An Exploration Of The Great Mother Archetype In Toni Morrison’s Sula And Beloved

Toni Morrison is one of the great contemporary American female novelists. Sheis the first black woman to win the Nobile Prize for literature in1993, because of herremarkable creativity. Her works have drawn a wide range of domestic and foreignreaders’ attention. Sula and Beloved are her masterpieces.Sula and Beloved have been studied from various angles since their publication.The rich African myth and legend in the novels have also attracted the attention ofcritics at home and abroad. The lifelike archetypal characters are deeply rooted in theminds of the readers. Archetypal criticism is an important literary critical school,which was very popular in the1950s and1960s and introduced to China in the1980s.It tries to interpret the images, the narrative structures and character in the literalworks from the perspective of archetype. The Great Mother is one of the femalearchetypes, who characterizes the creative and destructive aspects.Based on the archetype criticism and the theory of the Great Mother, the thesisattempts to analyze the Great Mother archetypes in the novels of Sula and Beloved,compare and explore the two mothers from the positive feature and negative featureof the Great Mother archetype to demonstrate that they embody all the features of theGreat Mother. No matter whether they are “good” goddess or “evil” goddess, theyrepresent man’s awe and respect of the Great Mother. Actually, the Great Mother livesthe collective unconscious of man which is literarily represented by Eva and Sethe as these two female characters are not only the spirit of African cultures, but also a partof spiritual heritage of man.This thesis is divided into five parts. The first chapter gives anintroduction to Toni Morrison, her representative works and the theory of the GreatMother archetype. The second and the third chapters are the central part of the thesis,exploring the Great Mother characters. Morrison uses delicate writing and poeticlanguage to portray the two black mothers as Great Mother archetype which isassociated not only with the positive quality of protection and warmth but also withthe destructive quality of death and capturing. The next chapter is the comparisonbetween the two Great Mothers. The Great Mother archetype, is beautiful as well asugly, is ordinary as well as mysterious, and is hidden in our collectiveunconsciousness. The fifth chapter, as the conclusion, concludes that the Great Motherarchetype is not only the spirit of African cultures, but also a part of spiritual heritageof man.