefore, this paper tries to study the novels of Morrison fromthe angle of the cultural motifs of the Bible by combining the methods of the closereading of the texts and religious culture, so as to probe profound effects on the writerand works by the cultural motifs of the Bible. Besides, this paper has a certainenlightenment significance to the consideration and exploration about humanity andsociety. Morrison employs two ways to apply the cultural motifs of the Bible into herworks: one way is to make the themes of novels the same with the cultural motifs ofthe Bible, the other is to make the themes of novels partly similar with the motifs. Inthis paper, Four typical pairs of the cultural motifs of the Bible showed in the novelswere chosen. The four pairs of the motifs are "misery" and "death","sin" and"atonement","mercy" and "love","freedom" and "paradise".This paper is composed of six parts: The first part introduces and combssystematically the existing research on the novels of Morrison so as to find out theperspective of this thesis. The second part analyses and concludes that the miseryshowed in the novels is the secular pain, misery and sufferings of the biblical culture,and the death is the natural termination of life the Bible pointed out and compared tosleep, by conducting study between the novels and the motifs of misery and death.Inthe third part,it analyses and concludes that the sin showed in the novels is not theoriginal sin but the sin of slavery and the sin of human nature is the sane with the sin of the biblical culture, and the atonement is not the atonement of the reinstatement ofthe relationship between God and human but the compensation for the sin, byconducting study between the novels and the motifs of sin and atonement. Byconducting study between the novels and the motifs of mercy and love, the fourth partproves that the mercy is a moral trait of which the intrinsic property of he mercy ofGod extended in the Bible, and love is not Holy love but more secular love. The fifthpart analyses and concludes that the freedom is connected with the freedom ofliberation on slavery, and the paradise is connected with the paradise of the free andmost enjoyable place with God, by conducting study between the novels and themotifs of freedom and paradise. The sixth part summarizes the whole text.Furthermore, on the basis of the analysis of them, the thesis concludes that love is themotif of the core and the ultimate orientation what the novels showed, which is aliberal love and fraternity.